Europe's opportunity

Suddenly, signs appear that give reason to think that the fabrications that led to the regressive phase of the transition from liberal democracies to post-democratic authoritarianism are beginning to decline. It was Milton Friedman who said that "the invisible hand of the market is superior to any other institution that regulates economic life" and that, consequently, the "social responsibility of business is to increase its profits," when the rise of capital was unfolding against the post-war mixed economy. This logic has been imposing itself at the same time that liberals and social democrats were disturbingly blurring.

Donald Trump, through insolence and contempt for institutions, seemed to be sweeping in the total surrender of American politics to the new economic powers. Halfway through his second term, the president has been losing his grip as polls overwhelmed him. And now he has passed through the United Nations to announce his immediate objectives: the annihilation of Iran, the liquidation of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the unconditional bet against any attempt at AI regulation, the fight against Europe's autonomous path, the capitalization of war when necessary, and the ridicule of the Democratic Party. All this at a time when China is beginning to be perceived, definitively, as an economic, technological, and digital power that is accelerating towards the future and looking at others with emphatic distance. The discrediting of Trump seems unstoppable.

So much so that Pope Leo XIV has intervened in the debate, suggesting a pact with secularism that does not exclude religion from the public space in order to be able to ally against dehumanization and the regression of human rights: "Faith and reason, men of good will, believers and non-believers, must unite, capable of distinguishing what they have in common."

Meanwhile, in the United States, the news was accumulating: Mamdani, the New York mayor, received Sánchez, and they marked their profile: "The powerful are afraid of us." Macron, already on his way out, pointed out "the disaster of the world as a result of imperialism and arrogance." Netanyahu, in front of an empty United Nations hall, denied those who accuse him of being a genocidal, and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, accepted Trump's compliments with the immutability of one who feels strong and knows the bewilderment that his country's technological and economic progress generates in the West.

Imperialism is mutating and catching Europe in the midst of a regressive dynamic. Will we be capable of grasping the opportunity and regaining initiative in defense of the values that seemed condemned to Trump's pyre?