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Donald Trump has always been an avowed transactionalist rather than a transatlanticist. The author of The Art of the Deal made it clear during his first term as US president that he thought Nato was a bad deal for the US. He publicly berated European allies, notably Germany, for not spending enough on defence and leaving the US to pick up the tab.
But with his Ukraine policy, Trump 2.0 is forcing Europeans to confront the previously unthinkable: an international order where the US is no longer an automatic ally of European security.
Lord Ismay, the first secretary-general of Nato, quipped that the purpose of the transatlantic alliance was to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. For the following decades, Nato worked pretty much as intended. It provided the political and organisational basis for a significant US military presence, including an active US nuclear deterrent.
The transatlantic alliance nevertheless witnessed some significant disagreements. In 1966, French president Charles de Gaulle forced US and other allied troops to leave French soil and withdrew from Nato’s integrated military command. The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq generated enormous tension among Nato allies as France and Germany opposed American attempts to get UN backing for military action. Yet within months, these two countries made a major commitment to the Nato force that was deployed to Afghanistan for 20 years.
Like any international organisation, Nato’s history thus reflects a mix of success, failure, and muddling through. Ukraine-Nato relations encapsulate this reality. In 2008, the US was pushing European allies to welcome Ukraine as a Nato member. Back then, it was the leaders of France and Germany who refused to back the proposal.
No longer an ally
In the aftermath of the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, Ukraine pursued a twin track of seeking EU and Nato membership. This strategy is based on the longstanding complementary nature of European integration and transatlantic collective security. Central and eastern European countries embraced this arrangement after the collapse of the Soviet Union, much to the displeasure of Vladimir Putin.
But Trump’s actions since January have fundamentally called into question the reliability of the US as a European ally. His insistence on doing a minerals deal to guarantee that Ukraine pays back US support for the war effort is transactionalism on steroids. It is also a unilateral move that contradicts the multilateral approach for supporting Ukraine that the US coordinated via the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an alliance of 57 nations founded in 2022.
More worrying still is Trump’s break with the underlying common values underpinning Nato. An alliance committed to defending its territorial integrity, including through the use of its nuclear arsenal, requires a commitment to a higher political goal. Since the end of the cold war, that overriding objective has been defined as freedom and democracy.
The second Trump administration does not even seem to want to pay lip service to these transatlantic values. Trump has labelled Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator”. And at the latest UN summit, the US delegation voted with Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Read more: US says European security no longer its primary focus – the shift has been years in the making
EU defence without the US
Shell-shocked European leaders are adapting to this harsh new reality. An initial reaction, as illustrated by UK prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, has been to promise more money for defence spending. This move constitutes a hedge: it ought to please Trump, while providing a platform for a future reconfiguration of European security.
How to defend Europe is now an existential question rather than a purely material one. De Gaulle always insisted that Europe’s defence and foreign policy needed to serve its own interests rather than America’s. He lost that battle, but the newly elected German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is sounding rather Gaullist in his recent calls for a more independent European security policy.
Another move taken from de Gaulle’s playbook is the EU’s focus on defence industrial strategy. A strong technological and industrial base is a pre-requisite of an independent security policy, and with this in mind, the EU’s defence industry programme was announced in spring 2024. The details of this new policy are currently being hashed out, but are likely to include some type of “made in Europe” requirement.
Read more: Ukraine: prospects for peace are slim unless Europe grips the reality of Trump’s world
Europe has to renew its purpose
What is clear is that an independent security policy for Europe is both costly and a political minefield – one reliable estimate puts the cost at 250 billion euros per year. Getting public backing for this big spending increase is not impossible, yet it means tough choices, as shown by Starmer’s cuts to the UK’s foreign aid budget.
Trickier still is finding the leadership to coordinate defence spending and strategy. European decision-makers and the parties they represent are far from aligned over the need to find an alternative to the US security guarantee. Indeed, Polish president Andrzej Duda responded to Merz’s calls for greater EU independence from the US by offering to host the US troops currently based in Germany.
Trump has shattered a number of European illusions. Creating a new European security architecture will depend on finding more than just cash – it needs a new shared objective, not just a repudiation of grubby transactionalism.
Andrew Glencross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
