Episode Details

Recorded live at MCC Brussels on 14 May 2025

Trump’s second presidency is well underway — but Europe is still clinging to old illusions.

From NATO budgets to Ukraine, tariffs to technocrats, Trump is tearing up the script. The post-Cold War order is collapsing, and Brussels is still pretending it's 2016.

For European elites, the message is simple: grow up, pay up, and stop hiding behind American power. Even populists are split; is Trump a wrecking ball or a necessary wake-up call?

This event lays bare the reality: a divided West, a complacent continent, and a political class entirely unprepared for what’s coming.
With:
James Orr:  Cambridge academic, Chair of the Edmund Burke Foundation UKGuglielmo Picchi:  Former Italian Deputy Foreign Minister, Machiavelli CentreHosted by Jacob Reynolds, MCC Brussels

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