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Europe teeters on the brink of a populist revolution, with right-wing firebrands like Germany's AfD, France's National Rally, and Britain's Reform UK leading in polls.
While these movements ride on ordinary folks' visceral anger over symbolic cultural shifts—such as a woman in a burka converting their beloved local pub into an Afghan eatery—a much more pressing emergency lurks beneath:
Donald Trump's coercive trade deals and border-redrawing antics, which serve as the accelerant fueling Europe's rightward rage.
TL;DR
Europe's right-wing parties are surging in polls due to economic failures and cultural frustrations, exacerbated by Trump's coercive U.S. trade deals and border interventions, calling for decentralization and true liberty over statism.
Summary
☉ Immigration is used as a populist lever by the right to incite fears, but deeper systemic issues include like economic stagnation, high energy costs, and regulatory overreach.
☉ Right-wing parties like promise anti-establishment reforms but often replace one form of state control with another.
☉ Donald Trump's trade deal, and his attempt at redrawing European borders, fuels Europe's rightward rage due to perceived EU weakness.
☉ True reform for Europe involves decentralizing power, dismantling EU overregulation, fostering voluntary trade alliances, and rejecting coercive pacts to reclaim liberty and avoid authoritarian backlashes.
As a European, you might sense the political ground shifting beneath your feet. From Berlin to Paris to London, a tangible rightward tilt is transforming the continent's landscape. Parties such as Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD), France's National Rally (RN), and Britain's Reform UK are gaining ground rapidly, driven by deep-seated frustration with the establishment.
Recent polls underscore the trend: In Germany, a Forsa survey released on August 12, 2025, placed the AfD at 26% support, topping Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU bloc at 24%. In France, RN leads with 36% in aggregated polls as of June 2025, while in the UK, Reform UK has overtaken Labour in multiple surveys. These numbers reflect a broader continental shift, with right-wing populists gaining ground in Poland, Romania, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
Europe’s rightward push is an inevitable fallout of central planning of interventionist policies.
This shift is no accident. But let's set aside immigration for a moment—the right wing's go-to populist lever for inciting public outrage. In a truly free society, borders ought to welcome qualified immigrants; Europe's plummeting fertility rates make it essential, in fact. Still, immigration serves mainly as the right's preferred means of whipping up fears among the masses. The deeper structural issues—economic incompetence, impotent defense, and regulatory failures—are equally critical, yet they rarely provoke the same visceral anger in ordinary folks as symbolic cultural shifts, like a woman in a burka converting a beloved local pub into an Afghan eatery.
The Rightward Push: A Backlash Against Europe's Central Planning
Europe’s rightward push is an inevitable fallout from the central planning inherent in interventionist policies, rooted in systemic failures such as Germany's recession since 2022, driven by inflation and energy costs. For instance, 67% of German voters are dissatisfied with Merz's performance after his first 100 days. In the UK, Reform UK's appeal stems from anti-establishment rhetoric, promises of lower taxes, and skepticism toward net-zero policies that inflate living costs.
The EU's bureaucratic overreach—imposing green taxes and regulatory harmonization—violates property rights and individual choice. When governments force taxpayers to subsidize unsustainable business models, bitterness builds. Decades of statist policies have burdened citizens with economic stagnation and regulatory excess, weighing on the average European while breeding inefficiency and conflict. The AfD, RN, and Reform UK are mere symptoms of these developments, not cures; they often advocate their own forms of nationalism and protectionism, swapping one layer of state control for another.
Redrawing Borders: The Perils of Great-Power Arrogance
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s meddling with our borders and our economies exemplifies how powerful states coerce others, violating the principles of free trade and self-determination. For Europeans, the lesson is clear: reclaiming liberty requires rejecting both domestic bureaucracy and foreign meddling, not swapping one form of control for another. True reform would decentralize power, allowing EU member states to manage regulations voluntarily and markets to allocate resources efficiently. Europe's rightward push warns that ignoring these failures invites more authoritarian backlashes, eroding the very freedoms that define the continent.
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Trump's upcoming summit with Putin in Alaska echoes imperial map-making of the past. Yet borders should reflect voluntary associations and self-determination, not the whims of distant powers. Europe's unease is justified: If Ukraine's borders can be bartered, whose are next? This meddling fuels the right-push, as voters see EU weakness in defending national interests against U.S.-Russian realpolitik. Europe should continue to arm itself defensively, foster free trade alliances, and avoid entangling pacts that surrender autonomy to superpowers.
Trump's Strong-Arm Tactics Export US Weakness to EU, Sparking Populist Rage
In July 2025, Trump strong-armed a trade deal with the EU, extracting pledges for $600 billion in European investments into U.S. sectors like manufacturing and energy, backed by threats of 35% tariffs if unmet. This European capital is earmarked for Trump's American sovereign wealth fund (SWF), established by executive order in February 2025 to "promote fiscal sustainability".
Forcing companies to invest under duress, not merit, is economic imperialism.
That's a really nice way of saying "shakedown"–pay me billions or I’ll pull out of Nato. While Trump’s “America First” stance justifies such meddling, it exports America’s fiscal weakness to Europe while importing European manufacturing elsewhere. Forcing companies to invest under duress, not merit, is economic imperialism: hard-earned European capital diverted to a U.S. fund. These coercions exacerbate Europe’s rightward push, as voters resent EU concessions that prioritize transatlantic deals over domestic needs.
Connecting the Dots: Toward a Free Europe
These seemingly disparate events are interconnected threads in a larger tapestry of state overreach, where governments erode individual liberties, manipulate economies, and treat borders as bargaining chips. Europe's rightward shift arises from these failures. Europe should embrace decentralization: dismantle EU overregulation, allow free association, and reject protectionist deals.
Prioritize voluntary trade, where investments flow based on opportunity, not threats. As Ludwig von Mises warned, "Government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action." Europe's future depends on breaking this cycle—reclaiming liberty before statism consumes it entirely. Populist fixes from right-wing parties won’t suffice: Europe must return to the principles of freedom that once made the continent a beacon of enlightenment. The alternative is a world where borders are redrawn, economies coerced, and weaknesses exported from the U.S. to Europe. This ain’t the liberty we signed up for.
Image: AfD-Chair Alice Weidel | source: heute.at
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