Soros Foundation Worries Trump Will Win in 2024 and ‘Imperil’ Globalism

Billionaire investor George Soros delivers a speech on the sideline of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, eastern Switzerland on Jan. 24, 2019. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

George Soros’s foundation is worried that former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 election and undermine globalist “unity,” while warning of supposed harms coming from a potential “MAGA-style Republican victory” more generally.

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), which Mr. Soros’ 37-year-old son, Alex Soros now leads, is “adapting” so that it’s able to respond to whatever political scenario emerges after the dust settles from next year’s presidential election in America.

“We are adapting OSF to be able to respond to whatever scenarios might emerge, on both sides of the Atlantic,” George Soros’ son wrote in a recent op-ed for Politico headlined “No Soros retreat from Europe.”

The op-ed came in response to news headlines claiming that the Soros foundation was “retreating” from Europe as part of a new “strategic direction” under new leadership.

In it, Mr. Alex Soros (self-avowedly “more political” than his father) clarified that the rumored exit is nothing of the sort—or not exactly. He characterized the change as a shift in priorities towards Eastern Europe that would involve a retrenchment of some operations, including “significantly” reducing headcount.

However, the younger Mr. Soros also used the opportunity of the op-ed to express his views on American politics—and fret about the prospect of a Trump victory.

Trump Win to Endanger ‘Unity’?

Mr. Soros worries that a victory by President Trump—or another “MAGA-style” candidate—would endanger European unity and deliver a blow to the globalist agenda.

“Former United States President Donald Trump—or at least someone with his isolationist and anti-European policies—will be the Republican nominee,” he predicted, adding that he believes that “a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s U.S. presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the U.S.”

Mr. Soros described the threat of a Trump or a “MAGA-style” Republican win in 2024 as an outcome that “will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on so many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine.”

While he didn’t elaborate further on how a Trump win would endanger European unity or lead to undesirable outcomes in regards to Ukraine, there has been speculation that President Trump would push for a peace deal that would force Ukraine to accept some territorial concessions.

President Trump has pledged that he can end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, while refusing to say which side he wants to win.

“When I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours,” President Trump said during a CNN town hall in mid May, adding that he would meet with both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin and pressure them to make a deal.

“They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths, and within 24 hours that war will be settled, it’ll be over,” President Trump said at the town hall.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a CNN Town Hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on May 10, 2023, in a still from video. CNN/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

In an interview on Fox News around the same time, President Trump provided more details on how he would persuade both sides to lay down arms and accept a peace settlement.

“I would tell Zelensky, no more. You got to make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give him a lot. We’re going to [give Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to,” President Trump said, adding that “he will have the deal done in one day.”

Polls show that support for the Ukraine war among the American public has waned, with a recent CNN-SSRS poll (pdf) released on Aug. 4 showing that a majority (51 percent) said the United States has done enough.

The United States has been a leading provider of security assistance to Ukraine, with the U.S. State Department saying on Aug. 22 that U.S. military aid and training to Ukraine amounts to nearly $46 billion since 2014, with $43.1 billion of that since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story from The Epoch Times.

‘This Isn’t Any Kind of a Retreat’

Mr. Soros’ op-ed came amid a spate of news headlines that said OSF was pulling the plug on its European operations.

Quoting from an internal OSF email to staff in July, The Guardian reported that the new directional shift for the organization “provides for withdrawal and termination of large parts of our current work within the European Union, shifting our focus and allocation of resources to other parts of the world.”

The Guardian report framed the strategic shift as a “retreat from Europe” that could “turn off the lights for human rights,” while Bloomberg ran a headline that said “Soros Retreats as Right Wing Gains In Europe.”

But Mr. Soros explained that, as OSF “retools how it works globally,” the foundation is shifting its priorities in Europe but “this isn’t any kind of a retreat.”

“Yes, this means we will be exiting some areas of work as we focus on today’s challenges, as well as those we will face tomorrow. And yes, we will also be reducing our headcount significantly, seeking to ensure more money goes out to where it’s most needed,” Mr. Soros wrote.

However, despite cutting jobs and rejigging money flows, Mr. Soros said that OSF would continue to support its affiliates in Moldova and the Western Balkans, and that “there should be absolutely no doubt that we will continue to support our foundation in Ukraine.”

He also said that OSF would “dramatically” increase its support for some 12 million Roma, most of whom live in Eastern Europe, in their efforts to “secure equal treatment.”

Around 40 percent of OSF’s global staff will be cut as part of the strategic shift, per the July email cited by The Guardian.

New Leadership

The job cuts at OSF were already on the menu when the elder Mr. Soros announced in June that he had handed the reins of his foundation to his son.

The Democrat megadonor told the Wall Street Journal at the time that he initially didn’t want to cede control of the foundation to any member of his family “as a matter of principle.”

However, he said that he and his son “think alike” and that he’s taking over at the helm of the foundation because “he’s earned it.”

At the time, Alex Soros told the outlet that he’s “more political” than his father and that he’s worried about the prospect of a Trump win in 2024.

“As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it, too,” he told the Journal, suggesting that the deep pockets of the Soros organization will be deployed to support presidential campaigns opposing President Trump.

Alex Soros was elected to the OSF board as its chairman in December 2022.