MADRID – Donald Trump’s second term combines consensus that seem unthinkable just a few years ago. The US power is constantly retreating, leaving behind strategic vacuums that other global players can quickly fill.
This loss of influence is not just external perceptions driven by rival forces. In the West, and in Europe in particular, political elites began to see Washington as not an unshakable ally, but as a factor of instability and even a threat to their own interests.
The Ukrainian conflict is a test of this new reality for many European analysts. A war that was launched by Russia ten or two years ago would have been unthinkable. At the time, America’s power was overwhelming and it was rare to directly exercise it. Its fame and blackmailing capabilities were sufficient to thwart a serious challenge to the global order.
Portugal’s former Secretary of State for State for European Affairs Bruno Macchez recalls that in 2008, the mere hint that Washington might intervene to stop Russia’s invasion of Georgia might have been sufficient to stop his advances before Vladimir Putin reached the capital, Tbilisi. Today, that balance is changing dramatically.
It is not to argue whether Georgia’s Mother’s analysis is correct, but to acknowledge that even from a liberal European position, the loss of US power is no longer a hypothesis, but an accepted fact.
In media like The Financial Times, the term that best defines this retreat is “humiliation.” From their perspective, recent events have allowed the Kremlin to show that even if Washington fully recognizes them, it has lost its ability to stop major strategic movements.
The White House claims it will not escalate the conflict, but Russia recruited 16,000 foreign fighter jets from Syria and bombed the bases on the Polish border used by western military advisers. From a Moscow perspective, these moves are seen as evidence of American impotence to change courses of events, reinforcing the idea of a decline in global leadership.
Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, sums it upright. A statement that could have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
The repeated threat of Donald Trump’s impose tariffs on his closest allies is not considered a gesture of friendship, either enforcing concessions to other issues or simply retaliation for trade surplus with the US. This is warned by prominent representatives of European liberalism, who view it as yet another symptom of degradation in transatlantic relations.
But trade tensions are only part of the problem. Trump, Elon Musk, J.D. Vance and other magazine teams openly supported the anti-liberals of Europe and moved from rhetoric to action. Their goal is nothing more than to force a drastic change of government across the continent, without resorting to military intervention. The signs are unmistakable. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Ovan is a frequent guest at Mar-A-Lago. Vance chose to meet in Munich with Alice Weidel, alternative co-chairs of the German far-right party, on his side, and avoided a meeting with Prime Minister Olaf Scholz. His statement that the biggest challenge to Europe was the “internal threat” was a direct and non-implicit attack on the political order of the continent.
In light of this scenario, European analysts warn that the conflict between Europe and the US is no longer a strategic issue, not an ideological issue. The conclusion is clear. Europe must prepare for the moment when US safety guarantees disappear completely. This includes not only strengthening the European defence industry, but also accepting an increasingly deeper fracture with Washington.
“The transatlantic debt is collapsing,” former NATO executive director Anders Fog Rasmussen said recently. And the consequences of this fracture are already seen in the European Union itself. While countries such as France, Germany and Spain are trying to create a common response from Brussels, other member states, such as Italy and Hungary, are increasingly aligned with the visions promoted by Trump and his administration.
The debate is no longer political, it’s a matter of security. Germany’s next prime minister, Friedrich Merz, dulled in a recent interview: “Germany must completely rethink its defense agreement and end its decades of dependence on Washington.” A message that would previously have been unthinkable in the heart of Europe.
All of these analyses provide conclusions that are difficult to ignore. Military and politically, the influence of the US is falling apart. What once supported by a combination of prestige and deterrent is now being questioned not only by rival forces, but also by former allies who recognize increased irrelevance at Washington’s global stage, as well as by former allies who are beginning to seek alternatives.
One of these options is China. Amid clear indications of possible melting between the EU and Beijing, the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen called for new efforts this month to improve relations between Brussels and Beijing.
Although the 27 EU members do not have a unified position in China, their relations with Beijing are characterized by trade tensions in the war with Ukraine and China’s support for Russia. But the pressure on Europe for the US to adopt a more hawkish attitude towards China during Trump’s first term, and even Joe Biden in the White House, was a constant exacerbation of internal sectors within the EU. In 2019, Bullock labeled China as a “systematic rival,” matching a story that not all European countries share.
What is clear is that the rifts in transatlantic relations are becoming more prominent in the context of the United States no longer having the capacity or will to impose its global political narrative. The EU feels increasingly disconnected from Washington’s interests and approaches and is beginning to rethink its alliance.