Europe has been dealing with a series of ongoing crises—Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2014/2022), the rise of populist nationalism, and increasing economic challenges in some countries. While the re-election of President Donald J. Trump was not unexpected, the administration’s actions in the first months of the president’s second term exacerbate all three challenges and ruin the foundation upon which the friendly transatlantic relations were built since World War II.
Even more damaging than the administration’s antagonistic measures is the shattered belief that Europe and the United States are jointly upholding common values and ideas. EuropeFootnote 1 is not only a continent but also an idea that has been pursued across centuries. As it currently stands, this idea is rooted in democracy, human rights, and the rule of lawFootnote 2 as founding principles, based on the Enlightenment, and reflected in the major European international organizations: the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union (EU). Those principles became important landmarks, as they were considered critical conditions for upholding peace between European nations, which for centuries had been torn apart by wars.Footnote 3 The belief in peace through law, including peaceful settlement of disputes, is deeply engrained. It has also led to the description of Europe as a civilian and normative power, not a military one.Footnote 4
Europeans have been immensely grateful for having been saved by the United States from the scourge of Nazism and dictatorship, at immense human and material costs. American soldiers were saviors and friends; the new generation grew up remembering the first chewing gums given to them by the U.S. soldiers, creating a strong emotional bond; the United States was the big, protective brother first for Western Europe and after 1990 for Europe as a whole. This has changed.Footnote 5 Europe viewed the United States as its closest ally and friend (next to other European states), sharing the values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Europe also shared with the United States the belief in the role and importance of science, facts, and data gathering in achieving better policies, deeply rooted in the Enlightenment. It relied on the protection of the United States during the Cold War, via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).Footnote 6 And the United States became Europe’s biggest trading partner.Footnote 7 The implicit and explicit reliance on, and trust in, the United States in matters of international values, security (despite fault lines, such as the 2003 Iraq war), trade, and international cooperation has been huge, and it has an emotional element as well, as all trust has. Already during the first Trump administration, there were disappointed expectations. And it was difficult for Europe to adapt to the changing grammar of relations, resulting in calls (reluctantly heeded)Footnote 8 from French President Emmanuel Macron for strategic autonomy.Footnote 9 Now, the sentiment of French Senator Claude Malhuret, that Europe “is fighting a dictator (Putin), supported by a traitor (Trump),”Footnote 10 is widely shared. The impression is that the national and international rule of law have been displaced by uncertainty and by fear as an instrument of power—for people, companies, and states alike.
For Europeans, what is even more shocking about Trump 2.0 is the very openness of the abrupt and seismic shift from cooperative to transactional and zero-sum relations, as well as the United States’ concomitant move to discard and disregard the language and ordering function of international law in international relations that Europe holds dear. It is the language of the Trump administration—a type of Orwellian “new speak” that avoids mentioning international law and the (liberal democratic) values upon which the world order post-World War II has been built—that most irritates Europeans.Footnote 11 The law’s character as an argumentative practice seems to have been discarded by the Trump administration, replaced by a discourse of “deal-making” that is in reality a strategy of coercion.
The impression is mounting that the rift also amounts to a culture war,Footnote 12 with U.S. society seeming to be increasingly aligned with authoritarian states like Russia on human rights and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as the relationship between state and religion. The sense is that the shared values are no more, just as a common understanding of enlightened self-interest, based on science, is also now gone.
Given that Europe was founded on (the rule of) law in its internal relations (this being viewed not only as a central achievement of the post-World War II order but also an essential feature of peaceful relations within Europe and globally), U.S. abandonment of the values that had been shared for so long came as quite a shock, especially after Russia’s flagrant disregard of the UN Charter and the CoE principles in 2022. Now, Europe finds itself not only squeezed between two major powers disregarding international law (expected from Russia, but still with an emotional shock to have a war of aggression on European soil)Footnote 13 but also encumbered with disappointed expectations concerning the United States.
In the remainder of this essay, I do not focus on the Trump administration’s actions in specific areas of international law.Footnote 14 Rather, the focus is on the structural issues that affect Europe deeply. Although the whole world is concerned with these actions, for Europe, having been a close U.S. partner in the last eighty years, they are especially upsetting and disrupting. I focus on three themes: (1) U.S. actions that paralyze multilateralism and demonstrate zero-sum thinking and free-riding on the provision of global public goods and commons;Footnote 15 (2) U.S. conduct and statements that ignore central pillars of international law; and (3) U.S. activities that destabilize Europe itself through political meddling.
