The European Union is fast-tracking plans to preserve peace without the aid of the United States following comments from Donald Trump’s administration.
A defense official representing a European country told Politicothat “awkward” conversations over America’s involvement in the continent were now being prioritized as the “uncertainty” of how the US would react to global conflicts is “just too high”. The preparation comes following the release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy.
Though the administration has played a part in peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, the National Security Strategy makes it clear the US will no longer prop up “the entire world order”. Such comments have caused uncertainty in European nations, some of which are now fast-tracking plans for a continent without America’s influence.
The strategy published by Trump’s administration reads, “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over. Wealthy, sophisticated nations … must assume primary responsibility for their regions.”
Trump’s discontent was made clear in an interview earlier this week where he said world leaders in Europe “don’t know what to do” and that the continent is “decaying”.
Experts had warned earlier this week that Trump’s disinterest in Europe would be a “brutal lose-lose” for everyone involved. Analysis from Georg Riekeles and Varg Folkman saw the pair warn a deprioritization of European stability would be “remarkably abstruse.”
They wrote, “hina, they argue, is the decisive theatre, not Europe, and US attention and assets must shift accordingly. Washington has signalled some version of this pivot for more than a decade. Yet European governments have found the idea that the US might actually deprioritise the continent’s security remarkably abstruse.”
“The war in Ukraine has intensified this tension: Europe’s thinking is that a US withdrawal or an imposed, unequal peace would produce chaos in Ukraine and instability across Europe.” Riekeles and Folkman believe this is part of a larger plan from the US government to shape European politics in a Trump-friendly system.
They wrote, “Because it is clear that as Washington draws back militarily, it will pull even harder on its other levers: financial power, diplomatic pressure, export controls, trade measures and secondary sanctions. These instruments will increasingly be used to steer Europe in the political direction the US wants.”
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