Is it time now for Europe to go its own way?

As a long-time believer in the centrality of the US-European alliance, I'm starting to have doubts

Hello subscribers,

Hope you dont mind this extra midweek note. I was thinking through some thoughts on European-US relations and the future of European security—and just wanted to write them down. Would love to hear what you think!

Donald Trump let the cat out of the bag . Multiple reports are now circulating that during the Davos summit in 2020, the US President told the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, that regardless of America’s treaty commitment under the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) , that the US would never fight for Europe.¹

To quote:

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,”

Just in case von der Leyen was in any doubt about Trump’s seriousness, he then doubled down.

“By the way, Nato is dead, and we will leave, we will quit Nato.”

Trump and von der Leyen during the meeting when he told her the above.

What makes this more important—it was when Russia was considered to be much stronger by most people, and it was widely believed that the Russian Army could overrun parts of Central/Eastern Europe in short order. Trump was saying to Europeans: “Screw you, your democracies and your social cohesion.” Trump’s America doesn’t care if you are free or not, prosperous or not, and the US doesnt even care if it is legally obligated to defend Europe or not

Reading this, I was struck not by my feeling of shock—but instead how depressingly unsurprising it was that the US President spoke openly like this. To put it plainly, over the last few years its become clear that the US, and this goes for the Biden Administration as well (see below) no longer sees European security and stability as a particularly high priority. Trump might be extreme (but he still has the support of almost 50% of the US electorate) but his lack of interest in European security is not. Its actually bipartisan and could even grow.

The Biden Administration, in its policy towards Ukraine, has shown how deeply ingrained this type outlook has become…