U.S. Meddling in European Domestic Politics Is Backfiring

As part of a home-stretch push to bolster Viktor Orbán in the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary elections, U.S. Vice President Vance traveled to Budapest on April 7 to stump for the prime minister. His visit followed Secretary of State and Acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio’s trip to offer a glowing endorsement for the Hungarian prime minister in February. Orbán’s 16-year grasp on power, however, was about to end as Hungarians flocked to vote in record numbers, granting Fidesz’s challenger, the Tisza party, a supermajority. Seemingly without irony, Vance warned in his preelection speech that the European Union (EU) had engaged in “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference” he had ever seen. Vance incorrectly noted that the EU sought to “destroy” the country’s economy, purposefully making life more expensive for the average Hungarian, while undermining Hungary’s energy independence. In fact, the Hungarian economy has been structurally dependent on EU funds and foreign capital embedded in European markets, making the vice president’s claim not just misleading but internally incoherent.

Vance and Rubio’s comments underscore a broader trend in the Trump administration’s Europe policy: an increasing willingness to attempt to intervene in allies’ domestic politics. In its 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), the administration established its strategic rationale for Vance’s intervention and others like it, claiming that Europe faces the prospect of “civilizational erasure” because of the EU—which Trump has erroneously claimed was created to “screw” the United States—various social and migration policies individual governments are pursuing, and the “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” The United States under Trump has sought far-right partners such as Orbán in Hungary, the Alternative for Germany, and the French National Rally to counter this alleged sovereignty-destroying trajectory. The administration has intervened in European domestic politics overtly and frequently, in a departure from previous U.S. government practice.

The Trump administration is treating apparent but superficial ideational alignment as durable partnerships that can be leveraged to implement U.S. strategy. U.S. officials are attempting to reverse what they likely see as elite-driven social and demographic transformation by empowering nationalist/sovereigntist governments that seem to share their worldview. These officials have operationalized the NSS through increasingly bold interventions in European domestic politics. Take, for example, the controversies surrounding Trump’s ambassadors in Europe whose attempts at meddling in the domestic affairs of the countries where they represent the United States is creating tensions in Washington’s bilateral relationships with key allies.

This approach is backfiring. Rather than fragmenting the EU and empowering nationalist governments, U.S. interventions have thus far helped further consolidate Europe’s political identity and commitment to greater strategic autonomy vis-a-vis the United States while also accelerating a rupture in transatlantic relations. In treating European electorates as passive recipients of U.S. political messaging, the administration has underestimated a basic dynamic: Overt U.S. interference is galvanizing precisely the sovereign autonomy and national self-determination that the administration’s NSS claims to be defending. And if the Trump administration thought this approach would be replicable in future European elections, and Orbán’s government was a model to export elsewhere, the results in Hungary reveal its limitations.

Remaking Europe in MAGA’s Image

Not since the early Cold War period has a U.S. administration sought to interfere so overtly and directly in European allies’ domestic politics, even though a strand of Euroscepticism has existed in U.S. foreign policy circles for decades. Although Washington sought to promote democracy, civil liberties, and free markets in accordance with its values, it typically refrained from exporting its own partisan politics or boosting political actors based on partisan allegiances. Across Republican and Democratic administrations, U.S. officials sought to ensure continuity in the United States’ relationship with allies underpinned by cooperation regardless of electoral outcomes. Public condemnation has been limited in recent administrations, with some prominent examples including President Biden’s criticism of Orbán for “looking for dictatorship” in 2024 or President Obama’s condemnation of then-U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s handling of the 2011 intervention in Libya. President George W. Bush appeared with and praised his Iraq War ally, then-U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the run-up to the U.K. parliamentary elections in 2005 (including in the aftermath of the 2005 terrorist attacks in London), though he, too, refrained from overtly and publicly endorsing Blair, whose political fortunes had dimmed due to the unpopularity of that war.

By avoiding public endorsements of political parties, movements, or ideologies, Washington has attempted to portray itself as willing to work with all factions within an allied state, rather than as a partisan actor. This approach has long been a hallmark of U.S. policy toward Europe, one that contributed to the United States’ value proposition as the dominant ally on the continent—and that helped distinguish it from other great powers that put their thumb on the scale of their partners’ internal affairs.

In his first term, Trump demonstrated an inclination to overturn this precedent by, for example, publicly supporting Boris Johnson for the British premiership in 2019—with Johnson attempting to distance himself from it, noting, “We have very close relationships and friendships with the United States at every level of government, but what we don’t do traditionally as loving allies and friends ... is get involved in each other’s election campaigns.” However, these interventions remained largely ad hoc; they boosted individuals who shared the president’s ideology or who fulfilled his specific transactional requirements.

