I recently sat in a gilded room in Brussels, surrounded by over a hundred ambassadors who spoke of the 'Trump problem' with the kind of hushed, fearful reverence usually reserved for natural disasters. The anxiety in the room was palpable. They are terrified of tariffs, the weakening of NATO, and the erratic territorial whims of a man who once suggested buying Greenland. But as I told this group of senior diplomats, their gaze is fixed on the wrong horizon. The Atlantic is not the source of Europe's coming existential crisis; the threat is already inside the house.

For years, the European project has used the United States as both a shield and a convenient foil. It is easy to point at Washington and lament the decay of democratic norms while ignoring the rot in your own basement. The paradox of the current moment is that the U.S. relationship, for all its volatility, is becoming the most predictable part of Europe’s geopolitical environment. Trump is a known quantity. His transactionalism is legible. What is far more dangerous—and far less discussed in the halls of power—is the impending rise of the far-right within the European core, specifically the very real possibility of a Le Pen presidency in France.

Imagine a Europe trying to coordinate a unified response to Russian aggression or Chinese economic coercion with a nationalist firebrand at the helm of its most important military and diplomatic power. The structural integrity of the European Union does not depend on who sits in the Oval Office; it depends on whether Paris and Berlin can remain the engines of integration. If the center collapses at home, no amount of American stability can save the continent.

Russia and China are not waiting for the results of the American election to test European resolve. They are already exploiting the friction points within the EU, betting that the internal contradictions of European politics will paralyze the bloc. While the diplomatic class frets over the next tweet from Mar-a-Lago, they are failing to prepare for a scenario where the call is coming from inside the Elysee.

We need to stop treating the American relationship as the primary variable of European survival. It is time to sharpen the argument for a sovereign Europe that can withstand its own internal populist surges. If we continue to obsess over the 'Orange Man' while the foundations of the European consensus crumble from within, we aren't just being short-sighted—we are being negligent. The real disaster isn't across the pond; it’s waiting at the ballot boxes in our own backyards.