US Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick didn’t mince his phrases.
“If you’re going to be dependent on someone, it darned well better be your best allies,” he advised an viewers on the World Economic Forum in Davos as he trash-talked globalization, European companions and the discussion board itself.
America’s allies in Europe – cautious of additional Russian aggression, shouldering the burden of backing Ukraine and going through an more and more hostile world order – have come to the identical realization.
US President Donald Trump’s designs on the Danish territory of Greenland have compelled Europe to confront an uncomfortable query: How a lot do they want Washington’s cash, army would possibly and in the end its friendship?
From power to protection, Ukraine to commerce, Europe is reliant on the United States. But the geopolitical turbulence flowing from the White House is prompting many European leaders to contemplate the beforehand unthinkable – a future squarely on their very own two toes.
Some US officers have framed ties with Europe as, “You want our help in Ukraine, you want a strong NATO? Give us Greenland,” one European diplomat advised NCS.
“I think in Europe, it’s perceived as the other way around. If you’re pushing ahead on Greenland, no one would believe that the US would be willing to defend Estonia.”
Here’s a have a look at the problems at stake:
While Trump has stepped back from threatened tariffs to attempt to power US management over Greenland, for Ukraine the timing might hardly be worse. Intensive rounds of peace negotiations had introduced Ukraine and the US near a last settlement on post-war safety ensures and a so-called “prosperity plan” for Ukraine’s post-war financial revival.
And but, with Greenland threatening to overshadow the most important struggle on European soil in 80 years, as a substitute of dashing to hitch Trump in Davos, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky initially selected to attend in Kyiv and take care of a mounting power disaster – although Trump has stated he’ll meet Zelensky Thursday. As Trump doubled down on his Greenland calls for, 60% of the Ukrainian capital was nonetheless with out energy after an enormous Russian assault on Monday night time.
The disaster in Ukraine alone is a measure of why Europe has to tread fastidiously. Had a package deal of patriot interceptor missiles been delayed “even by one more day,” Zelensky warned this week, the outcomes of Monday night time’s assault would have been “much more severe.”
Europe has been accelerating efforts to cut back army dependence on the US. French President Emmanuel Macron claimed final week that France now meets two-thirds of Ukraine’s intelligence wants, lowering the “crushing burden” of dependence on the US. Europe has already had a 12 months to get used to life with out direct provides of US weapons for Ukraine – they’re now bought by different NATO allies.
There’s additionally diplomacy to contemplate. US peace efforts have thus far didn’t push Russia to compromise however Ukraine has not given up hope. “Can America do more?” Yes, it will probably. And we actually need that,” Zelensky advised journalists this week. Without the US, Zelensky has lengthy maintained there may be no credible post-war safety ensures for Ukraine.
For a long time, Europe has lived underneath the safety of an American nuclear umbrella: underneath NATO mutual protection agreements the US deterred Russian aggression with the large damaging energy of its nuclear arsenal. Some critics consider that’s not a priority to Moscow.
“The current administration is so beholden to Putin that Putin does not believe that America would use it,” retired Gen. Michel Yakovleff, former deputy commander of NATO forces in Europe advised NCS, “The US nuclear umbrella is a memory.”
France and the UK additionally keep nuclear arsenals, with each Poland and Germany expressing curiosity final 12 months in coming underneath the French nuclear umbrella, a transfer that Europe’s deteriorating ties with Washington will solely hasten. Even in new NATO member Sweden, there is debate about whether or not Stockholm ought to resurrect its nuclear weapons growth program.
The case for European nukes is clear to some. “The trigger in Paris is much more sensitive than the trigger in Washington,” ex-NATO General Yakovleff stated. “Berlin is more vital to Paris than it is to Washington.”
In apply, France holds the one really impartial nuclear arsenal in Europe, with Britain’s Trident nuclear missiles made and saved within the US, a reality British Prime Minister Kier Starmer stated this week limits his hand vis-à-vis Washington.
“Our nuclear deterrent is our foremost weapon,” he advised journalists and that, “requires us to have a good relationship with the United States.”
