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As a victorious Donald Trump brings “America first” ideology back to the White House, leaders across the Atlantic are confronting the reality of “Europe, alone”. They ought to be prepared: for eight years they have openly admitted the need for Europe to stand on its own two feet. Yet they still find themselves caught up short, like pupils having put off their homework to the last minute.

It is, however, clear what Europe’s goals must now be — and they are shared by members and non-members of the EU. Deny Russia’s Vladimir Putin the success in Ukraine that would encourage him to deepen the threat to their own freedom as liberal democracies. Achieve the carbon transition that will reduce the intertwined vulnerability of destabilising climate change and Europe’s energy dependency. Boost domestic innovation and investments to improve productivity so as not to be at the mercy of technology and growth from elsewhere.

While few put it this way, leaders know they must make Europe great again. But all the best intentions keep foundering on an inability, so far, to will the means to these ends. Too many good policy ideas — such as those in Enrico Letta’s and Mario Draghi’s recent reports — are met with a nod, then the question: but where is the money going to come from?

There is too much learnt helplessness here. Of course big questions have to be faced about the EU budget and both national and common borrowing. But even without a big change in EU budgeting, Europe — and the EU especially — has more resources available than it is keen to admit.

Start with Ukraine, which Europe must now be willing to fund fully on its own. If Ukraine loses Putin’s war of conquest, it is Europe’s security that is permanently weakened, and its geopolitical autonomy that is doomed. In its own interest, Europe must fill the hole left by a definitive end to US support.

For half a year, Europe and the outgoing Biden administration have worked to advance $50bn on future private profits derived from Russian state money immobilised in western financial institutions. They may get it across the line before power shifts in Washington, but it’s barely enough to get Ukraine through the winter. Much better would be to seize the full $300bn or so of Russian state assets.

This is in Europe’s hands. Most of it is held captive by EU sanctions in the Belgian securities depository Euroclear, with some in other European institutions (including in the UK). The legal debate has been exhausted, with at least two viable routes to seizure identified: one based on countermeasures against Russia’s breaches of international law, the other on the setting off of reciprocal claims (in this case Moscow’s undeniable and much greater financial compensation obligations to Ukraine).

It comes down to Europe’s political will. Western governments have repeatedly vowed to keep the reserves blocked until Moscow pays Kyiv what it owes; seizure and transfer would simply enforce that obligation promptly.

What about Europe’s own defence and investment needs? Politicians naturally want the private sector to fund as much as possible, and look to institutions such as the European Investment Bank to attract large chunks of private funds with thin morsels of public spending. They rarely mention that, whatever the financial engineering, private funds have to come from somewhere: real resources actually have to be taken away from their current uses if they are to fund new ones.

That is a challenge for a country such as the UK, whose long-standing current account deficit means new priorities must largely be funded by reallocated resources previously deployed domestically. But the EU has a big current account surplus. EU leaders cannot in good faith argue that resources are lacking when the bloc exported €450bn in surplus savings in the last four quarters, largely to the other G7 economies and offshore financial centres.

The point is not to target a smaller surplus. As Trump is about to find out, targeting a particular external balance is hard because it reflects domestic savings and investment choices. But EU leaders should be clear that the world in which a European economic transformation succeeds most easily is one in which the EU is no longer a surplus economy but rather deploys all its domestic resources, is relaxed about imports and graduates from an excessive reliance on export demand.

That’s a big mental shift, but one well suited to a mercantilist-in-chief hell-bent on rebalancing the global economy. The EU’s task is to make that rebalancing work in Europe’s interest.

martin.sandbu@ft.com

In the first few days after the reëlection of Donald Trump, one heard across the fruited plains and the canyons of the great cities a noisy welter of accusation, self-laceration, celebration, and rationalization. There were also conspicuous assurances of normalcy that went like this: The sun went down in the evening and came up in the morning. Democracy did not end or even falter; the election was democracy, after all. The once and future President would surely dispense with his frenzied campaign threats and get down to the mundane task of governing. Making America great yet again required sobriety and competence, and Trump and his councillors would undoubtedly recognize that obligation.

