2025.08.19

• Europe & Americas

Why Trump-Inspired Nationalists in Europe Can’t Stick Together(Geoeconomic Briefing)

Across Europe, right-wing leaders are borrowing from Donald Trump’s playbook, with slogans like “Poland First,” “Make Romania Great Again,” and “Make Albania Great.” What began as a domestic political trend in the United States has evolved into a transnational movement among right-wing forces. In Washington, current and former key figures in Trump administration openly backed like-minded candidates abroad, including Poland and Albania. In Europe, Romanian far-right opposition party leader George Simion endorsed a Polish nationalist presidential candidate, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signaled his backing for Simion himself. “My country first” has become a standard rallying cry of an emerging alliance. But the rise of what might be called a “nationalist international” raises important questions: What, if anything, unites these movements across borders? And can politics radically and exclusively root in national primacy ever be meaningfully transnational?