The United States remains an ally for Europe, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insisted on Sunday, following Washington’s decision to cut off aid to Ukraine.
But the top EU official chose not to include the U.S. in a list of “like-minded” countries with which she said Europe could entertain deeper partnerships, instead name-checking Canada, Norway and Britain.
In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to halt all military aid and intelligence-sharing with Kyiv, the European Commission chief was pressed repeatedly by reporters on whether she considered America, as well as the Trump administration, to still be among the allies of European countries.
“My position is clear: The United States are an ally in the transatlantic alliance,” von der Leyen told a press conference marking the first 100 days of her second term in office. The German politician also insisted that Europe’s relationship with the U.S. was “totally different” from the one it has with China, brushing aside the need for “de-risking” with the United States.
But von der Leyen, who is yet to meet Trump in person since he was sworn in on Jan. 20, did point to a number of problems in world affairs that can be linked to Trump’s actions, without naming the U.S. president or his country.
“We see that sovereignty but also ironclad commitments are called into question,” she said, adding that “everything” had become “transactional.”
She touted the EU’s recent push to sign new trade deals with third countries, including the Mercosur bloc in South America, as signaling openness and praised Europe’s “predictability.”
“We have learned the very hard way that sourcing products we need from partners we trust is the best way to avoid over-dependencies or to avoid vulnerabilities and blackmail,” she said.
Indeed, the EU has been forced to wean itself mostly off Russian gas following years of dependency via the now-destroyed Nord Stream II pipeline. European countries that have bought billions of euros worth of American weaponry now face questions about how dependable those arms are given the U.S. decision to limit its weapons’ capabilities in the midst of Ukraine’s defensive war with Russia.
Von der Leyen underscored the EU’s new push to spend some €800 billion on its defense industry, saying that the share of military kit sourced from Europe would have to increase “gradually.” Currently, the EU is heavily dependent on U.S.-made weapons.
As von der Leyen was speaking in Brussels, Poland’s foreign minister sent a tweet suggesting Warsaw could look for alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink “if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider.”
Von der Leyen was asked if she planned to meet with Trump in the near future. “I think we will have a personal meeting when the time is right and this is the state of play at the moment,” she said.
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