DONALD TRUMP is waging a culture war on Europe by aggressively promoting right-wing allies and undermining the EU’s credibility, according to a new report. 

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and European Cultural Foundation argue that the US president is actively seeking to interfere in European elections and shift the continent’s ideological centre to the right.

EU leaders’ hesitations and a “flatter, appease, distract” approach to dealing with the US president have only encouraged such treatment, it warns.

Mr Trump’s strategy plays out both through high-profile disputes over migration, climate and free speech, and through subtler efforts to erode Europe’s dignity and autonomy, it warned.

“In Trump’s culture war, Europe itself is the target,” said Pawel Zerka of the ECFR, citing Mr Trump’s exclusion of EU leaders from Ukraine talks, his attacks on mainstream parties and pressure in trade negotiations. 

The report highlights Washington’s embrace of nationalist figures such as Poland’s Karol Nawrocki and Britain’s Nigel Farage as evidence of attempts to tilt European politics.

It compares the situation to the film The Truman Show, where the protagonist realises his world is an artificial construct designed for others’ gain.

EU leaders, the report says, spend too much energy reacting to crises scripted by Mr Trump and his allies, from tariff threats and migration scares to security spending rows.

It cites a US state department staffer’s call to “civilisational allies in Europe,” portraying the continent as a “hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration [and] restrictions on religious freedom.”

Brussels must therefore accept that Europe itself is the target and act accordingly, Mr Zerka argued.

The report calls for national leaders to reject flattery as a strategy towards Mr Trump and for the European Commission to deploy tools such as the Digital Services Act and trade powers.