Patriot paradox: Trump’s far-right European allies refuse to back his EU trade deal

Splits among Europe’s far-right parties over support for the lopsided EU-US trade deal suggest there are limits to aligning too closely with Donald Trump.

Parties including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Viktor Orban’s Fidesz refused to vote in favor of the trade deal Trump struck with Brussels in July during a vote in the European Parliament on Thursday.

MEPs called it “unbalanced”, but most voted for it anywayadding some additional conditions.

The voting results show that all 30 MEPs from the French party voted against the agreement, nine of the Hungarians abstained, as well as six MEPs from Spain’s Vox party. The parties sit together in the far-right Patriots for Europe group, led by French MEP Jordan Bardella.

of vote exposes the paradox of the European far-right’s flirtations with the Make America Great Again camp: While these parties generally praise Trump and seek his support, they are more reluctant to swallow his America First agenda.

“At least some of (these parties) are also feeling the pressure of being too closely associated with Trump on the national stage,” said Nicolai von Ondarza, head of the SWP’s Europe Research Division in Berlin.

This pressure comes even though Washington is actively judging it, as part of it National Security Strategy to support “patriotic” parties throughout Europe.

Trump himself ADOPTED Orbán in a post on Truth Social this week, shortly before the April 12 election. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio DESIGNATED SUPPORTINGt for Orban on a recent visit to Budapest, and Vice President JD Vance is is reported to be planning a trip there just before the high-level elections.

“Orbán is probably more curious,” von Ondarza said, adding that the Hungarian prime minister has criticized the trade deal “as a capitulation to the U.S., but has also tried to seek Trump’s approval.”

The Patriots found creative arguments not to support the deal. Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch laid the blame squarely on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, saying that while the EU needs a “stable” trade relationship with the US, “the options being created by the European Commission are not enough”.

“Trump knows how to negotiate; he always has the interest of his country in mind,” said the Spaniard.

Other groups were confused by the far-right’s arguments.

“I was also a bit surprised … (that) Trump’s friends voted against, but the rationality of these political groups is sometimes really limited,” said Bernd Lange, a German socialist who leads the Parliament’s work on the EU-US trade deal.

The President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola praised the center of the Parliament for the calm result.

“What you can see is strong work at the heart of this house that will push the institution forward into something … that Parliament really needed to deliver,” she told a news conference in response to a question from Euractiv.

Even within the Patriots for Europe group, the votes were not uniform. The Dutch Patriots party, Geert Wilders’ PVV, voted in favor of the deal, as did Andrej Babiš’s ANO lawmakers.

Europe of Sovereign Nations, a grouping to the right of the Patriots, largely abstained.

Volker Schnurrbusch, an Alternative for Germany MEP, was the only one from his party to vote in favour.

“I understand and respect our group’s recommendation to abstain because this trade deal is not the best we can get. But in this time of crisis, we urgently need a trade deal with the US and we don’t have time for additional committee consultations,” he wrote.

Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro contributed reporting.

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