A Better Trans-Atlantic Relationship Is Entirely Possible |
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This article appears in the Spring 2026 print issue: The World After Trump. Read more from the issue.
This article appears in the Spring 2026 issue: The World After Trump. Subscribe now to support our journalism.
Metaphors for the troubled trans-Atlantic relationship abound. It’s a marriage, a divorce, or perhaps a parent and child navigating a soon-to-be empty nest. All are trying to get at the same thing: The trans-Atlantic dynamic is morphing into something new. Yet even as it has become increasingly clear that we are not returning to the post-Cold War status quo, too much of the debate around Europe continues to focus on how to limit the transition and fretting about worst-case scenarios. It’s true that the second Trump administration has shown a willingness to play geopolitical hardball on tariffs, Greenland, and more. But policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic seem reluctant to explore what a healthy and reconfigured relationship would look like. Why not ask the question: In a post-Trump world, what will Washington want—or need—from Europe?
In the aftermath of the Cold War, there were doubts about whether NATO would persist at all. Could a genuine European defense pillar emerge within the newly christened European Union? Policymakers in Washington, however, decided to sustain both NATO and the U.S. presence on the continent, to the extent of insisting that European states should not develop their own defense alternatives. As Madeleine Albright, U.S. secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, memorably put it, states in Europe would not be permitted to “decouple” their militaries from NATO, “discriminate” against non-European defense partners, or “duplicate” U.S. military capabilities.
Metaphors for the troubled trans-Atlantic relationship abound. It’s a marriage, a divorce, or perhaps a parent and child navigating a soon-to-be empty nest. All are trying to get at the same thing: The trans-Atlantic dynamic is morphing into something new. Yet even as it has become increasingly clear that we are not returning to the post-Cold War status quo, too much of the debate around Europe continues to focus on how to limit the transition and fretting about worst-case scenarios. It’s true that the second Trump administration has shown a willingness to play geopolitical hardball on tariffs, Greenland, and more. But policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic seem reluctant to explore what a healthy and reconfigured relationship would look like. Why not ask the question: In a post-Trump world, what will Washington want—or need—from Europe?
In the aftermath of the Cold War, there were doubts about whether NATO would persist at all. Could a genuine European defense pillar emerge within the newly christened European Union? Policymakers in Washington, however, decided to sustain both NATO and the U.S. presence on the continent, to the extent of insisting that European states should not develop their own defense alternatives. As Madeleine Albright, U.S. secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, memorably put it, states in Europe would not be permitted to “decouple” their militaries from NATO, “discriminate” against non-European defense partners, or “duplicate” U.S. military capabilities.
It was nonetheless a great deal for European states, so long as they were happy to remain dependent on U.S. power. While disagreements over issues such as the Iraq War occasionally roiled the relationship, the United States continued to provide defense to the continent—and as a result, European governments could funnel spending to more popular priorities. Over time, the average European state saw its military spending drop from 3.2 percent of GDP in the late 1980s to about 1.4 percent of GDP by 2015. The Libya debacle in 2014, in which European nations proved incapable of sustaining a bombing campaign for several days, only highlighted how poor their military capabilities had become.
Though the first Trump administration and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted discussions about European “strategic autonomy,” rearmament, and burden sharing, little changed. U.S. President Joe Biden was content to surge the U.S. military presence in Europe in exchange for remaining the largely undisputed leader of a Western, pro-democracy bloc. Foreign-policy conversations in Washington focused on what European states might contribute to U.S. aims in the Indo-Pacific. Today, some in Washington remain insistent that any shift to European defense would be damaging to U.S. interests. A 2026 report by the Council on Foreign Relations, for example, notes: “If allies were independent militarily … that would likely undermine American influence over those........