A flailing economy has left the EU exposed to Trumpian outbursts

Given the plethora of crises the European Union has faced in the past 15 years or so—from the euro-zone miasma to those on migration, Brexit, the pandemic, then the war in Ukraine and an ensuing energy-price spike—it can be hard to know when one emergency ended and the next began. If the continent was not in crisis at the start of the week it certainly feels as if it is back in one after the re-election of Donald Trump in America. Bar the odd autocrat like Viktor Orban of Hungary, Europe’s leaders did not expect his return and did not do much to prepare for it. Most anxiety will be felt around the prospect of needing to support Ukraine sans America, should it come to that. But the outlook for the European economy will come a close second. Already in a long-term funk, Europe’s clapped-out economic engine leaves it even more exposed to a dose of Trumpism than in 2016.