The second Trump administration is taking this approach a step further. Indeed, shaping allies’ politics has become a cornerstone of the administration’s foreign policy and enshrined in its NSS. The “civilizational” language of the 2025 NSS differs dramatically from that of the 2017 NSS. The 2017 document took a more traditional approach to alliances, describing the United States’ transatlantic allies as “bound together by our shared commitment to the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.” It argued that the United States would be more secure with a “prosperous and stable” Europe with which Washington could work to respond to common threats.

The 2025 version, however, paints a much darker picture. In this iteration of Trump’s security strategy, Europe is described as a declining continent that needs U.S. help to end threats to “political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” The administration’s stated ideal future for the continent is one where Europe “remain[s] European” and recovers “its civilizational self-confidence.”

Trump and MAGA’s criticism of Europe includes ideological, economic, political, and security elements. Part of this skepticism of Europe is due (according to the 2025 NSS) to its embrace of more progressive domestic policies to include a welfare system, liberalism, and multiculturalism. That Europe is not a monolith does not appear to factor in to the administration’s thinking. Neither does the fact that the NSS proclaims that authoritarian partners’ “traditions and histories” should be respected while at the same time arguing that Europe’s way of life needs to be fixed. Accordingly, Washington will no longer “impose” democratic values on its nondemocratic partners or advance human rights in its relationships with them.

Economic, security, and other practical issues also factor in to Trump officials’ grievances with Europe. For years, the president has expressed frustration with what he erroneously claims is the imbalance in U.S.-European trade, imposing tariffs on various European countries, and inadequate burden-sharing within NATO. Although finding the right balance for burden-sharing concerned U.S. policymakers well before Trump took office, his administration has gone further in demanding that allies do more. More recently, Trump’s impatience with Europeans has grown as they have largely refused to support the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and stood up to him when he threatened to annex Greenland—the semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

To execute these principles and advance the 2025 NSS vision, the administration and its nongovernment allies have taken a number of steps in parallel. These efforts include the export of MAGA-aligned policies to Europe; attempting to change the regulatory landscape on the continent; and undermining key institutions, groups, and individuals the administration perceives as liberal or adversarial. Administration officials have repeatedly painted the EU in a negative light, seeking to divide Brussels and individual member states. Trump and his team have also publicly endorsed specific candidates and parties, like in Hungary. The president’s allies are seeking to export MAGA-defined values, including by supporting, funding, and creating organizations and political groups aligned with the movement’s worldview.

The administration has also reportedly planned to provide Europeans with ways to circumvent restrictions on certain online speech. Unlike the United States’ absolute interpretation of freedom of speech, Europe’s approach defines parameters within which those rights are guaranteed and includes restrictions on hate speech, for example. Trump allies have gone even further by equating content moderation to censorship, pressuring the EU to not enforce its laws restricting U.S. companies. What Europeans see as the weaponization of U.S. tech is also leading Europeans to consider decreasing their dependency on U.S. tech giants, even as complete independence may create challenges in the medium term.

An important contradiction of the Trump administration’s approach is that it is seeking to boost far-right movements across Europe, some of which have historically been skeptical of their countries’ relationship with the United States. Previous administrations were wary of these parties due to their closeness or alignment with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and, in some cases, skepticism of NATO. In interfering in the Hungarian election, for example, it was notable that the Trump administration’s goal and preferences aligned with those of Russia, and stood in opposition to those of close U.S. allies in Europe and NATO.

Backlash Over Change

By interfering in allies’ domestic politics, the United States risks appearing as a partisan actor, perpetually disliked or distrusted by at least one segment of the allied country’s elite and general population, rather than being seen as a stable and consistent ally regardless of which party is in control. And for many U.S. allies, autonomy remains a core priority of their approach to foreign policy, and their populations do not wish to be seen as folding to their dominant ally’s wishes. This is especially true in the Trump era, where European public sentiment toward the United States is declining. A candidate whose victory is secured despite U.S. meddling—as is currently the case in Hungary—may also make cooperation difficult once that individual and their party enter office.

The Trump administration has inverted this logic by intervening overtly and repeatedly by publicly backing candidates in Poland’s recent elections and pressuring Romania to reverse its court ruling that barred the U.S. administration’s preferred candidate from running. The electoral results suggest these interventions have not always achieved their intended effects, particularly when political trends were already moving in directions unfavorable to the administration.

Indeed, a “Trump effect” of a different kind appears to be in play for some historically close U.S. allies, whereby actions taken by the U.S. president or officials in his administration help to shore up support for struggling incumbents who stand up to the United States—particularly if U.S. pressure is sustained through election day. This effect is perhaps most visible outside of Europe. In Canada—a NATO ally subjected to the same coercive pressure as many European allies, including tariff threats and annexation rhetoric—U.S. attempts at coercion crystallized a dramatic domestic backlash. The Liberal Party, which looked set to lose the 2025 parliamentary elections, reversed course and won on a platform defined explicitly by resistance to U.S. pressure.

