BRUSSELS — When the United States faces Belgium in the World Cup’s round-of-16 match on Monday, the politically messy, self-effacing wannabe middle power will be eyeing revenge.
First, for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 remark that living in its capital, Brussels, was “like living in a hellhole,” the start of a still-ongoing diatribe about the impact of immigration on the European Union.
And second, for a controversial decision made Sunday night by the FIFA organizers to lift U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s one-match ban — freeing him up to play against Belgium — that has sparked outrage in the small Western European country.
“This decision clearly raises many questions,” Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prévot told POLITICO on Monday. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever responded ironically and shared an image of his cat on social media that read: “Red card? I’ll play anyway.”
“True strength lies in winning with fair play [and by following all the rules]. That’s what Belgium will do,” Jacqueline Galant, Walloon sports minister from the French-speaking liberal Reformist Movement, said on X.
The White House involvement in lobbying FIFA to scrap the ban also sparked condemnation well beyond Belgian borders.
“Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls,” former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who was himself ousted in a massive corruption scandal that rocked the world football governing body, said on X on Monday. “Football must never become a playground for political power.”
European football federation UEFA said in a statement on Monday the decision “crossed a red line” before blasting, “We express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision.”
In some ways, the clash between the U.S. and Belgium reflects a deeper ideological divide.
The European country hosts the headquarters of defense alliance NATO and is a co-founding nation of the EU — multilateral institutions that Trump and his MAGA movement have railed against from the White House.
Belgium is a political labyrinth, made up of several governments sharing control, with a federal government composed of five political parties ranging everywhere from the right wing to center-left. The country prides itself on its ability to forge political compromises. (It also holds the world record for the longest time taken to form a government.)
It is the antithesis of government when viewed from the vantage point of a U.S. president who is expanding executive power, bulldozing over the separation of powers and whose political success is rooted in confrontation and polarization, rather than compromise.
Belgian politics is a system of consensus, with strong checks and balances to keep executive power under control, said Carl Devos, Belgian political scientist at the University of Ghent. “The kind of politics that Trump practices, with so much power concentrated in the hands of one man, is unthinkable” for Belgians.
In international politics, too, “Belgium makes up for its smaller size by promoting diplomacy and rulesetting. And so respecting the rules is crucial for it. What Trump is doing clashes fundamentally with our political culture,” Devos said.Trump’s intervention in the Balogun suspension is only the most recent example of that.
