HANSON: America and Europe can hang together or hang separately

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Consider these European and American binaries.

On Dec. 20, 2024, a terrorist, Taleb Al-Abdul Mohsen, rammed his SUV into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, killing six pedestrians and injuring 299.

On New Year’s Day in New Orleans, Louisiana, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar smashed his pickup into a festive crowd, killing 15 and injuring more than 35.

Germany’s fertility rate is scarcely above 1.4 — about average for a shrinking European Union. About 20% of the country is now foreign-born, a record high.

American fertility is at 1.6. Foreign-borns now represent 15% of the American resident population.

The German military is a shell of its former self, with fewer than 200,000 soldiers and a shortage of weapons.

The U.S. military, after being humiliated in Afghanistan, is down 40,000-plus recruits. It faces shortages of anti-tank weapons, artillery shells, ships and logistical support.

Germany may finally manage to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defence; the United States is heading downward below 3% — the lowest in over 80 years.

Last year, the German economy shrank; this year, it will scarcely grow, in part because of shortages of affordable fossil fuels.

Germans pay four times what Americans on average do for electricity. Yet the Trump administration has promised an oil and natural gas renaissance, hoping to expand production and exports with envisioned new pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.

The U.S. and Germany face shrinking and aging populations. Both either cannot or will not control their borders, despite popular protests. Both have suffered from woke political correctness.

The people of both nations want smaller government, more freedom of expression and less wokeness. They insist on less and legal-only immigration and secure borders.

They vote for cheaper energy and fewer regulations.

Europeans and Americans alike want more meritocracy and fewer fixations on race and gender.

In the chaos of the post-modern 21st century, Europe and the U.S. are still likely to share the same enemies and friends.

Both resent the asymmetrical Chinese approach to global commerce, based on a mercantilism that would never allow Europe and the United States to treat China as it does both.

Europeans and Americans are both worried about a vastly expanding conventional and nuclear Chinese military.

Neither wants Iran to develop nuclear-tipped missiles with a range to hit the capitals of both. They do not want Russian President Vladimir Putin to recreate the former Soviet Union’s borders.

Europe, as a rule, loves Democrats as kindred quasi-socialists. But privately, many Europeans assume their security and prosperity do better when America is governed by conservatives.

In the past, Europe has not been a fan of Donald Trump, both as president and as a pre- and post-presidency candidate. It fears he is an isolationist, insufficiently diplomatic, not fully supportive of NATO or too tariff-happy for its tastes.

But 2025 is certainly not 2017 or even 2020. And a “reset” in thinking on both sides is urgently now needed more than ever.

The Joe Biden administration was no model partner for Europe. It quite outrageously forced cancellations of a joint Cypriot, Greek and Israeli EastMed pipeline to bring much-needed natural gas to Europe.

It talked a great game about strengthening NATO. But the alliance’s bulwark, the U.S. military, saw its real budget cut, its Pentagon politicized and recruitment short more than 40,000 enlistees.

The humiliating 2021 skedaddle from Afghanistan not only eroded American credibility but undermined all Western deterrence as well.

Biden opposed building new liquefied natural gas export terminals in the U.S. designed to help energy-starved Europe find a reliable and honest supplier and decouple from Russia.

Trump, in contrast, promises to “drill, drill, drill,” in part to ensure needed income by exporting huge amounts of LNG to fuel-starved Europe.

Europe was angry that a bantering Trump once bullied them to meet their promises to increase their defence spending.

But after the invasion of Ukraine, they are happy that some countries did just that.

Europeans likely want — and need — Trump to restore a more deterrent U.S. military, not a woke one.

Europe and America are both in crisis and need radical new thinking.

So, who knows? Europe may soon quietly rejoice that Biden is gone, Trump is back and they have a strong, loyal and rowdy friend rather than a simpering enabler.