Europe waits with some nervousness to see how transatlantic relations will fair in Donald Trump’s second administration. There are certainly reasons to be pessimistic. At best, the European Allies should expect a bumpy four years. To head off the worst, they must be ready to remind Americans why a strong transatlantic relationship is in the best interests of the US too. But traditional explanations may well fall on deaf ears (… as may more targeted ones).
As he prepared for office, Trump indicated that he would demand huge increases in defence spending from European Allies, appointed provocative ambassadors to key European positions, and threatened blanket tariffs on all foreign imports. He talked of making Canada the 51st US state and refused to rule out using military means to secure his wish to control Greenland. His day-one withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organisation foreshadows an administration unwilling to be bound by international agreements or customs. He appears ready to talk with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine’s head, his apparent eagerness to end the war blinding him to the risks of Russian manipulation. Meanwhile, incoming senior defence advisers have proposed deep cuts in the European force posture so that the US military can be restructured to deal with China. All this is bad news for Europe, which continues to view US engagement through NATO as the cornerstone of its security.
The Public and the Administration
More positively, most Americans understand the value of a strong transatlantic link and, by extension, of America’s continuing to extend security guarantees to its European Allies. More than 70% agree that the US should respond militarily if a European Ally is attacked. However, this support drops considerably, to around 50%, if those Allies do not meet NATO’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. This is the message more likely to resonate with the new administration. Trump has a deep-seated perception that Europe has persistently taken advantage of the US. His defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has written of the need for the US to deter Russia from acting against its (undefined) interests in Europe, but also of the need to “leverage the investments of our allies to provide for their own defence”.
This sense of unfairness is not new. US complaints about Europe not pulling its weight date back to the earliest days of NATO. In 1953, just four years after the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, President Eisenhower warned that, “The American well can run dry.” What is new, however, is that many of the traditional arguments for the US to retain an interest in European security—arguments that have, at least in part, balanced these burden-sharing concerns—seem unlikely to find favour with the new administration. Somewhat abstract beliefs that have nurtured the Alliance for 75 years—notions of shared values and ideology—will not persuade a famously transactional president. The administration appears unconvinced that forward basing—at least in Europe—offers the US any strategic advantage worth having. Trump’s America First doctrine has no place for partnership in solving problems. In this environment, according to one analyst, just one of America’s European and Asian allies (Latvia), might consider itself to be ‘safe’ from Trump’s displeasure.
Transactional Thinking
The European Allies cannot simply give up, but they will need to rethink their messaging. Perhaps the first point they might make to the US is that the Allies do contribute, even if the measures commonly used to assess their efforts do not recognise this. NATO’s target that Allies should spend 2% of GDP on defence, for example, has assumed a political importance beyond its value as a measurement of defence contribution, which has allowed it to be twisted by the president into a weapon. By contrast, a recent Rand study, which took a broader approach to measuring the share of the total cost of global security delivered by the US and its allies, found that the Europeans accounted for about 38%—almost identical to the share delivered by the US of 39%, itself down from 53% in 2017. Similarly, CSIS has proposed a ‘responsibility sharing’ measure that paints the contributions of the European Allies in a kinder light.
Europe’s defence spending has surged over the past decade, but many shortfalls remain to be addressed. The European Allies must certainly do more, and be seen to do more. But they need not accept the new president’s characterisation of their efforts. Their contribution to broader security is a clear indication of their readiness to help the US preserve global leadership and influence while China, Russia, and others are increasingly ready to challenge the accomplishments that America has built over decades—international trade, a predictable rules-based order, the advance of democracy and human rights, a world free of great power conflict. The apparent ambivalence of a large majority of countries to Ukraine’s suffering at the hands of Russia’s illegal aggression shows the level of effort that will be needed to preserve benefits the west has perhaps come to take for granted. Competition with China is simply too large an issue to be handled by America alone. The US will need continued European support, and, in turn, it will need to support its European and other Allies.
Europe might also point out the economic benefits of America’s continuing commitment to Europe. Crises in Europe that may arise in an absence of US leadership—military, political, and economic—would have unpredictable spillover effects that would damage the global and US economies. In Europe alone, US direct investment was worth close to $4 trillion in 2023 (and European direct investment in the US $3.4 trillion). For comparison, the US defence budget for that year, only part of which was aimed at European security, amounted to $875 billion. More immediately, the imperative of supporting Ukraine also has a financial component. A report by the American Enterprise Institute has calculated that maintaining US commitments to NATO in the more dangerous world that would follow a Russian victory would require an addition to the defence budget of more than $800 billion over five years.
There is no guarantee, of course, that a more transactional perspective will persuade a president whose unpredictability is his calling card and who has deliberately surrounded himself with disrupters, apparently determined to tear down rather than build up. It may be that Europe will have to take a tougher approach and to use its economic interdependence with the US as a bargaining chip. In whatever follows, it will be imperative that Europeans stick together and speak to America with one voice. Meanwhile, they should continue urgently to strengthen their own defence posture to better partner America: actions may prove to be more persuasive to the new administration than words. They should, however, be aware that this argument too is not new and may well be met with shrugged shoulders or contempt. If so, Europeans will at least be better prepared to take matters into their own hands and to show the constructive engagement and leadership that Washington now seems to lack.