During his four years in the White House, former U.S. President Joe Biden aggressively championed the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and applauded Sweden and Finland's decision to join the alliance. Biden valued the United States' post-World War 2 alliances with European countries, which he viewed as important to U.S. interests from a national security standpoint. And he favored military aid to Ukraine without putting American "boots on the ground."
U.S. President Donald Trump's return to the White House 11 months ago saw a major departure from Biden's foreign policy. Although Trump isn't outright calling for U.S. withdrawal from NATO — an idea he toyed with during his first presidency — he is much more critical of the European Union (EU) and NATO than Biden.
Politico's Eli Stokols, in an article published on December 23, examines the dramatic changes in U.S./Europe relations that have occurred during Trump's second presidency.
"President Donald Trump's first year back in office shattered any remaining illusions among European leaders that he can be managed or controlled," Stokols reports. "His open hostility toward the European Union has strained a transatlantic alliance that's endured since World War 2 and deepened rifts between Europe's national leaders and within the bloc, imperiling its ability to respond to Trump's threats and taunts with the kind of unity and strength he respects. That's left Ukraine's fate hanging in the balance heading into 2026, not to mention unanswered existential questions about European security at a moment when many fear Russian President Vladimir Putin's territorial aims extend further westward beyond Ukraine."
Stokols adds, "But in many ways, Europe has survived the rollercoaster — for now."
According to Jana Puglierin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Europe's relationship with the U.S. has changed considerably during Trump's second presidency.
Puglierin told Politico, "The Europeans cannot afford to cut ties and to hand in the divorce papers because they are still too dependent, especially when it comes to security and an American military commitment to defending Europe…. We need to be pretty clear-eyed. In the old days, there was a clear mainstream understanding of the old transatlantic relationship enshrined by the western values and norms and principles, the rules-based international order. And now, I think we see a competing project emerging."
The Trump Administration's newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) is highly critical of the EU, emphasizing culture-war themes and claiming that Europe is committing "cultural suicide."
Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, considers the 2025 NSS a "game changer" that has "permanently changed" the post-WW2 U.S./Europe alliance.
Stelzenmüller told Politico, "It shouldn't be underestimated how much of a shock it was for European leaders and publics to read the Europe chapter of the National Security Strategy and to see put in writing that this administration thinks of Europe, or European political centrists, as unreliable allies and is taking such an adversarial one against them. For 2026, we need to buckle up and plan for the worst on all counts. We have obvious vulnerabilities, and those are going to be exploited…. This is shattering for a lot of the countries who thought that there was nothing safer than their bilateral relationship with the United States."
Read Eli Stokols' full article for Politico at this link.