Free-Riding on Multilateralism
After World War II, Europe constructed the international legal order in close transatlantic cooperation with the United States. Despite strong realist and sometimes isolationist views in the United States, a positive sum thinking on multilateralism seems to have been the norm in the relationship, embedded and based on international law and friendly diplomatic relations. There have always been differences in view, but there was a strong basis on which to work together and with other states. What we see now is the United States, with great speed, turning its back on the multilateralism that characterized prior decades,Footnote 16 withdrawing contributions to global public goods, potentially weakening the global commons and endangering club goods such as security pacts. To be sure, withdrawal from treaties and international organizations is not a violation of international law. Yet, it amounts to a significant weakening of the multilateral institutions that were built to provide global public goods and preserve the global commons. And it leads, as well, to free-riding on the provision of those goods, for example, climate change mitigation. Since states, as people, are conditional cooperators, if the expectation is created that others, especially big players, will not cooperate, the provision of those goods may break down entirely, endangering multilateralism overall.Footnote 17
The United States trades with the EU (and basically all of Europe)Footnote 18 on the basis of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.Footnote 19 The first signs of weakening of the international trading order, as built after World War II and reaffirmed and extended in the 1990s, came with the non-reappointment of WTO Appellate Body (AB) members during the Obama and first Trump administrations, rendering the AB non-operational.Footnote 20 The EU reacted with the initiative of the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA),Footnote 21 as an alternative system for resolving WTO disputes (of which the United States is not a part), reflecting the deep European belief in settling disputes through judicial mechanisms. The multiple U.S. violations of WTO law during the first Trump administration through the imposition of tariffs that were justified on the basis of national securityFootnote 22 were followed by a complete undermining of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’s (GATT) Most-Favored Nation Clause in President Trump’s second term through the imposition of “reciprocal tariffs.” These trade policies ignored WTO commitments and undermined basic norms of global trade. The politization of trade policy by the Trump administration and the interference in the domaine réservé of targeted countriesFootnote 23 is deeply troubling for Europe. In reaction, Europeans are already boycotting U.S. goods.Footnote 24
The EU declared after the announcement of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs that it will stand firm and retaliate. Europe was still hoping for a resolution of the trade conflict even as it reaffirmed its advocacy for free and fair trade and expressed its disappointment in being “let down by [its] oldest ally.”Footnote 25 On July 27, after a meeting between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Trump, it was announced that there was a “deal.”Footnote 26 It envisages a 15 percent tariff on most EU exports to the United States, half the rate previously threatened, in return for Europe purchasing more American energy and slashing taxes on some imports. The deal did not receive a warm welcome in European capitals. French Prime Minister Bayrou called it tantamount to “submission,” whereas German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the agreement would “substantially damage” Germany’s finances.Footnote 27 Although a bigger trade war was avoided, President Trump announced in September his intention to lay new tariffs on heavy trucks, kitchen cabinets, furniture, and pharmaceutical products (the latter at rate of 100 percent) unless companies invested in the United States.Footnote 28 The U.S.-EU “deal” will hit the EU economies hard at the same time they have promised to augment defense spending and make investments to achieve the climate goals. Given that it falls short of satisfying WTO requirements, it endangers the European Union’s credibility in upholding the international trading systemFootnote 29 and risks watering down certain European regulations in the field of sustainability.
The United States used to be, laudably, heavily engaged in the provision of global public goods such as health, having been also the biggest provider of funds for the World Health OrganizationFootnote 30 before it announced its withdrawal in January 2025. A withdrawal will not only weaken the institution, and thus global health; it will also increase the likelihood of spill-over effects of communicable diseases, which, ironically, will endanger U.S. health. Furthermore, the withdrawal of funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development will have heavy health consequences around the Global South, including the risk of starvation. Coupled with the national dismantling of health institutions, health research, and data, as well as politically fostered vaccine skepticism, there is in Europe disbelief at how the Trump administration has thrown away the progress made on the public good of health over the past decades.
Another, expected move was the U.S. cessation of its commitment to combat climate change under the Paris Agreement.Footnote 31 While exiting the Paris Agreement was a—legal—repeat of President Trump’s first term, it nevertheless demonstrates a non-willingness to contribute to a global public good and instead free ride.Footnote 32 Europe will remain faithful to its climate goals, yet, it will potentially be put in a competitive disadvantage in the short run.
The Trump administration is also endangering the concept of common heritage of humankind. The executive order fostering deep seabed mining beyond national jurisdictionFootnote 33 is viewed, by China and Europe, as a violation of international law.Footnote 34 Given that the United States has signed the Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XIFootnote 35 of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas,Footnote 36 albeit not having ratified it, it has an obligation to refrain in good faith from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty. Again here, the U.S. move puts other countries at a competitive disadvantage, thus risking a break-down of multilateral cooperation on the deep seabed via provoking a race to mining. The plan to put a nuclear reactor on the moon announced by NASAFootnote 37 follows the same rationale—exploiting the global commons. It similarly creates incentives for other states to do the same.
