Pierre Vimont
Following recent Western allies’ summits—G7 and NATO in particular—European participants have come under fire from their constituents for meekly pandering to U.S. President Donald Trump. And current trade negotiations, with the EU’s repeated failure to impose an economic cost on the United States, despite its trade heft, have only fed the narrative.
In response to these critics, European leaders have stressed their sense of responsibility. The burden-shifting inside NATO in favor of an enhanced European defense cannot be done overnight. It must rely for the time being on an enduring, if gradually reduced, U.S. military presence in Europe. It is this dependence that pushes many European leaders to appease Trump. As for trade, European leaders seem to still be hoping they can avoid a full-fledged confrontation, even though Trump could not be clearer that asymmetrical tariffs are the new norm.
But European leaders are playing for time, because the twenty-seven EU member states do not share a common assessment of the extent and depth of change happening in the United States. They also lack a strategic vision for the new role the EU and their countries need to play in the post–World War II order. But in opting for a wait-and-see approach, they risk programming their own geopolitical obsolescence.
Even though Trump’s foreign policy has been less isolationist than expected, it has been frenetic and often half-baked. The U.S. moves on Ukraine, Israel, and Iran, in Europe’s most critical surroundings, have dire consequences for Europeans unless they snap out of their effacement and establish themselves as power brokers. Trump’s equivocating on Ukraine and his participation in the Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have worsened these already fraught situations, with Europeans vastly exposed to their indirect effects.
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