Trust on trial: A year of 'rebalancing' US-EU ties

Idealism to realism

Cui Hongjian, director of Beijing Foreign Studies University's Center for European Union and Regional Development Studies, said that the US-EU trade war reflects a broader shift in the US' worldview — from idealism to realism.

"Trump emphasizes direct and measurable benefits, but the returns that Washington believes it receives from its long-term investment in the trans-Atlantic alliance with Europe are increasingly seen as unclear," Cui said. "At the same time, the US and Europe remain competitors in many economic areas.

"Against the backdrop of what can be described as US hegemony anxiety, the administration is seeking to redistribute burdens and benefits among allies through a realist lens, prioritizing national interests over shared values or idealistic assumptions," he said.

Security spending within the NATO military alliance has long been viewed in Washington as one such burden. Calls for Europe to shoulder a greater share of defense costs date to when Barack Obama was the US president, though with limited results.

During his first term, Trump demanded that NATO allies raise defense spending to 4 percent of GDP. In his second term, he has pushed that target even higher to 5 percent.

With the Russia-Ukraine conflict entering its fourth year, Trump has increasingly used it as leverage to pressure EU and NATO allies on defense budgets — at times threatening to halt US support for Ukraine and warning that Washington would not "protect" countries that failed to meet their financial commitments.

This time, the allies agreed. At a summit in The Hague in June, NATO member states committed to increasing defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over the next decade, including 3.5 percent in core military expenditure, with the remainder allocated to infrastructure such as intelligence, cybersecurity, and related areas.

"By shifting the security burden in Europe, the US is freeing up resources to focus on the Western Hemisphere, a revival of the logic behind the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine," said Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. "However, Trump's equivocation over NATO's mutual defense clause has also made the US appear to be a less reliable security partner for Europe."

There was still a growing dependence on US arms imports. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that 64 percent of weapons imported by European NATO member states between 2020 and 2024 came from the US.

At the same time, Europe has begun to push back. In March, von der Leyen proposed a 150 billion euro defense loan for joint defense procurement restricted to European-made weapons. In September, Germany signed 83 billion euro worth of defense contracts awarded directly to European companies, leaving "almost no space" for US suppliers.

"Europe is now seeking a balance," Cui said. "In the near term, the bloc remains deeply tied to the US. But in the longer term, it is preparing for the possibility of a US withdrawal."

From trade to defense, the first year of Trump's second term has further shaken the foundations of the trans-Atlantic relationship and forced leaders across Europe to adapt to a new trans-Atlantic reality.

Manfred Elsig, a professor of international relations at the University of Bern, Switzerland, told Politico, "Trump has eroded the most important political capital in the trans-Atlantic cooperation: trust — the bedrock of the post-World War II partnership between the US and Europe."

Sun Chenghao, head of the US-EU program at Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy, said in his reflection after attending last year's Berlin Foreign Policy Forum: "Europe's dissatisfaction, anxiety, and dependence will continue to shape the next stage of trans-Atlantic relations. … It will likely lead to a relationship that becomes ever more transactional, more realist, and ultimately more fragile."

Wang Jingli contributed to this story.