Jack Watling
Relations between the United States and its European allies have proved tempestuous during the first two months of the second Trump administration. From his first days back in office, President Donald Trump has emphasized significant disagreements with the European Union, characterizing the bloc as inimical to U.S. interests, while Vice President JD Vance argued at the Munich Security Conference in February that the values of the United States and Europe are diverging. Between the stated ambition of the administration to annex Greenland and the imposition of wide-ranging tariffs, European leaders are bracing for a challenging transatlantic relationship.
The tenor of European concerns, however, changed markedly as the Trump administration began to make its opening forays into an attempt to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Following a public confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House in February, Trump temporarily stopped providing Ukraine with military-technical assistance and intelligence, coercing Ukraine into accepting a negotiating strategy that excluded Kyiv and its European partners from much of the direct bargaining with Moscow. Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rebuffing a U.S. proposed cease-fire, Trump has described his interactions with the Kremlin in the most positive of terms while, so far, applying U.S. leverage against only Kyiv. The administration, meanwhile, has been unequivocal that there will be no long-term U.S. commitment to Ukraine and has called into question whether U.S. commitments in Europe will be honored.
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