by Thomas Kolbe
California Governor Gavin Newsom is considered a friend of EU policy. His California resembles a European replica of Brussels’ climate-socialist fantasies, making him a natural ally of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The United States is a culturally deeply divided country. To put it bluntly: the woke, self-proclaimed progressive, socialist-leaning coastal regions clash with significant resentment potential against the traditionally shaped, still Christian-rooted and bourgeois world of the vast inland areas of North America. Another cultural fault line emerges when one considers the urban mindset of culturally unanchored milieus versus the stable foundation of rural communities.
Governor Newsom of the Democratic Party is a committed climate activist with a distinctly social-political orientation. This makes Newsom, with his pronounced progressive grounding, a natural ally of a corresponding European eco-socialist agenda.
It follows logically that German Chancellor Merz, after a rhetorical encounter with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sought proximity to Newsom to secure dwindling confirmation of his own political course. For Merz, the economic fiasco, rising national debt, and imminent gas crisis are tightening the squeeze. With state elections approaching, any press appearance not exposing the political dead end his government has led the country into is highly welcome.
Rubio had previously outlined the European dilemma in clear terms at the Munich Security Conference: overextension through uncontrolled mass migration, what he sees as a grotesque fixation on pointless climate policies, and an abandonment of the core values that once made the West strong — a lean state, individual liberty, and market-oriented economy. Strong words directed at representatives of the current European Union, who see themselves on a crusade against traditional Europe.
Newsom is now expected to “fix” this. Merz’s demonstrative meeting with the West Coast politician was closely noted in Washington. Richard Grenell, the U.S. President’s special envoy for diplomatic affairs, called it perhaps Merz’s greatest misstep yet — a slight to the Trump administration, while European media framed it as a signal that the German government under Merz maintains a channel to Democrat-leaning U.S. politics, almost a form of parallel diplomacy.
This reveals a strategic hope: in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, time is being bought, assuming that even a second Trump term would only be a temporary interruption of a comprehensive societal overhaul — a restructuring with collateral damage, but ultimately expected to succeed. They rely on the success of their military-industrial buildup and the delayed success of the green transformation.
Perseverance is the motto. An eco-socialist transformation to build a political control apparatus can only succeed if the U.S. and Europe cooperate closely, implement regulatory mechanisms and censorship policies together, and enforce Net-Zero policies, as practiced in California, without strong political opponents. Otherwise, capital flight accelerates, and the socialist project stalls amid the economic catastrophe currently unfolding in Germany.
Merz’s short meeting with Newsom, staged for the press, suggests that Berlin sees a high probability of Newsom becoming the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. Naturally, Europeans are also expected to do everything they can in the upcoming November midterms, where a significant portion of Congress seats will be up for grabs, to strengthen the opposition to Donald Trump.
As in 2016 and 2020, activists from UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party also supported Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in 2024, causing significant friction between Trump and London.
“Election intervention” — that is the euphemistic term from the U.S. The EU Commission carries out such actions almost as a sporting discipline. The allegation: Europeans not only intervened across the Atlantic but also in their own home elections in at least eight national campaigns.
A 160-page report by the U.S. House of Representatives from February claims the EU censored conservative and populist content on migration, gender policies, or COVID vaccinations, influencing election outcomes in favor of left-leaning groups. While the EU rejects these accusations, what has actually been implemented under the Digital Services Act may go far beyond what the U.S. could substantiate in its report.
This is classic EU policy and aligns with Newsom’s vision of a powerful state apparatus, capable of suppressing criticism of his homeless industry as well as his destructive climate policies. Newsom — the ideal partner for Friedrich Merz and Germany across the Atlantic?
In Berlin, Newsom represents the “other America,” effectively Europe in the U.S., a bridgehead potentially undermining the Trump administration. The latter recently ended its previous climate policies with a single stroke. Europe now stands largely alone with its Net-Zero emissions strategy, facing persistent capital outflows. Investments increasingly flow elsewhere, while the EU, as an over-regulated high-cost zone, loses attractiveness.
The EU and California — and similarly Canada — persistently pursue bringing key sectors, like energy, under stronger state control and forcing consumers and producers into binding regulatory frameworks through CO2 trading.
The parallels between California and the EU are striking. Beyond climate repression, Newsom pushes entrepreneurs and wealthy individuals out of California with ever-higher taxes toward more attractive states like Florida or Texas. Both Brussels and Sacramento stubbornly refuse to alter a single jot of this ideological crash course in the face of this exodus.
Merz, according to reports, leveraged the NATO narrative for bridge-building and partnership stabilization with Newsom: NATO is a shared competitive advantage, mutual trust is essential — and Newsom is exactly the right man to ensure it. Defiantly, Merz added to criticism from Washington that he chooses his conversation partners based on his own interests and decides autonomously whom to meet or not.
He wants a restart with the U.S., Merz said — a phrase that critics argue adds salt to open wounds. Remarkable, for a politician responsible for a country in the deepest economic crisis in its recent history, whose structural problems are further aggravated by his own policies.
This is particularly evident in climate policy: Merz remains steadfast on CO2 trading, the supply chain law, the costly replacement of fossil heating systems with heat pumps, and the combustion-engine ban. He pursues a continuous performative media strategy, misleading the public with rhetorical placebos such as alleged bureaucracy reduction or border controls regarding his true intentions.
These intentions point toward a future in which Brussels, a potential U.S. President Newsom, and a strengthened NATO jointly shape geopolitics as climate-socialist power blocs. At the same time, the last hope for Europe as a cultural cradle of civilization faces extinction.
