Trump is right. Europe is in crisis | Rome

After years of public criticism directed at Europe, US President Donald Trump has crafted a National Security Strategy (NSS) that reflects his twisted perceptions. Yet it is one thing to hear his stage rhetoric and another to see his worldview codified in official doctrine. His main argument: Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years” due to “civilizational erasure” unless the United States, “sentimentally attached” to the continent, intervenes to restore its “former greatness.”

Trump is right, Europe has problems. But that’s not what he claims.

Decades of underinvestment in human resources, persistent political incentives to ignore excluded communities, and an unwillingness to confront the interactions between demographic and economic decline remain unaddressed. Political leaders largely avoid this conversation. Some deny these problems, others admit them privately while publicly discussing the symptoms without addressing the root causes.

A clearer perspective can be found in those who live with these failures. Across Europe, millions of workers are struggling to survive amid closed factories, underfunded schools, unaffordable housing and broken public services. Among them, the Roma sharpen the picture. As Europe’s largest and most dispossessed minority, their experience reveals the continent’s choice to treat entire populations as collateral damage. When Trump heals Europe’s wounds, these communities confirm where it hurts.

What Trump is right about Europe

The NSS says Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” is particularly visible in its relations with Russia. Yes, Europe’s paralysis towards Moscow contrasts with its aggression towards the weakest groups within its country. This reflects the lack of confidence in European values.

Trump is right. We are weak. If we were strong, we would defend the European values ​​of democracy and pluralism. We would not demonize our minorities.

But we do it. Across the continent, Roma communities face racist policies. In Slovenia, following a bar fight that degenerated into public hysteria, the national parliament adopted a law in November aimed at securing Roma neighborhoods.

In Portugal, Andre Ventura of the far-right Chega party put up posters saying “G****s must obey the law” as part of his presidential campaign. In Italy, far-right politician Matteo Salvini has built an entire political brand on anti-Roma paranoia. In Greece, police shoot young Roma people for minor crimes.

Leaders over-secure the Roma while overcompensating for their caution toward Russia.

The NSS also highlights the decline of Europe’s share of global gross domestic product, from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today. Regulations play a role, as does population decline, but the deeper problem is Europe’s inability to invest in its entire population.

Twelve million Roma, Europe’s youngest population, remain excluded from education, employment and entrepreneurship due to structural barriers and discrimination, even though surveys show their strong desire to contribute to the societies they live in and their high success rates when running businesses that receive support.

If Roma employment in Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria – where their unemployment rates are currently 25 percentage points higher than that of the majority population – matched national averages, the combined GDP gain could be as much as 10 trillion euros ($11.6 billion). In a continent that loses two million workers per year, leaving this labor potential unused is an act of self-sabotage.

Trump is right about Europe’s declining share of GDP. If Europe were serious, it would not believe that it could leave the Roma on the scrapheap.

The NSS also warns against a “subversion of democratic processes” and, even if it does not talk about minorities, it is true that Europe is not up to the task. Proportionally, according to our Roma Foundation estimates, they should hold more than 400 seats.

The European Parliament includes seats for Malta and Luxembourg, states with populations of 570,000 and 680,000 respectively; yet it does not provide any seats for the Roma community.

Trump is right that we have a democratic deficit. But it’s not because of hate speech laws and constitutional barriers to the far right. The most glaring deficit lies in the fact that 12 million Roma are not represented.

A continent that wastes its population cannot be competitive, and a continent that suppresses part of its electorate cannot claim to be representative. Political exclusion reduces voter turnout and registration rates, leading to systematically underrepresentative institutions, while economic exclusion makes communities easier targets for vote buying, coercion, and political capture.

What Europe really needs

The solution proposed by Trump to the European crisis would not solve anything. He seems to assume that far-right pseudo-sovereignists, opposed to immigration and minorities, can reverse Europe’s decline.

The evidence suggests otherwise. Countries where xenophobia influences politics have not performed well. In the United Kingdom, where the far right has led a campaign to leave the European Union over fears of migration, experts have calculated that GDP is 6 to 8% lower than it would have been without Brexit. In Hungary, where Viktor Orban’s government has implemented various anti-migrant and discriminatory policies, there is stagnant economic growth, a high budget deficit and frozen EU funds. Exclusion weakens economies and makes democracies vulnerable.

Empowering the ideological heirs of the forces that the United States once helped Europe defeat would not contribute to the continent’s recovery. In fact, this “restoration” of far-right ideology to power would reinforce Europe’s dependence on Washington, then Moscow.

It is also true that Europe cannot survive global realpolitik either, relying on liberal nostalgia, multilateral summits or rhetorical commitments.

What Europe needs is inclusive realism: the recognition that investing in all people is not charity but a strategic necessity. The rise of China is an illustration of this. Decades of investment in health, education and jobs have increased human capital, increased productivity and reshaped global balances of power.

Europe cannot afford to waste its own demographic potential while hoping to remain a relevant player. The real choice is not between liberals and the far right, but between compounding its wounds by ostracizing millions or beginning to heal by investing in the people it has long treated as expendable property.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.