Translation
Study: Dutch people consider Trump a greater threat than Putin
While concerns about the relationship between Europe and the US are growing, support for NATO remains strong among Dutch people.
The Dutch see the United States under President Donald Trump as the greatest threat to European security. This is according to a survey of several thousand Dutch citizens conducted by the Atlantic Commission, a knowledge forum on transatlantic security and the relationship between Europe and the US. The same survey shows that support for NATO is high among the Dutch, but that there are also doubts about Europe’s resilience.
When asked the open question, “What do you consider to be the greatest threat to Dutch and European security?”, 14 percent answered America or Trump. In second place was President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with 11 percent. The results are in line with those from April last year, when Trump had only been in office for three months. The low level of trust among Dutch people in the US has therefore remained unchanged.
It is therefore not surprising that 51 percent of Dutch people describe the current relationship between Europe and the US as ‘(very) poor’. Only 7 percent currently view the relationship as good. 77 percent of those surveyed believe that the US is currently a major source of insecurity in the world. 81 percent think that, thanks to Trump, Europe can no longer count on the unconditional support of the US, and only 8 percent describe the US as a ‘model democracy’.
We feel betrayed
Anna van Zoest, director of the Atlantic Commission, points out that declining trust in the US is a Europe-wide trend. "You see trust declining in almost all European countries. That effect is strongest in countries that historically had a lot of faith in the Americans, such as the Netherlands, Poland, and the Scandinavian countries. In countries such as France and Spain, where people have always been more critical of the US, the effect is smaller. You could say that many Europeans feel betrayed.”
Last week’s anti-Trump demonstrations in Denmark and Greenland remind Van Zoest of the mass protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. “Signs with slogans from that era, such as ‘Yankee Go Home,’ were seen again. As America’s popularity declines, so does Trump’s influence in Europe.”
NATO extremely popular
The survey also shows that the Dutch continue to overwhelmingly support NATO. Nearly nine out of ten respondents consider NATO to be “very important” for the security of the Netherlands, and only 3 percent consider NATO unnecessary. Support for the alliance has been very high in the Netherlands for decades and remains strong despite all the internal tensions within NATO. According to Van Zoest, this may be because the Dutch have confidence in Secretary General Mark Rutte, or because the NATO summit organized by the Netherlands last year left a good impression.
However, the Dutch have less confidence in Europe’s military strength; while in April 45 percent thought that Europe could take on Russia in a military conflict, that figure is now only 33 percent. “The past few months have shown how dependent Europe is on the US, and only in the last few days have we seen European leaders show their teeth for the first time,” says Van Zoest. “Europe’s vulnerabilities will become clear in 2025.”
While overwhelmingly supporting NATO because of Mark Rutte (former Dutch PM) being NATO’s General Secretary, even though he’s one of the biggest bootlickers of daddy Trump. 
I thought this raises an interesting question, if Trump is poison to anyone other than the most rabid neo-fascist (in Europe), will parties like AfD, Reform, PVV etc be viewed differently, now?
Their rise to prominence has been largely unchallenged, but could their hubris really be their undoing??
It’s likely to cause skepticism, what I’m afraid of and what I think of is going to happen, as a result of all this mess, is that some flavor of “National Socialism” will be looking quite favorable as an option.
I think that’s been the plan anyways.
Yeah, embarrassed euros usually turn to nationalism…
Forgive me, but isn’t that what has been happening? Or do you mean something different from that term that I’ve misunderstood?
I think the insinuation, or at least what I would say, is that while the fascists have been gaining ground, this could do a lot to really make them properly mainstream beyond regional sway by giving them this openly tyrannical menace to “protect” the country from. The original Euro fascists had as a major element of their platforms opposing the overstepping (or purported overstepping) of other western powers, too.
Ah, I see your point. It’s an interesting idea, but aren’t they too inept and weak (economically) to really do anything to stand up to that tyrannical menace? I kind’ve felt like that’s why so many of them put their support behind the usa and trump, it’s an easy way to get funding and tech support that their political clout doesn’t ‘merit’ otherwise.
One of multiple reasons that I wrote “protect” in scare quotes is that I don’t think it matters that much how much they really can protect their countries, for the same reason Trump can run on affordability, make it worse, and then somehow get credit from a lot of people for being concerned with it.
And while I fully agree that they are clout goblins who supported Trump before for that reason, that was before Trump gave them an excellent opportunity to gain clout by opposing him (see the substanceless shit-talking they do in Canada, as a point of comparison), and undermined the clout of supporting him. That said, I personally feel like they have a lot more bartering power than you give them credit for because Russia and China (I guess mainly Russia, for obvious reasons) are right there to welcome renegade eurofash into alternative trade agreements. America’s growing violence coincides with losing authority, like a senescent patriarch who lashes out more and more as his grip loosens.