After initial disbelief and the realization by some that his election was a “tragedy for the free world,” Western European leaders are witnessing U.S. President Donald Trump’s deliberately aggressive policies toward Europe. Since taking office, his administration has been tempted by a land grab of Greenland, imposed unilateral tariffs (even though Europeans don’t want U.S. cars), delivered lectures on democracy, engaged in election interference, and shown its intent to make NATO’s European members pay for their fair share of the continent’s security—a demand that dates back to 2017.
This stance is very far from—indeed, is the exact opposite of—the founding principles of Western European states and the EU: democracy based on checks and balances, fundamental rights, territorial integrity, good neighborly relations, and respect for international commitments. The decisions made by the United States since January have shattered the foundations of the Western world and, with few exceptions, left European leaders perplexed and angry. They are nevertheless resolved to keep dialogue open, convince Washington to change course when given a chance, and become more autonomous when they can.
The litmus test will be the June 24–26 NATO summit in The Hague, which will be followed on June 26–27 by a European Council meeting in Brussels. European leaders should take these opportunities to reaffirm their commitment to peace, common values, and collective defense.
Shifting Foreign Policies
The NATO summit will take place in an unprecedented atmosphere. In just five months, the organization’s most powerful member has unilaterally made major strategic concessions to Russia and introduced serious doubts about the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defense clause, the alliance’s existential pillar.
At the NATO ministerial meeting on June 5, the alliance’s non-U.S. members stated their commitment to increase their defense spending. A compromise allowed ministers to achieve a consensus by splitting the White House’s objective—that allies spend the equivalent of 5 percent of their GDP on defense—between 3.5 percent for core spending and 1.5 percent for defense- and security-related expenditure. On this basis, the NATO summit should be able to produce a clear statement about burden sharing and upholding the alliance’s values and policies. An open question is whether the United States will start to see NATO’s European members as key actors in ensuring a lasting peace on the continent, instead of sidelining them.
In addition, Trump might make a renewed offer to host a summit between him and Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, based on his May 15 statement that “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.” Such an initiative would trigger renewed misgivings from Trump’s European counterparts about their role in the continent’s future security architecture.
Summitry apart, the White House’s attitudes toward Europe have already triggered major policy shifts in the UK, France, and Germany.
The UK worked hard to preserve its special relationship with the United States and negotiated a specific trade arrangement with Washington. In parallel, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron took the lead in creating a coalition of the willing with the dual objective of boosting military supplies to Ukraine in case Washington decreases its support and reinforcing the autonomy of European countries’ security architectures.
In addition, on May 19, the UK and the EU concluded a security and defense partnership and adopted a renewed agenda, in a partial reversal of the arrangements negotiated after Brexit. Undoubtedly, the UK is navigating a perilous course, but one made necessary by Trump’s policies.
Germany, for its part, has gone through a major cultural revolution in its transatlantic relationship and its defense and security policy. After several decades of dependence on the United States for Germany’s security, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is now driving a more autonomous security policy and reinforcing Berlin’s participation in EU policies. On both subjects, this is a major geopolitical shift. Simultaneously, Merz is trying to establish a working relationship with Trump—whose grandfather, Friedrich Trump, hailed from Germany.
Among the participants in the coalition of the willing, Turkey holds a special place because of the size and quality of its defense industry. But the country’s presence creates a difficult situation for other members as its possible contribution comes amid a drastically worsening rule-of-law architecture, itself a moral headache for European leaders. If not substantially corrected, this situation will limit EU funding for Turkey’s military supplies to the coalition. But Ankara is also counting on Trump lifting sanctions imposed at the end of his first term, which canceled Ankara’s order of 120 F-35 stealth fighters; sanctions relief would thus enable Turkey’s aerospace industry to take part again in the F-35 industrial program.
Yet, the impact of the second Trump administration goes far beyond security and defense, spanning disruptions in international cooperation, support for European authoritarian leaders, connivance with Russia, and general political unpredictability.
For example, the White House’s closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development not only upended entire support programs for the world’s poorest countries but also put in jeopardy multiple joint programs between the United States and European partner organizations or UN agencies. Similarly, the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change has a direct impact on the goals on which the parties agreed in 2015.
