In response, Europe could just roll over and do Trump’s bidding. But it would then have to endure without demur his disorienting goading and needling, likely followed by ever bigger demands. It would certainly have to follow through on the admittedly justified U.S. demand to dramatically boost defense expenditure and shoulder a much fairer burden for the West’s defense.
In this scenario, the bloc should also probably copy Saudi Arabia and purchase more weapons systems rather than focus on developing its own defense industries. Taking this route, Europe would have to fully choose between Trump and China — no more fence-sitting or trying to have it both ways in the name of growth.
Alternatively, however, the European Union could brace against the hurricane and become as coldly and determinedly transactional as Trump. Go tit-for-tat when the inevitable tariffs are imposed and get serious about strategic autonomy.
Europe does have some economic leverage of its own — if it’s steadfast enough to apply it. As Rym Momtaz of Carnegie Europe highlighted: “EU countries represented 45 percent of all foreign direct investment pouring into the United States in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — amounting to $2.4 trillion. European private savings accounts and businesses invest three times as much in the United States as the next region does. This not only creates and sustains millions of U.S. jobs but also contributes to fueling America’s innovation and industrial edge in its competition with China.”
Moreover, Europe is responsible for buying 50 percent of all U.S. liquefied natural gas exports and 28 percent of all U.S. natural gas exports. From 2019 to 2023, it received more than a quarter of U.S. arms exports — an uptick from 11 percent between 2014 and 2018, and it buys 17 percent of U.S. exports overall. American exporters would thus howl if they started facing retaliatory tariffs. (Interestingly, McKinley — who was dubbed the “Napoleon of Protection” — changed his mind about tariffs late into in his second term, and announced support for reciprocal trade treaties the day before his death.)
But beyond that, going toe-to-toe with Trump would require a total rethink about geopolitics and Europe’s place in the world. It would require refashioning the transatlantic relationship, while Washington actively seeks to split the bloc by approaching its members on a bilateral basis and encouraging ideological allies on the continent — like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico — to disrupt EU unity.
Europe’s leaders have much to blame themselves for. They wasted time and talked a big game while doing little to Trump-proof the bloc. They consigned their nightmare scenario of his return to the back of their minds rather than prepare for it, and their indecision has compounded the failure to expand the bloc’s military forces and to stop treating the transatlantic relationship like an à la carte menu — picking and choosing delicacies without paying the full tab.
The EU should have grown up a long time ago — now it may be forced to.
