Donald Trump has taken his campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies to Europe, demanding that the US embassy in Spain terminate contracts with any company that enforces them. The move is an extension of Trump’s attack on DEI policies within the US government, which he says infringe American anti-discrimination laws, and is likely to strengthen his ties with the Spanish right-wing party Vox. Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, however, sees it as an attack on progressive values. This marks the second dispute between the US and Spain this year, following Trump’s criticism of Madrid’s low military expenditure in January.
Trump’s campaign against DEI policies raises a fundamental question: rather than ensuring that companies or institutions of higher education consider applicants regardless of their race and background, do such initiatives encourage decisions to be made on the basis of those factors? If so, one could argue, as Trump does, that DEI programs fail to guarantee equality of opportunity, and that they are incompatible with meritocratic values.
Trump’s instructions to the US embassy in Madrid apply to companies that also operate in America, which are required to comply with DEI legislation introduced by Joe Biden (although purely Spanish firms with more than 50 employees must also implement DEI policies under national law). In principle, this applies to American companies operating in other European countries, and to any European firm with US branches.
Biden’s DEI initiatives stemmed from the concept of affirmative action, introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to ensure equal opportunities for all Americans. Affirmative action was bolstered in 1969 with what is now known as the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required federal contractors to meet certain quotas in the hiring of minority employees. Supporters of affirmative action and DEI policies argue that they are necessary to counteract the discrimination historically faced by ethnic minorities and people of color in the US, and to ensure that socio-economically disadvantaged groups receive equal access to higher education and jobs. But according to Trump, Biden’s DEI initiatives are “illegal and immoral discrimination programs,” whose implementation has resulted in “immense public waste.”
One of the most common criticisms of both affirmative action and DEI programs is that they replace one kind of discrimination (against women, Latinos, and people of color) with another (against men, whites, and Asian Americans). In 1978, the US Supreme Court ruled racial quotas illegal, after a white Californian man named Allan Bakke filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Davis, for “reverse discrimination.” Bakke, who had twice been rejected by the university’s medical school, claimed that his academic record was superior to those of many of the minority students who had been admitted. The Court ordered the university to admit Bakke, while also ruling that institutions of higher education could use race as a criterion for admission. This decision was overturned in 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in university admissions violated the US Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.
Trump’s edict to the US embassy in Madrid will no doubt be welcomed by Vox, which came third in the 2023 Spanish general election. Though its leader, Santiago Abascal, has not explicitly opposed Spanish or European DEI policies specifically, he rejects LGBTQ legislation and has criticized gender-based violence laws, which he says discriminate against men. Abascal has described Trump as his “comrade-in-arms in the battle for good, for truth, common sense and freedom.”
The feeling seems to be mutual. In January, Abascal traveled to Washington, DC, to attend Trump’s inauguration. A month later, he returned to the city to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In his closing address to CPAC, Trump thanked the Vox leader for doing a “great job” (mistakenly referring to him as “Obiscal”). Reacting to video footage of the moment, Elon Musk, the tech tycoon who leads Trump’s newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, predicted on his social media site X that Vox “will win the next [Spanish] election,” due in 2027. While it’s unlikely that Abascal’s party will come first, recent polls suggest that the Spanish right, led by the Conservative People’s Party, has gained strength over the left.
The European right has largely embraced Trump—or at least did so until very recently. A couple of weeks before this year’s CPAC, Vox hosted a rally in Madrid for the leaders of Patriots for Europe, the third biggest group in the EU parliament. Speaking to around 2,000 attendees, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban and Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally, praised “Hurricane Trump” for leading an international shift towards the right. “We’re facing a truly global tipping point,” said Le Pen.
Trump’s recent criticism of Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky, however, has alienated some of these European allies. Le Pen said the US president’s decision to halt aid to Ukraine was “brutal” and “reprehensible.” Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom and another attendee of the Madrid rally, reaffirmed his support for Zelensky. But Abascal’s admiration for Trump has emerged unscathed, despite Vox’s consistent support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion. In his CPAC speech, Abascal blamed the European left for “[giving] Russia the opportunity to invade Ukraine,” without addressing Trump’s recent claims that Zelensky is a “dictator” or that Ukraine started the war. He also refused to condemn Trumpian tariffs, which triggered a trade war between the US and EU during his first term. According to Abascal, the real threats to Europe’s economy are the green transition and excessive taxes.
By bringing his war on DEI policies to Spain, Trump will strengthen his transatlantic bond with Vox—but only because its leader seems to admire his American “comrade-in-arms” unconditionally. In general, Europe’s right-wing parties oppose foreign powers interfering in their domestic affairs, whether from Brussels or Washington. They have also reacted angrily to Trump’s intention to sideline EU leaders in negotiations with Russia, and his sudden policy reversal over Ukraine. In thinking of Trump as infallible, Abascal risks becoming an isolated figure, even within the European right.
