Europe Debates Future Ties with US: Decouple or Double Down?

Why It Matters

The debate determines whether Europe can maintain collective security and supply‑chain resilience without U.S. backing, shaping the continent’s geopolitical and economic trajectory.

Key Takeaways

• Eastern Europe pushes for deeper US defense cooperation.
• France and Canada explore reducing US dependence.
• EU advances strategic autonomy via defense and trade initiatives.
• Critical minerals ministerial highlights supply‑chain competition with China.
• NATO debate intensifies over Europe’s ability to go solo.

Pulse Analysis

The Trump administration’s aggressive posture—exemplified by the Greenland episode—has forced European capitals to reassess the reliability of the transatlantic bond. While some leaders view Washington as an unpredictable partner, the broader strategic calculus remains anchored in NATO’s collective defense framework. This tension has amplified discussions in Brussels and at the upcoming EU summit, where policymakers are weighing the costs of deeper integration against the risks of strategic drift.

Eastern European states bordering the conflict in Ukraine are especially vocal about maintaining robust U.S. support. Romania’s foreign minister highlighted the critical‑minerals ministerial as a venue to secure supply‑chain resilience against China, while Lithuania’s defense spending surpasses NATO’s 2‑percent benchmark, positioning the Baltics as model allies. Their arguments stress that without American military guarantees, the region’s deterrence posture would weaken, potentially emboldening Russian aggression.

Conversely, Western European powers are accelerating initiatives to curtail dependence on American technology and markets. France’s ban on Zoom and Teams, Denmark’s diplomatic pushback on tariff threats, and the EU’s new free‑trade compact with India illustrate a pivot toward diversified partnerships. By bolstering domestic defense production and expanding trade links across Asia and South America, Europe aims to craft a more autonomous geopolitical identity, even as it navigates the delicate balance of remaining a reliable NATO partner.

Europe debates future ties with US: decouple or double down?

By Laura Kelly · 02/12/26 6:00 AM ET

Europe is divided over its future relationship with the United States, with some countries looking to decouple and guard against wild swings in U.S. policy, while others fear any break with its nuclear‑armed superpower will leave the continent vulnerable to Russian aggression.

Eastern Europe, the first line of defense against Russia, is looking to move beyond the latest fight stemming from President Trump’s quest to acquire Greenland, which reached fever pitch during the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.

Unlike France and Canada, which are charting a course for greater independence from Trump’s America, these frontline nations are looking for ways to pull America closer.

“There is a way within NATO, in our bilateral conversations, that we enhance what we can do together… I think as long as there are more anchors to the defense and security partnership, we’re going to see it continue strongly,” Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Silvia Țoiu said in a briefing with reporters last week in Washington, D.C.

Țoiu was in the capital to attend the Trump administration’s ministerial on critical minerals, a gathering of 54 countries aimed at securing supply chains – and countering Chinese dominance – for the military and commercial tools of the future.

Romania, a NATO ally that borders Ukraine and the Black Sea, has contended with Russian drone incursions into its airspace during the war raging next door. Its 2024 presidential election was marred by alleged Russian interference, but its decision to annul the results made it a target for Vice President JD Vance, who criticized the move as shutting down free speech.

Vance’s criticisms came during a landmark speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, where he laid out the Trump administration’s contempt for the perceived progressive cultural shift across the continent. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the U.S. delegation to Munich this year, taking place Feb. 13‑14, and is expected to bring a lighter touch.

“That’s not to say that everything is hunky‑dory with Secretary Rubio, as opposed to others like Vance, but he is just less associated with the view that Vice President Vance articulated in the previous Munich, which was essentially… that threats to Europe are not Russia and China but internal press freedoms and that sort of thing,” said Philip Gordon, the Sydney Stein, Jr., Scholar at the Brookings Institution, who served as assistant to President Joe Biden and national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Unlike Romania and its neighbors, some NATO members saw Trump’s threats toward Greenland as a breaking point — a clear signal that the United States is not only unreliable, but a direct threat to its strategic interests and sovereignty.

