Airbus boss: Europe isn’t ready for a Trump presidency

In an interview with the Guardian, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said Europe wasn’t ready for a potential conflict with Russia, and the election of NATO-skeptic Donald Trump would expose the bloc to a plethora of risks.

“We are coming from peacetime,” Faury told the Guardian. “I don’t think Europe has yet the level of preparedness that you would need for a conflict between Europe and Russia. Let’s call a spade a spade. And it seems like Russia is ramping up its defense capabilities.”

Faury, a former military helicopter test pilot, explained that the West was coming out of a post-World War Two era where defense strategy was focused on deterrence rather than conflict, something that has changed since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago.

Unfortunately, that 80-year period has coincided with Europe becoming more reliant on the might of an increasingly isolationist U.S. 

“We’ve put a lot in the hands of others,” Faury told the Guardian. “We are sub-critical on most of the different systems in Europe, we don’t collaborate enough to create investment at scale. We buy mostly from outside of Europe, and mostly from the US.”

NATO’s looming Trump threat

Faury told the Guardian that Europe currently had the cushion of the military alliance NATO, but given the saber-rattling during the previous “Trump 1” presidency, the continent should be braced to lose that security blanket were he re-elected. 

“​​If Trump 2 is of the same nature or even more in terms of the U.S. expecting Europe to take care of itself… we’d better take it seriously.”

Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 U.S. presidential election after his…