EU-US relationship/ The European Union's awareness that it is left alone

2025-12-29 08:16:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

It has not even been a year since Donald Trump took office, but from Brussels' perspective, this time is an eternity. One shock wave after another has kept Europeans on edge; each week has brought new demands, accusations, and then radical changes. The shock of December 4 was the new temporary peak and is likely to be the most prolonged. A shock that strikes Europe to the core.

The new US national security strategy held some surprises for its allies. China is no longer a systemic rival, but simply an economic competitor. Russia is accepted as a great power with a promising market, especially for raw materials. And if conflicts arise with its president, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump offers his services as a mediator. And North Korea? It is not even mentioned anymore. During Trump's first term, Kim Jong-un was still public enemy number one.

A devastating assessment
The new US security strategy shows the most radical division that has ever occurred with Europeans. The US, the country that liberated Europe from Nazi German terror more than 80 years ago at great cost, then became the continent's defensive power and, in particular, always supported the European Union project, is now its enemy. The paragraphs dedicated to the EU read like an indictment. They present a picture of an EU completely ruined on the verge of civilizational collapse, eroded by mass migration, repression of the opposition, low birth rates and censorship.

"None of us should be shaken by what others say about us," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen advised ten days after the new strategy was announced. Paragraph by paragraph, she dismantled the statements from Washington. Europe reserves the right to make its own laws - a rejection of American pressure to allow American technology companies to operate as freely as possible, unhindered by European regulations.

In Europe, the Commission President continued, everyone can vote for "whoever they want", without external pressure or manipulation. This should be understood without a doubt. But von der Leyen made it clear what is at stake: "the freedom to live as we want".

A project against the US?
That the American president deeply despises the European Union becomes clear in one of his endless press conferences. "The EU was founded," Trump declared at the NATO summit in The Hague this summer, "to destroy the US."

Trump sees the Europeans' trade surplus as a personal affront: "They don't want our cars!" Drastic tariffs are his answer; the EU must be weakened. And he sows uncertainty by constantly questioning the US's loyal military commitment to the NATO alliance.

New partners
The US national security strategy of December 4th goes even further. It claims that freedom of expression is being censored in the EU and the opposition is being suppressed. This refers to the right-wing and far-right parties in the EU - which need to be strengthened. This is why Vice President JD Vance did not meet with the German Chancellor at the Munich Security Conference in February, but with Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD.

"The network of far-right and right-wing conservative parties in Europe, including the MAGA movement, has become more entrenched over the past four years," explains German-American political scientist Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook in an interview with the ARD studio in Brussels. She adds that parties, but also individual politicians, are gaining support.

For example, funds from the Heritage Foundation went to the British far-right politician Nigel Farage. “We should now expect this in the context of the National Security Strategy for continental Europe,” notes Clüver Ashbrook. Right-wing parties in Europe are gaining ground – in Hungary, where they are already in power, and in places like Germany, where they are in opposition.

Direct support for political parties is also being networked through the media, including in Germany. Before the federal elections in February, Elon Musk praised the AfD not only on his X platform, but the daily newspaper Die Welt, owned by the publishing house Springer, also published Musk's support for the AfD as a guest article. Springer's CEO Matthias Döpfner personally intervened after the publication of Trump's new security strategy. Europe must listen to Trump, Döpfner wrote in an editorial in Die Welt; not a single critical word is to be found in the editorial./ DW