For anyone in doubt, Donald Trump has at least made things clear: the right exists and it speaks loudly. As has often been the case in the past, it takes the form of a mixture of violent nationalism, social conservatism and unbridled economic liberalism. We could call Trumpism national-liberalism, or more accurately, national-capitalism. Trump's remarks on Greenland and Panama show his attachment to the most aggressive, authoritarian and extractivist form of capitalism, which is basically the real and concrete form that economic liberalism has often taken throughout history, as Arnaud Orain has just reminded us in Le Monde confisqué. Essai sur le capitalisme de la finitude, XVI^e-XXI^e siècle ("The confiscated world. Essay on the capitalism of finitude, 16^th-21^th century").

Let's be clear: Trump's national capitalism likes to flaunt its strength, but it is actually fragile and at bay. Europe has the means to confront it, provided it regains confidence in itself, forges new alliances and calmly analyzes the strengths and limitations of this ideological framework.

Europe is well placed to do so. It has long based its development on a similar military-extractivist pattern, for better or for worse. After forcibly seizing control of sea routes, raw materials and the global textile market, European powers imposed colonial tribute on all resistant nations throughout the 19^th century, from Haiti to China and Morocco. By 1914, they were engaged in a fierce struggle for control of territories, resources and global capitalism. They even imposed increasingly exorbitant tributes on one another – Prussia demanded tribute from France in 1871, then France from Germany in 1919: 132 billion gold marks, more than three years of German GDP at the time. A sum comparable to the tribute imposed on Haiti in 1825, except that this time Germany had the means to defend itself. Endless escalation led to the collapse of the system and of Europe's hubris.

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