Denmark’s recent parliamentary election, however, shows the limits of this effect. Incumbent Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called a snap election, at least in part, to capitalize on a bump in polling she received after standing up to Trump during the most acute phase of the Greenland crisis in early 2026. But after Trump backed down, kitchen table issues such as cost-of-living concerns returned to the top of voters’ minds. The result was Frederiksen’s Social Democrats’ worst performance since 1903 and the prime minister’s resignation (with coalition talks still ongoing as of mid-April, as no party received enough votes for an outright majority). Although the Trump effect was real and likely contributed to the decision to call for snap elections in the first place, it proved insufficient when pressure from the Greenland crisis subsided.

Beyond electoral dynamics, the administration’s interventions have also generated direct diplomatic friction with allied governments, as U.S. ambassadors have increasingly acted as partisan enforcers of the NSS’s framework rather than traditional diplomatic interlocutors. For instance, the U.S. ambassador to Poland cut ties with Włodzimierz Czarzasty, the speaker of the lower house of the Polish parliament, in February for “outrageous and unprovoked insults directed against” Trump. (The speaker had said that Trump did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.) The dispute flared up again in April after Czarzasty called Trump a “leader of chaos.”

While that dispute remains over rhetoric so far, the U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, has faced real consequences for his actions that have restricted his ability to perform the duties of his office. For example, after he failed to appear for a summons from the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs—a common diplomatic practice—over U.S. administration comments about the death of a right-wing activist, Kushner was banned from meeting with French government officials.

In Hungary, the backlash effect is perhaps most noticeable. In his first press conference, incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced that the Hungarian government would no longer directly fund political events such as the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Hungary, calling state funding for such events a “criminal offense” because they mixed party and government funding. Magyar’s denunciation represents a clean policy break from Orbán’s deep support for such initiatives, signaling to the Trump administration that mechanisms it previously used or leveraged for influence would no longer work.

In complete contradiction to the Trump administration’s stated policy goals, Magyar has also signaled his plans to more deeply reengage with the EU. Magyar has made it a priority to secure the release of 18 billion euros in EU funds frozen in response to Orbán’s anti-democratic activities, gain access to EU defense spending instruments, and take major steps to rein in corruption and shore up Hungary’s democracy, including by joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Orbán’s loss has already resulted in Hungary lifting its veto on a 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine, although Hungary itself will not provide funds to the initiative. Where the Trump administration had previously pursued a dual policy of demanding European leadership on Ukraine while enabling Orbán—whose veto regularly prevented major EU decisions on Ukraine support—Hungary’s new leadership will likely allow for greater consolidation on EU Ukraine policy while potentially removing the key roadblock to similar decisions in the future. Ultimately, the Trump administration’s intervention in the name of Hungarian sovereignty produced a government asserting that sovereignty in ways that run counter to the president’s preferences.

Consolidation Instead of Fragmentation

The cumulative effects of the Trump administration’s actions in Europe are likely to have a long-term effect on the transatlantic relationship. Trump’s efforts to interfere in European domestic politics are additive to the administration’s coercive approach to alliance management. In other words, interference and coercion are two prongs of the administration’s flawed alliance strategy.

Important upcoming elections will likely tempt the administration to intervene on behalf of European parties aligned with its vision. France’s 2027 presidential election potentially offers a tantalizing prize. The far-right National Rally, with its apparent ideational alignment with the Trump administration, could be the closest it has ever been to winning the presidential elections. But the cumulative effects of the administration’s coercive alliance management have driven parties such as the National Rally to rethink its relationship with MAGA. This dynamic will likely be exacerbated by the administration’s failure to deliver results for Orbán in Hungary as similar parties directly see the limits of the Trump administration’s support.

The effects of the administration’s interventions could extend beyond electoral outcomes. The Hungarian election—perhaps best characterized as Tisza’s success rather than Trump’s failure—has created new political space within the EU for long-standing reform discussions that have structural implications well beyond any single election cycle. For instance, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that she plans to use momentum to push for qualified majority voting for EU foreign policy issues—which she characterized as “an important way to avoid systemic blockages,” like Orbán’s constant use or threat to use Hungary’s veto. Although discussions of this proposed policy change predate both the election and the Trump administration’s interventions in European domestic politics, von der Leyen’s swift move illustrates a broader dynamic: When the administration’s interference fails to deliver its intended results, it can help facilitate not just electoral victories but also political openings that EU reformers have long sought.

If the pattern holds, the Trump administration’s most consequential contribution to European domestic politics may be as an enabler of the very political consolidation and strategic autonomy it sought to fragment.