For the titans of business, the new Administration promised untold prosperity: regulation would ease, tax rates decline. Elon Musk would make government just as civil, generous, and “efficient” as his social-media platform, X. Jeff Bezos, having ordered the editorial board of his newspaper to spike its endorsement of Kamala Harris, selflessly tweeted “big congratulations” to Trump, on his “extraordinary political comeback.” Wall Street executives and Sand Hill Road philosophers exulted that the “mergers-and-acquisitions climate” would now bring opportunities beyond imagining. (How these opportunities might benefit the working class they presumably would clarify at a later date.)

Meanwhile, the President-elect convened his loyalists at Mar-a-Lago, where they went about putting together a White House staff and a Cabinet. Historically, this is a deliberative process that can, even with the noblest intentions, go horribly wrong. In “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam wrote about an American tradition of mandarins in Washington as

an aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service.

Halberstam’s larger subject was the aristocracy of Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and all the other exceptional men of the Ivy League and corporate boardrooms who helped guide the country into the Vietnam War.

At least as a matter of rhetoric, Trump is uninterested in conventional notions of expertise (which smacks of élitism). Nor is he focussed on assembling a council of constructive disagreement, a team of rivals (which smacks of disloyalty). As his personnel choices rolled out in recent days, it became clear that they pointed wholly to his long-held priorities—and they are not the common good. The nominations of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard as the director of National Intelligence are the residue of Trump’s resentments and his thirst for retribution.

In Gaetz, who faces allegations (which he denies) of illegal drug use and having sex with an underage girl, Trump sees himself, a man wrongly judged, he insists, as liable for sexual abuse. In Kennedy, an anti-vax conspiracy theorist, he sees a vindication of his own suspicion of science and his wildly erratic handling of the Covid crisis. In Hegseth, who defends war criminals and lambastes “woke” generals, he sees vengeance against the military establishmentarians who called him unfit. In Gabbard, who finds the good in foreign dictators, he sees someone who might shape the work of the intelligence agencies to help justify ending U.S. support for Ukraine. In other words, Trump’s nominations—in their reckless endorsement of the dangerously unqualified—look like the most flagrant act of vindictive trolling since the rise of the Internet. But it is a trolling beyond mischief. All these appointees are meant to bolster Trump’s effort to lay waste to the officials and the institutions that he has come to despise or regard as threats to his power or person. These appointees are not intended to be his advisers. They are his shock troops.

Or could it be that the President-elect is out to reduce the country to the status of a global laughingstock? Until this spate of appointments, observers had long remarked that Trump had no sense of humor. Al Franken, late of the U.S. Senate and “Saturday Night Live,” is among those who have said that they have never heard Trump laugh. Smirk, perhaps, at the misfortune of others, but not laugh in the joyful sense.

Back in the days when Trump swanned about Manhattan as a caricature rich guy and gonif construction magnate, he was part of a metropolitan jokescape, up there in lights with John Gotti and Leona Helmsley. Spy, the satirical magazine of its time, fact-checked his finances (inflated) and his books (preposterous). Trump was not amused. His lawyers sent frequent letters to the editors, threatening litigation. He found himself in a similar mood, many years later, when Barack Obama, who had suffered Trump’s constant insinuations about his place of birth, took the occasion of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to rib the political aspirations of the host of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Trump left the ballroom in a funk, nurturing, perhaps, an ominous resolve.

Trump has always been obsessed with dramas of dominance and submission, strength and weakness, who is laughing at whom. This is his lens for human relations generally, and particularly when it comes to politics, foreign and domestic. As long ago as January, 2016, Niraj Chokshi, then an enterprising reporter for the Washington Post, calculated the many times that Trump had pointed out that someone—Russia, China, OPEC, “the Persians,” “the mullahs”—was “laughing at us.” More recently, in this, his third Presidential campaign, Trump told a crowd at Mar-a-Lago, “November 5th is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country.” He added, “Right now, we’re not respected. Right now, our country is known as a joke. It’s a joke.”

