The return of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20, 2025, was met with celebration by far-right actors abroad, from elected officials in extremist political parties to white supremacists and neo-Nazis. In Washington D.C., the leaders of major far-right parties from Europe and South America gathered for inauguration day, where they met with American political leaders and attended meetings with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and his staff, the creators of the rights-stripping Project 2025 plan that Trump is now putting into place, and the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), often described as Trump’s “White House in waiting.”
In Europe, far-right think tanks associated with authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán celebrated in their national headquarters (see Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s (GPAHE) previous reporting on the far-right leaders invited to the inauguration here).
It wasn’t just far-right political leaders who were thrilled with Trump’s victory. Leaders of more extreme groups abroad also celebrated, many seeing his win as an inspirational moment that will energize their own efforts.
The Austrian Identitarian activist Martin Sellner, known for popularizing the white nationalist concept of “remigration,” meaning the idea of ethnically cleansing European countries of non-white immigrants, has been inspired by the Trump victory. In a post on Twitter, he stated that “Trump delivers well” in response to news that he was withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), and also posted in support of Trump’s promises to enact “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants and declare drug cartels terrorist organizations. Sellner cheered the pardoning of the January 6 rioters, including white supremacist “Groyper” Baked Alaska and the QAnon shaman.
Sellner was optimistic that Trump’s win marks a “metapolitical victory” that has shifted the Overton window even further rightward, referring to Trump’s movement as a reaction to the “Great Replacement,” a racist conspiracy theory which posits that political elites are secretly “replacing” white citizens with non-white immigrants. Sellner has previously touted Trump’s usage of the term “remigration” in a Truth Social post as a marker of his own influence on the American far right.
Another identitarian from Austria, Philip Huemer, wrote that Trump’s actions on the first day of his presidency were a “good start,” but complained that his executive orders related to immigration were “purely border protection.” Another account tied to the racist and anti-immigrant transnational group Generation Identity posted that “remigration is in full swing” and that “identitarianism has won ideologically.”
In Germany, the far-right magazine COMPACT also praised Trump’s decision to withdraw from the WHO, citing the organization’s “evil nature during the Corona period.”
Tommy Robinson, the longtime leader of the rabidly anti-Muslim English Defense League (EDL) showed his excitement at Trump’s return by commenting that it was the “return of the king,” and claimed that “freedom is back” now that Trump is back on Twitter. Also in the United Kingdom, Mark Collett, the leader of the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative, cheered the fact that Trump pardoned the January 6 rioters, calling it a “massive redemption arc,” and praised his commitment to “cleaning out the pro-migration judges” and “banning birthright citizenship.”
In Canada, Rob Primerano (Rob Primo), a leader within the far-right Diagolon movement, voiced support for Trump choosing to leave the WHO. Referring to Elon Musk’s highly publicized apparent Roman salute at a rally on January 20, a gesture made by supporters of Nazism and fascism during World War II, the Australian neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell shared an image of himself making a similar salute with the text “Donald Trump White Power, Patriots are in control” on Twitter.
Source: Twitter
Many of the white supremacist Groypers living abroad also showed excitement at the transition. The Portuguese influencer João Antunes, a Chega activist known for sharing white supremacist “rage-bait” on Twitter and his support for Trump and American Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, shared an image of Musk giving the Roman salute with the text “incredible things are happening.” He wrote that Trump should “ignore [Biden’s] pardons” and “jail the criminals” and praised many of the new administration’s executive orders that end birthright citizenship, increase raids on immigrants, label drug cartels as terrorist organizations, as well as the pardons that have freed the January 6 “hostages” (see GPAHE’s former reporting on Antunes here). Another Groyper, Irishman Keith Woods, praised many of these same decisions, and took Trump’s early executive orders as evidence for how voting for the “lesser of two evils,” could be beneficial to their cause. This referred to some extremists’ reluctance to support Trump because of his position on Israel. Commenting on Musk’s Roman salute, Woods wrote that “maybe woke really is dead” (see GPAHE’s former reporting on Woods and the Groypers here)
In Germany, Björn Höcke, a member of the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) and de facto leader of that political party’s most far-right faction, Der Flügel (The Wing), also praised the presidential transition. The Wing was dissolved by the party in response to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) classifying it as a suspected case of right-wing extremism in January 2019. Hoecke wrote on Twitter that “the house of cards of wokeism, built against reality, is about to collapse in the USA,” and that would help lead to a “fortress EU.”
In Bulgaria, Kostadin Kostadinov, the leader of the far-right party Vazrazhdane (Revival), referred to the election of Trump as a “good thing for Bulgaria” citing the party’s ties to the Republican Party in the United States and Musk’s support for the AfD, which, along with Revival, is also a member of the most far-right grouping in the EU parliament, the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN).
In Brazil, the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro was denied the opportunity to attend the inauguration with his son Eduardo because of the former president’s alleged participation in organizing the coup attempt in Brasília on January 8, 2023, after losing the election to his opponent Lula de Silva. On Twitter, he wrote a heartfelt post to his friend Trump, congratulating him on his victory which “reaffirms the pillars of our civilization: God, nation, family, and freedom.”
Among pro-Russian far-right groups, there was also room for celebration. Russian neo-fascist intellectual Alexander Dugin referred to the election as a “rejection of globalism,” “woke culture,” and immigration, despite the efforts of “Soros” and the “deep state” to resist his movement. Others, such as Raphael Machado, the leader of the antisemitic and white nationalist Brazilian group Nova Resistência, acolytes of Dugin, praised Trump’s moves not only because they would further far-right goals abroad, but were also destructive to American influence around the world. This includes Trump’s aggressive posturing against the BRICS nations, which he claims would “only accelerate de-dollarization” and Trump’s desire to end support for Ukraine.