Canada, Denmark and France are contemplating strategies to counter Trump’s intimidation and coercion campaigns and looking for ways to reduce their reliance on the U.S.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for a new coalition of middle powers to push back on military and economic threats from China, Russia, and the U.S., when Washington demonstrates itself as an unreliable or antagonistic partner.

For Copenhagen and Nuuk, European solidarity proved the best defense to get Trump to back down on his threats to Greenland – with the president withdrawing tariff threats and putting his support behind a “framework” of talks to address U.S. concerns.

“I am happy for the consistent messages from the rest of the continent: Europe is not blackmailed,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wrote on Facebook ahead of Trump’s Davos speech.

French President Emmanuel Macron is looking to use a Feb. 12 gathering of EU leaders to argue for greater European autonomy, calling for regulatory reforms to make Europe more competitive and prioritize investment on the continent.

Germany and Italy have been more cautious in public about disagreements with the U.S.

Still, European capitals are increasingly turning away from America in symbolic ways. France has banned Zoom and Teams for its bureaucrats; the Austrian military reportedly dropped its use of Microsoft and some German government offices are using alternatives to American software.

On trade, Europe celebrated a new free‑trade compact with India last month, and is moving forward on deals with South American and Asian partners. A trade deal between the U.S. and the EU was briefly put on ice after Trump’s Greenland threats, but negotiations have resumed.

Macron is warning against “a cowardly sense of relief” after the latest crisis with the U.S., declaring a “geopolitical and geo‑economic state of emergency” in an interview with The Economist and six other newspapers on Feb. 9.

“Europe is now dealing with an ‘openly hostile’ American administration, which wants its ‘dismemberment,’” is how The Economist described Macron’s position.

The EU Parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution prioritizing defense purchases and production on the continent and with “key bilateral partners” in the face of “the risks posed by the shifting focus of U.S. foreign policy”.

“The strategic reorientation of the U.S. means that Member States need to invest more and close critical capability gaps, deepening defence cooperation with other NATO countries like the UK, Norway, and Canada,” Michal Szczerba, a Polish member of the European Parliament, said after a vote adopting a report to expand and enhance EU defense partnerships.

“Real strategic autonomy depends on partnerships that help deliver concrete capabilities, interoperability, deterrence, and resilience.”

Offering a counterpoint to this expanding view among European leaders, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told policymakers last month to “keep dreaming” if they believed Europe could defend itself without America’s backing.

That view was echoed by the Eastern European officials who visited Washington last week.

“I don’t see it as realistic that the European industry and efforts can step up fast enough to have full autonomy on that [defense],” said Țoiu, the Romanian foreign minister.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys, who also attended the Critical Minerals Ministerial, echoed that view in an interview with The Hill.

“I think that is one, big, bold lesson we learned during this year working with President Trump’s administration is that we can find a solution, we can find a form of a deal that is beneficial to both sides to meet interests of the United States and also European countries,” he said.

Before coming to Washington, Budrys wrote on Facebook that “Without the USA, Europe is indefensible.”

Budrys dismissed what he described as dramatic reactions to Trump’s Davos speech, and commentators forecasting a total U.S. retreat.

“In Europe, we should use the opportunity and look into the mirror and be open with what we have there. We lack unity, so we have to be stronger… we still lack the credible defense capabilities, so we have to build those,” he told The Hill.

Lithuania – which already spends more than five percent of its GDP on defense – is in a better position with the U.S. than European countries that have yet to reach the benchmark adopted by NATO.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaking at the Reagan Defense Forum in December, shouted out the Baltics – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – as “model allies” worthy of “special favor” from the U.S.

“Allies that still fail to do their part for collective defense will face consequences,” Hegseth warned.

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Tags: Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden, Marco Rubio, Mark Carney, Mette Frederiksen

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