Now Trump’s critics and an increasing number of his supporters are taking stock of his most disgraceful appointments—these men and women of perfect jawlines, dubious reputations, and rotten ideas. They wonder if this is not the ultimate joke, with national endangerment as its punch line. Dean Acheson, who helped Harry Truman design NATO and rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan, titled his memoir “Present at the Creation.” Which of Donald Trump’s new advisers will line up to write the sequel? ♦

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Nigerian business tycoon Aliko Dangote is seeking to raise billions of dollars to step up production at his $20bn oil refinery on the outskirts of Lagos.

The industrialist is in talks with commercial lenders, development banks, oil traders and other industry participants to raise funds for crude supplies to turn into refined products, according to people familiar with the matter.

His company Dangote Industries has bought crude from the US and Brazil, and in July was in talks with African suppliers such as Libya and Angola, according to Devakumar Edwin, a senior executive at the group.

Africa’s richest man needs to secure more crude to reach the refinery’s capacity of 650,000 barrels per day for a project he has said is a “game changer” for the country.

The billionaire told the Financial Times last month that he expected the refinery to be at capacity by the second quarter of next year, although previous targets have often slipped.

Dangote added that Nigeria’s biggest infrastructure project in decades and the largest of its kind in the world is already producing 420,000 b/d.

He wants to resolve what he describes as an “absurd” situation in which Africa’s biggest oil producer imported all of its refined petroleum products because of a lack of refining capacity.

The plant began producing jet fuel and naphtha at the start of the year and petrol in September, raising hopes that Nigeria could finally end decades of reliance on imported fuel.

It would cost about $2bn every 90 days to secure a minimum supply of 300,000 b/d, people familiar with the matter say.

Investors have expressed frustration at Dangote’s inability to gain a steady supply of crude, according to one banker involved in the fundraising. Another added that there was also a major concern among potential financiers over exposure to Nigeria’s currency, the naira, which has fallen sharply following two devaluations over the past year.

“The refinery may never make a profit in real terms,” said the second banker. “It was built over-budget and the naira, which is a major currency of future revenue, has devalued massively.”

Dangote last month attended an emergency meeting with President Bola Tinubu and Mele Kyari, head of Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC, to talk about crude supplies.

The billionaire told the FT the meeting was to discuss “the modalities” by which NNPC would supply 365,000 b/d of crude to his plant to be paid for in naira.

Dangote Industries declined to comment further on the fundraising or the industrialist’s talks with the president.

NNPC did not respond to requests for comment on the fundraising or meeting.

NNPC has a 7.2 per cent stake in the refinery, which was watered down from 20 per cent after it failed to pay the balance of a deal worth $2.7bn. NNPC paid $1bn upfront in cash in 2021 and the other $1.76bn was supposed to be paid for in crude supplies. 

Many, including Dangote, have questioned NNPC’s ability to supply the crude the refinery needs because it has sold significant quantities of oil on forward contracts.

Even if NNPC comes through with the crude, Dangote would need another 185,000 b/d, or more than 5mn barrels a month, to meet his target of 550,000 b/d by January and more still once the refinery reaches full capacity. 

The Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African development lender based in Nigeria that is already an investor in the project, is one of the institutions involved in the talks to raise money.

The AFC led a financing round in December for funds to source the initial capital to get the refinery up and running as a commercial operation.

The AFC declined to comment on the discussions over fundraising.

Dangote plans to use the refinery to meet the country’s entire petrol demand, which he estimates at 30mn-35mn litres a day. Some critics have accused him of seeking to replicate a quasi-monopoly he already enjoys in cement.

Refineries make money on the spread or difference between the price of crude and the money they make on the refined products they produce.