The United States also puts into question the club good of security as created by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Europe’s NATO member countries rallied around the United States after the September 11 attacks and the U.S. call under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to consider those attacks as an attack on all. Article 5 is based on mutual trust, and absent that trust, the organization itself is useless. Yet, Europe was complacent and sleepwalking, free-riding on the U.S. security umbrella and naïve regarding the self-interest of the United States. It is not absurd to argue that NATO ceased to be credible already with the downfall of the Soviet Union since there was thereafter no narrowly understood U.S. self-interest to defend Europe. Yet, Europeans did not realize that, nor did they take action, despite stark warnings during the first Trump administration. The United States’ non-committal response to the drone incursions into Poland, and its characterization as a potential mistake by President Trump,Footnote 38 has not helped. President Trump rightly asked European NATO members to step up defense spending, already in the first term, albeit simultaneously questioning Article 5. Incredulity ensued in the first months of 2025, when President Trump halted intelligence sharing to Ukraine, publicly degraded President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, blamed both Ukraine and Russia equally for the war, and announced that the United States would accept a land-for-peace “deal,” ignoring the UN Charter. The call for a land-for-peace agreement was repeated after President Trump met President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. European leaders stressed their support for Ukraine, ruling out legal recognition of land acquired by force when they accompanied President Zelensky to the White House in August 2025. As German Chancellor Merz said: “This isn’t just about Ukraine’s territory; it’s about the political order of Europe.”Footnote 39
The United States’ new coyness with European security has scared its NATO partners, many of which—particularly those in the east, such as Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states—feel deeply threatened by Russia. As a reaction, those bordering states have initiated their withdrawal from the Mine-Ban Convention.Footnote 40 Reacting to the extensive use of mines by Russia (which is not a party), President Zelensky also announced his intention to withdraw Ukraine from the treaty, and in the meantime Ukraine has suspended its operation.Footnote 41 Although understandable, these withdrawals contradict EU efforts, as well as the Oslo Action Plan to strengthen the treaty.Footnote 42
Building defense and intelligence capabilities takes time, yet coordinated efforts within the EU, as well as with NATO members that are not EU members, are accelerating. The EU only hesitantly took action during the first Trump administration following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It launched the European Defence Fund and the Permanent Structured Cooperation in 2017 to deepen defense collaboration. Europe is now taking a more active approach. States are increasing defense spending, strengthening intra-European security arrangements beyond NATO (Franco-German cooperation; Nordic-Baltic defense networks), and transatlantic defense doctrines (especially regarding nuclear deterrence and command structures) are being revisited to hedge against possible U.S. disengagement. The EU Commission announced the ReArm Europe Plan in 2025, which includes funding for defense capabilities up to €800 billion.Footnote 43
Especially notable is the United Kingdom’s reaction.Footnote 44 It is rebuilding its diplomatic, economic, and security bridges with the EU, especially Germany and France, standing firm against Russia. The UK agreed to coordinate nuclear arsenals with France and concluded a treaty with Germany on mutual defense. These three important states are not breaking ties with the United Staters completely, but the institutions they are building will supplement NATO and the G7.Footnote 45 Nevertheless, there remain different views in Europe on the engagement with the United States. The unreliability of U.S. behavior creates paralysis. Relying on NATO, the EU never fully developed its European Defence Union, as envisaged in Lisbon Treaty’s Article 42, since a duplication in defense structures would be costly. Yet, there is a rising awareness of Europe’s, now uncomfortable, dependence on the U.S. defense kit. European arm makers are building up their industry and better European joint procurement is being planned. Yet, the uncertainty around Article 5 still prevents Europe from taking its security fate fully in its own hands, even more so given the requests by the Trump administration for Europe to buy U.S. weapons in the U.S.-EU trade deal.
International Law Anomie
Even more breathtaking to Europeans than the U.S. withdrawal from its multilateral commitments was its apparent renunciation of core elements of the international legal order. It is one thing for the United States not to have an interest in adhering to international law in certain circumstances. It is another to send signals, as is now standard in Trump 2.0, that indicate that the United States has no serious interest in international law as such or working with international institutions. Unfortunately, there are many examples.
President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland, possibly even by force, is prohibited by the UN Charter. It is legally incompatible with the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, and self-determination. The tactics that the United States has employed, including influence operations to promote Greenland’s secession from Denmark,Footnote 46 are reminiscent of Russia’s covert actions in Europe to influence elections.
