Jennifer Kavanagh and Peter Slezkine
When U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he had his sights set on rebalancing the transatlantic relationship. He would be right to do so. The United States’ burden in NATO is out of proportion with the interests at stake, and regulations set in Brussels have resulted in a lopsided U.S.-EU trade regime. Although it is one of 32 NATO members, the United States covers 16 percent of NATO’s annual budget and shoulders most of the operational and logistical burden for Europe’s security. Meanwhile, the EU has long used tariff and nontariff barriers to limit access for U.S. agricultural and industrial products and has obstructed the operation of American small business and Big Tech with rules and red tape.
Trump took aim at Europe as soon as he entered office. Shortly after his inauguration, he dispatched Vice President JD Vance and the freshly confirmed U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to warn Europeans that Washington’s “new sheriff” was intent on changing the terms of the relationship. In Paris, Vance called on Europe to lower regulation of artificial intelligence and energy. In Munich, he questioned Europe’s continued commitment to shared Western values. In Brussels, Hegseth announced that the United States could no longer focus primarily on Europe’s security and would be shifting to other priorities. Soon after, Trump levied punitive tariffs designed to pressure Europe to reduce trade barriers and regulations that limit the access of U.S. firms.
This multifront pressure campaign produced some initial results. At a NATO summit meeting in June, European allies promised to increase their defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035. In July, Trump and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced a trade deal committing the EU to purchase $750 billion in American energy products and invest $600 billion in the U.S. market by 2028.
Yet these successes were at best partial, and perhaps illusory. The five percent pledge by European allies does almost nothing for the United States in the near term, and since today’s leaders cannot credibly bind the hands of future ones, it is an open question whether European countries will ever meet these spending targets. Moreover, the United States has retained control of key leadership positions in NATO, ensuring that Europe’s institutionalized military dependence will endure.
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