The fact that the contempt with which the President of the United States refers to Europe is insulting, and that Donald Trump is a product of the speculative jungle, does not negate the need to ask ourselves if he is right in any of his statements. This is not out of a desire for self-flagellation, but rather to break free from the complacency that we Europeans will pay so dearly for.
For Donald Trump, Europe is not an ally, but a problem. He has always regarded it with suspicion, but what is new is that this view has now been enshrined in the new US National Security Strategy. What were once provocative statements—that Europe is "going in the wrong direction," that it is weak, that it has become lost in political correctness—have become state doctrine. With Trump's peculiar methods, the United States has dismantled the doctrine that has shaped foreign relations since the Second World War and has laid the groundwork for the relations of the new world order that its president leads with Putin and Xi.
The new strategy describes Europe as a continent in decline, exposed to a civilizational crisis, and questions whether it can remain a reliable ally if it does not correct its political and social course. This brutal clarification is welcome. Europe cannot ignore that the United States no longer shares the same political project or the values that have historically guided their relations, and that this is not a one-off disagreement, but an ideological rupture.
Europe must face an uncomfortable reality: Trump's United States is no longer a reliable ally. It must also accept that it has procrastinated too long on defense and that spending will have to be coordinated internally or it will be useless. The transatlantic alliance ceases to be a stable framework for European countries and becomes a conditional, transactional, and reversible relationship.
The This shift is not just about military spending or NATO, but about a direct challenge to the European model, its values, and democratic principles. The most unsettling phrase in the document urges Washington to "cultivate resistance to Europe's current trajectory within the European nations themselves," opening the door to political interference by legitimizing—or even favoring—forces that question the European project and promote its fragmentation.
Comparing this with Trump's predecessors helps to gauge the extent of the rupture. George W. Bush divided Europe, but did not delegitimize it: even at the height of the Iraq War, the objective was to discipline the allies, not to question the European model or interfere in its internal politics. Joe Biden, on the other hand, attempted to rebuild the Atlantic alliance on the basis of shared values, embracing Europe as an indispensable pillar in the face of Russia and China. Trump does the exact opposite: he doesn't seek to lead Europe or reconcile it, but to correct it, pressure it, and, if necessary, despise it. He is the first US president to treat Europe as a failed project.
At this point, Trump is closer to Putin and Xi than to the Atlantic tradition. Like the Kremlin, he describes Europe as decadent and morally confused; like Beijing, he treats it as a fragmented space vulnerable to political and economic pressure. But he adds a feature characteristic of Western authoritarian populism: the explicit will to delegitimize the European project from within, to designate which political forces are acceptable and which are not. Where Putin erodes and Xi instrumentalizes, Trump discredits.
The question is no longer what Trump thinks of Europe, but whether Europe has understood that it has ceased to be a central subject of the Western order—and whether it is prepared to defend its security, its sovereignty, and its democracy without external guarantees.
Europe urgently needs to understand what has happened to multilateralism, which suffers from an excess of absurd rules, and must understand that it is now besieged by the rise of China and the power of the United States. The clearest symbol of this is the German automotive industry facing the Chinese electrical invasion. Europe has lost capacity in semiconductor production and accounts for only 10% of the public aerospace economy compared to 60% for the US and 15% for China, according to the Director General of the European Space Agency, in statements reported by Le MondeGermany, France, and Spain have a historic opportunity to react before the Hungarian illiberals and the far right, acting as a Trojan horse, completely vindicate Trump.