The Trump administration’s populist and nationalist proclivities are also giving a perceivable boost to authoritarian prime ministers in Italy, Hungary, and Slovakia as well as the new Polish president and hard-right political parties in countries such as France, Germany, and Romania. Most of these actors have close relations with the Russian president, which reinforces the Kremlin’s hostile posture toward the EU and NATO—only now with support from the Trump White House.
This latter development is perhaps the most potent inflection that the second Trump presidency has given to international relations. To an extent that few—if any—dared predict, Western Europe leaders now find themselves obliged to fight off a strategic pincer movement from both Russia and the United States. Other observers have used the image of European security between Moscow’s hammer and Washington’s anvil. For many in Europe, the Trump White House sees relations with European leaders not as an alliance but as a permanent process of give-and-take.
Whatever the next twists and turns of Trump’s foreign policy will be, one feature stands out: The U.S. relationship with the rest of the world has become utterly unpredictable. Spectacular statements on trade tariffs can be reversed within days. The ending of real-time military intelligence for Ukraine can lead to reversals on the battlefield, as in Russia’s Kursk region in March, but can also be partly reinstated within days. Most major U.S. policy decisions are announced by the president himself and take the form of executive orders, which suit Trump’s communication habits. This form of governance not only reduces the United States’ influence in the world but also generates instability in the transatlantic relationship and creates dangerous inspirations for autocrats of all kinds.
Trump’s unpredictable moves are leading to the distinct unreliability of a crucial Western ally and ripple effects that are felt globally. Tackling such structural unpredictability is now the daily priority for the rest of the Western world—if the expression still means anything. Indeed, in the words of the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Tino Cuéllar, a “more fragmented, de-Americanized world” is around the corner, and “how countries respond to the upheaval will determine not only their own trajectories but also a new global order.”
Reaffirming European Values
How to navigate this new global order is a dual challenge for Europe’s leaders and citizens.
The first issue is how massive Trump’s concessions to Russia will ultimately be. Or, to put it more bluntly, will the U.S. president upend the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty?
To answer this question, it is crucial that the forthcoming NATO summit issues a clear statement based explicitly on the treaty’s three main pillars:
- Peace: “The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm . . . their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.”
- Common values: “They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.”
- Collective defense: “They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.”
Such a reaffirmation would send a crystal-clear message to Russia that NATO members are driven by peaceful intentions and united in a policy of collective defense. To Europeans, it would convey the message that, having heard the solid commitment of European leaders to increase their defense spending, the United States is not turning its back on Article 5. A serious commitment by those members of the coalition of the willing that are also NATO allies will be of utmost importance to reassure the Trump presidency.
The second issue concerns the values-based order on which modern European states and the EU itself were founded: How central will this order remain in the face of multiple attacks from Russia, its affiliates, and the Trump White House?
This question is for European leaders and citizens to answer. There is no point in speculating about whether the Russian regime will change or whether the Trump White House will become more conciliatory toward the European continent’s way of life and politics. Neither is likely to happen.
The real point is the direction of travel of European politics: Hard-right parties are heading the governments in Belgium, Hungary, and Italy and participating in the executive in Finland, the Netherlands, and Slovakia—although the Dutch government was dissolved on June 3 and an election is pending. In Bulgaria, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Sweden, hard-right parties are not in government but are significant stakeholders in national politics. Across Europe, there is a rise of authoritarian, populist, and nationalist political parties, most of which have connections with, if not support from, both Moscow and Washington.
What matters for European citizens is whether the rule of law will decline on the continent, hastened by a partnership of sorts between a dictatorial Russian president and a disruptive American one. The role of European leaders—especially Merz, Macron, and Starmer—will be crucial in the coming weeks and months.
Historical comparisons are not always accurate, but one need only look back one hundred years in European history to be frightened by the last rise of the far right and convinced to fight back against the next one. Anyone who has visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp or the Obersalzberg Documentation Center near Berchtesgaden will know where aggressive nationalism can lead.
