Germany and the transatlantic divorce
Caught in the Iran war, Donald Trump has chosen to toughen reprisals against the European Union. The threat of a trade war has once again surfaced to punish, precisely, allied reluctance to be involved in the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The more Trump pressures, the further the EU moves away. The transatlantic distance is becoming insurmountable because no one hides a mutual disillusionment that threatens to collapse more than seventy years of understanding and a shared vision of the world. Even old Europe, which still tried to maintain appearances with the President of the United States – like Giorgia Meloni or Friedrich Merz – has fallen out of favor by not submitting to the White House's erratic agenda.
On Friday, May 1st, Trump once again threatened the EU with an increase in tariffs on imports of European cars and trucks. A direct blow to the already sufficiently pressured German economy, which also added to the announcement of the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany in the coming months. And all because the ego of the White House occupant was hurt by a comment from Chancellor Merz in which he said that if Trump wanted European help in Hormuz, perhaps he should have spoken to this side of the Atlantic before starting a war he doesn't know how to end.
Each new disagreement with Washington accelerates the inevitable European transition from the security agreement built with the United States after World War II towards the need to develop its own defense capabilities.
Furthermore, the clash experienced in recent days between Washington and Berlin is also explained by the identity metamorphosis shaking Germany, which has translated into a new military commitment that has led Berlin to announce a millionaire plan for investment in armaments and to declare the ambition to build the most powerful army in Europe. Next year, German military spending will be as high as that of France and Great Britain combined, and it is projected to increase even more by 2030.
Despite everything, and unlike Trump, a large part of the Union continues to embrace a certain rhetorical prudence. The awareness of knowing that European dependence on the United States has not stopped growing since the war in Ukraine means that official language modulates well the transatlantic battles they are willing to deploy. It is significant, however, that Brussels today uses the same concept of “risk minimization” (de-risking) of strategic dependencies when talking about both China and the United States.
The real transatlantic schism, however, has become even more visible in Ukraine. Last week, after a phone call with Vladimir Putin, Trump told reporters that Ukraine had lost the war and that, if they were not aware of it, it was because the media was misinforming them. It is not the first time that the President of the United States has declared Russia the winner of a confrontation that is still open, and unilaterally announced that Putin's strength must be rewarded, even with more territory than he has managed to occupy in Ukraine. Trump prioritizes understanding with the Kremlin, and the entrenchment of the Ukrainian front is an obstacle in this world of imperial agendas shared by Washington and Moscow.
It is also in Ukraine that the EU has decided to take a step forward in its transatlantic emancipation. Europe is, at this moment, the provider of practically all the foreign aid that Kyiv receives.
Europe is preparing to live without the United States. The meeting of the European Political Community in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, as a guest, has served in recent days to showcase the strengthening of this other transatlantic link. "We do not believe we are condemned to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world," Carney declared at the inauguration, this Monday, of this continental diplomatic summit, an informal forum that meets twice a year and has managed to become a space for influence and the articulation of political unity. And all this is happening in a country that is trying to reduce its dependence on Russia, and which a few months ago embraced Trump's mediation to try to resolve its border conflict with Azerbaijan.
In Yerevan, Europeans also committed to further strengthening their own defense capabilities, especially after the announcement of the withdrawal of American troops from Germany. However, the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was one of the great absentees from the meeting. This is why the German agenda, which seems determined to strengthen its country's capabilities with the same zeal with which it proposes to streamline the community machinery, is a cause for concern. If the EU wants to become a true geopolitical actor, it must do more than strengthen its military capacity. And it must do so jointly.