There’s trouble in the MAGA international.

The first half of 2026 has taken its toll on the links American stalwarts of Make America Great Again have been building with far-right parties in Europe.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to invade Greenland, his attacks on the Pope and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and his trade war on the EU have made the friendship electorally costly. MAGA figures’ propensity to perform the Nazi salute amplified this, as National Rally President Jordan Bardella could not be seen to associate himself with it. After all, if sovereignty is part of European far-right politicians’ core beliefs, they can’t let another country violate their own.

But the transatlantic far-right ecosystem has not run out of steam. The underlying ideological project—and the people who advance it—is very much carrying on. Since long before Trump’s first term, media personalities, politicians, think tankers, and influencers have been building the structures to secure the project’s longevity and expand its reach. European far-right leaders have been central to this institutionalization, but since Trump’s second term this has become bigger than them.

The second Trump administration’s ideological turn, pushed by Vice President JD Vance and his Silicon Valley financiers, aligns closely with that of Europe’s far right. Both want Europe and America to be white, Christian, and sovereign. And this brand of “conservatism”—or far-right nativism— is gaining ground.

The alignment was always plagued by an inherent contradiction: “Make America Great Again” fundamentally clashes with ‘Make Europe Great Again.” In this ideological zero-sum game someone must lose. The link-up with political MAGA was opportunistic—it helped validate European far-right leaders at home. As soon as those ties became a liability rather than an asset, many moved on.

Yet whether far-right leaders are friends or foes from one day to the next, far-right ideology is here to stay. Its mainstreaming since Trump’s first term has normalized policies once considered extreme—from climate skepticism to the anti-immigration rhetoric in Europe—echoed by politicians across the political spectrum.

The proliferation of far-right ideology has outgrown any single leader as it is now embedded in a much broader ecosystem. Pseudo-academics have opened their own universities and are organizing their own conferences. Wealthy backers have transformed the media landscape dramatically, funding private broadcast channels, podcasts, and websites. In the think tank and civil society space, collaborations between institutes with illiberal missions are flourishing. Social media platforms push extreme views, generating financial revenue for their owners and shareholders. The paradox is that these structures can exist because of Europe’s open societies and undermine them at the same time.

Europe’s far right ecosystem is a threat to liberal democracies in its own right. But its actors are also a vector for larger external forces: MAGA and Russia. Increasingly, all are aligned with a shared objective of weakening the EU. And both Trump and Putin have found willing partners among Europe’s far-right players.

This U.S. administration’s aim toward the EU is clear: weaken it, or even break it, by seeking regime change in favor of the far right. The U.S. 2025 national security strategy set the policy direction. Recent U.S. State Department grants to support “common Western civilisational heritage” in Europe will provide the means to willing NGOs, universities, and businesses. One of the grants’ objectives—which will issue awards ranging from $1 million to $3 million each—is to “respond to lawfare judicial activism that undermine democracy and national sovereignty.” This is direct interference in EU countries’ democratic processes, which Washington is trying to remake in its own MAGA image.

The United States is then looking to export a new ideology to Europe after doing so for decades in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South America. A divided EU is easier to dominate on trade, favoring U.S. industry. And big tech companies have opportunistically aligned themselves with Trump’s White House, calculating that U.S. pressure will blunt enforcement of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act.

At the same time, MAGA-aligned actors in Europe are useful proxies for Russia too. Putin would like to see a divided Europe to pursue his “Greater Russia” ambitions without meaningful resistance. Recent investigations have shown that Russia’s disinformation machinery is targeting both American and European influencers. Moscow’s aim is to unpick Europe’s social fabric thread by thread, promoting narratives about “Europe’s decline” in support of far-right politicians who promise to restore European nations to their “former glory.”

The continued embrace of Russia by the AfD, Italian coalition partner La Lega, and Slovak Prime Minister Fico—among others— shows an ideological convergence that extends beyond the Atlantic to the Kremlin. Religion and sovereignty are central to Moscow’s thinking too. Notably, Alexander Dugin, Putin’s ideologue, argued in 2025 that Trump’s vision of a global order is like Putin’s. And the Russian propaganda machine’s portrayal of Putin as a defender of fundamentalist Christianity has won him fervors with parts of MAGA. The fact that American far-right influencers were also paid to parrot Kremlin lines was the cherry on top.

The threat to liberal democracy comes from both West and East, amplified by corporate interests and accelerated by forces within Europe. The prescription for how to defend Europe from such foreign influence and interference has not changed much, even as technology accelerates its effects. The hard question is how Europe can maintain its openness while fighting nefarious forces that abuse it.