The message couldn’t have been clearer. In a 33-page National Security Strategy signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House said Europe risked being wiped away unless it changed its culture and politics.
For Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz, the timing of their key ally’s latest broadside — much in the vein of Vice President JD Vance’s infamous Munich address in February — was telling. It came just as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters a potentially decisive phase.
European leaders are deeply concerned by U.S. efforts to cut a deal that was drafted with Russia and would represent a capitulation by the West. It’s shattered confidence in the Trump administration on the continent and raised more existential questions: The transatlantic alliance is fracturing — can Europe defend itself?
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