What would Reagan make of Trump?

If the Donald Trump-JD Vance ticket is successful in November and the pair head to the White House, there is a former US president who would surely turn in his grave: Ronald Reagan. While Reagan saw the importance of American involvement in Europe, Trump and his running mate Vance seem in favour of adopting a more hands-off attitude. It’s an approach that could unpick Reagan’s hard-fought legacy in eastern Europe.

What a different world it was back in the Eighties when Reagan was US president and the epitome of Western power and influence. In June 1987, he stood before the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and gave a historic speech, one line of which was to become famous: ‘Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ His advisors had counselled him to remove the passage, considering it too ‘extreme’. But Reagan said, ‘I think we’ll keep it in.’

While the East German government condemned Reagan’s speech as ‘an absurd demonstration by a cold warrior’, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl said it was ‘a stroke of luck for the world, especially for Europe’.