A further disregard of the UN Charter manifested in President Trump’s so-called “final offer” in late April, that would have required Ukraine to de jure recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea (land for peace), de facto accept Russian control over nearly the entirety of the occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, and renounce any prospect of joining NATO.Footnote 47 This demand came after the halting of U.S. intelligence sharingFootnote 48 and military aid to Ukraine. It was considered in Europe as bullying, the “final offer” a clear breach of international law. All this took place concurrently with the “mineral deal.”Footnote 49 Signed under pressure, the agreement retains neo-colonial characteristics of resource exploitation. At the same time came the announcement that the U.S. administration was defunding the database crucial for documenting the criminal accountability of President Putin for war crimes.Footnote 50
The sanctioning of International Criminal Court (ICC) officials by President TrumpFootnote 51 was condemned by the EU Commission and governments.Footnote 52 From a European perspective, international accountability for international crimes should be pursued through international law. Forty-five European states are state parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC,Footnote 53 and the EU has actively promoted for many years the court’s development as a pillar of the international legal order.Footnote 54
Another instance of complete disregard of basic principles of international law was President Trump’s call for the removal of Palestinians from the Gaza strip, an act that would amount to a crime against humanity.Footnote 55 European countries have collectively condemned the October 7 massacre by Hamas and have reaffirmed the right of Israel to defend itself within the limits of international law. Increasingly, those limits are being broken, and Europe is less willing to stand by the side of Israel.Footnote 56 The UK and Norway, among others, have issued sanctions against Israeli ministers for the incitement of violence in the illegal settlements in the West Bank.Footnote 57 The current debate centers around the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, given Israel’s human rights violations,Footnote 58 and many European states have ceased arms delivery to Israel, including Germany.
Meddling in European Liberal Democracies
Contributing to the opening of the transatlantic political and value schism is the impression from European countries that the United States is actively fostering ethno-nationalistic, right-wing populist parties in Europe, contributing to destabilization and undermining Europe’s (formerly shared) values. President Trump has said that the EU was created to “screw” the United States, and he acts as if the EU were a hostile power.Footnote 59 The open friendship between Hungary’s President Viktor Orbán and President Trump is not easy to bear. Hungary not only calls itself an illiberal democracy, but it also actively disrupts EU foreign and internal politics, weakening the “one voice” EU that is so dearly needed to uphold faithfulness to international law and confront Russian aggression. It is also the most corrupt EU member.Footnote 60 The meddling by the Trump administration includes support for right-wing extremist parties with Nazi ties in Germany.Footnote 61 Elon Musk’s interview with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel,Footnote 62 and Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with herFootnote 63 prior to Germany’s parliamentary elections were perceived as unfriendly interference. Similar instances have occurred in other European countries, including veiled hints that not electing nationalist candidates could endanger security (as in the Polish presidential elections).Footnote 64 Given that the EU and the Council of Europe are founded on liberal democratic values, this support for forces that aim to undermine exactly those values is considered as openly hostile.
Although within Europe, the backlash against DEI is not as fierce as in the United States, U.S. government measures bolster voices that are critical of DEI and risk a culture war within Europe. Many multinational European companies have already shed their DEI policies as a reaction to the developments in the United States and letters sent by the Trump AdministrationFootnote 65 to European companies.Footnote 66 Further, Europeans are ever more concerned about democratic backsliding in the United States, including attacks on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and academic freedom, as well as the dismantling of the checks on executive power. Given the attacks on universities and academics, Europeans have issued programs to attract top American researchers.Footnote 67
President Trump might nudge forward changes in what liberal democracy means in Europe, even if his actions have the result of bringing Europe closer together and do not result in victory by populist right-wing parties. The Trump administration and the populist movements in Europe are counterparts. We may see centrist governments and the EU change in response to both in order to contain the populist threat that has been strengthened and promoted by the Trump administration, as well as more subtle mimetic effects. The threat of President Trump is thus also a threat within a liberal democratic Europe.
Conclusion
In spite of the fear and anxiety within Europe, and the deep regret and empathy that it has with the U.S. citizens and residents, the second Trump administration is an opportunity for Europe. As Jean Monnet, a founding father of the EU, said: “Europe will be forged in crisis, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.”Footnote 68
Europe has the opportunity to show leadership to the free world,Footnote 69 to uphold liberal democratic values, multilateralism, and the importance of international norms. The Trumpian foreign policy of coercion only works when states compete with each other (divide et impera). Consequently, coordination and standing together can uphold the international order. Currently, the gap in international leadership is being filled by China, not Europe—and that will heavily weaken the liberal international order. To fill the role that the United States has abjured, Europe needs to ramp up public investment, develop its capital market, coordinate on defense, and pass economic reforms to ensure competitiveness. It also must stand firm on international core values and international law despite finding itself between Scylla and Charybdis—breaking international law to save itself (in trade and global commons) or holding fast in an ever-weaker competitive position.
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