For European capitals, the unsettling reality of a second Donald Trump presidency is not the prospect of mere policy shifts, but the deliberate and calculated deployment of unpredictability as a tool. His seemingly erratic pronouncements are not a sign of chaos but a strategy, designed to keep allies off-balance, undermine decades of trust, and systematically dismantle the pillars of the liberal international order that have underwritten European security since 1945.
A Strategy of Erosion
This week provided a stark catalogue of the method. The former US president publicly derided the UK’s prime minister and its Royal Navy, dismissing its aircraft carriers as inadequate “toys.” He targeted French President Emmanuel Macron with deeply personal attacks regarding his marriage. He told European allies to secure their own oil supplies, a demand made all the more volatile by his role in escalating conflict in the Middle East. Most fundamentally, he reiterated that the US leaving NATO was “beyond reconsideration,” labelling the alliance a “paper tiger” and pointedly noting that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “knows that too.” Each statement serves a dual purpose: a domestic political signal to his base and an intentional weakening of the collective security guarantee that has been the bedrock of the transatlantic relationship.
This posture has hardened in the wake of the Iran conflict, a crisis initiated alongside former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Frustrated by the war’s protracted course and its domestic political fallout, and by European allies who refused to join the offensive, Trump’s retaliatory focus has turned vindictively towards those traditional partners. The “America First” doctrine manifests not just as withdrawal, but as active corrosion. While the US Congress has legislated to prevent a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO, Trump has indicated a belief that he could bypass such measures, casting a long shadow over the alliance’s future regardless of its formal status.
European Reactions: From Annoyance to Action
The European reaction has moved beyond shock to a weary, alarmed pragmatism. As President Macron stated bluntly, “When you want to be serious, you don’t go around saying the opposite every day of what you just said the day before.” He dismissed Trump’s personal barbs as “neither elegant nor up to standard.” For continental Europe, the direction of travel is clear, accelerating discussions on strategic autonomy that were once theoretical.
For the United Kingdom, the calculation is more acute and the vulnerabilities more pronounced. Post-Brexit, Britain is both far more economically exposed to potential US retaliation and remains deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, American security architecture—a dependency highlighted by Trump’s disdain. The historical “special relationship” is, in his assessment, “not like it used to be,” with other nations like France and Germany positioned as stronger partners. This has forced a significant strategic pivot under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Aiming to repair the economic damage of Brexit and navigate the instability wrought by Trump’s foreign policy, Starmer has explicitly sought a “closer partnership” with the EU on economic and security matters, building on the UK’s involvement in initiatives like the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). This shift recognises that Britain’s former ambition to act as a bridge between Washington and Brussels is untenable when one side “likes to burn things.” The immediate test looms with the upcoming king’s state visit to Washington, an event that carries a high risk of diplomatic humiliation rather than opportunity.
The Imperative for European Self-Reliance
The collective European response is now crystallising into concrete, if belated, action. The EU is actively strengthening its defence cooperation through a suite of interconnected initiatives. Alongside PESCO, the European Defence Fund (EDF) finances collaborative technology projects, the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) seeks to align national defence planning, and the newly established European Defence Industrial Program (EDIP) aims to ramp up production capacity for critical munitions. The overarching goal is to build a more integrated, capable, and self-sufficient European defence technological and industrial base, a project given extreme urgency by the war in Ukraine.
The literary parallel drawn by Henry James in *Daisy Miller*—of an American whose unpredictable behaviour leaves Europeans bewildered—has taken on a dark, geopolitical reality. The innocence of expecting a return to normalcy is gone. As the old structures disintegrate under deliberate pressure, Europe has no choice but to build up its own commitments. This requires not merely increased national defence budgets, but genuine, deep cooperation and shared capability. The time for delay is past; the project of European self-reliance, forced by American unpredictability, is now a necessity.