Today, the army muscle in Europe is nonetheless decidedly American. Tens of 1000’s of US troops are primarily based in, or rotate into, the European theater, with most of the US army’s prime property calling Europe residence.
From stealth jets to nuclear-powered submarines, “everything that America has in practice, we have, except by far, not at the same scale,” former NATO General Yakovleff stated.
As a former prime European Union official put it, Europe’s militaries are actually “bonsai armies,” shrunk and diminished because the Cold War.
“We have to consider what Donald Trump wants to say about security because he is responsible for security in the world,” Polish President Karol Nawrocki stated at Davos Wednesday, noting that the US funds 65% of NATO, and Europeans solely 35%.
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte is aware of that European dependence solely too effectively. Over the previous 12 months he’s championed a conciliatory – some would possibly say fawning – tone towards Trump, whom he famously referred to as “Daddy” ultimately 12 months’s NATO assembly.
Sitting beside him, Europe’s leaders shrugged off the significance of the US to European safety. Poland’s President Nawrocki reeled off examples of Polish, Finnish, Japanese and even Afghan victories towards Russia as proof. Finnish President Alexander Stubb expressed confidence that Europe might “unequivocally defend itself” with out the US, though he trusted Washington to maintain Finland’s dozens of US-made jet fighters flying throughout any battle.
In a current speech to troops, France’s Macron stated that, after a decade of it seeming unthinkable, “the ‘Europe of defense’ is becoming a reality,” with EU funding packages to spice up protection purchases.
Macron has been the loudest proponent for purchases of apparatus to be from European suppliers, regardless of present trade backlogs and restricted capability.
Relying nearly completely on its do-it-yourself protection trade, France is an outlier in Europe. Thirteen European international locations fly the US-made F-35 jet, one in every of a handful of fifth-generation jets globally. These international locations are tied to US producers, American software program and even munitions to maintain these jets airborne. Key US-made anti-aircraft and rocket artillery methods, just like the PATRIOT or HIMARS methods, are additionally tied to US provide traces and have few European-made alternate options.
But it’s the unpredictability of the Trump administration that has shattered some long-standing taboos in Europe.
The European Union’s protection commissioner raised the prospect of a 100-thousand robust European military in a January speech, an thought beforehand dismissed as unworkable and political unacceptable within the bloc. He additionally referred to as for the creation of a European Security Council to hurry up and streamline army determination making.
When the EU weaned itself off low-cost Russian fuel within the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, US hydrocarbons have been an apparent strategy to maintain the lights on.
In the primary 11 months of 2025, US Liquid Natural Gas made up 58% of imports to the EU, up from 21% in 2021, in line with evaluation by the Bruegel financial thinktank.
Europe’s transition from Russian fuel was a painful transfer within the winter of 2022 and one which the continent wouldn’t be eager to repeat. Even as Trump appears to spice up American hydrocarbon income in Venezuela, the fuel faucet for Europe is a easy – and sure efficient – software that could possibly be used as leverage by the White House.
“Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else,” Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever stated of Europe’s outlook on dependence on the US.
Some analysts have pointed to Europe’s massive holdings of US Treasuries and equities as a possible weapon in its arsenal ought to it wish to retaliate towards Trump’s menace of tariffs.
“Europe owns Greenland, it also owns a lot of Treasuries,” wrote Deutsche Bank’s Head of FX Research, George Saravelos, in a observe to purchasers this week. His level: that European international locations, which collectively personal round $8 trillion in American bonds and equities, do, in principle, have the facility to punish one of many central pillars of American financial dominance – the greenback.
And but, whereas a “sell America” sentiment has been evident in each the US inventory markets and the greenback’s efficiency this week, most specialists consider Europe will maintain hearth. “There may be scope for de-escalation,” wrote ING analysts in a observe Wednesday.
It’s not that Europe is much less fearful of Trump’s threats, however the threats are larger now, a European diplomat advised NCS. Losing help for Ukraine over 10% or 15% tariffs final 12 months maybe wasn’t price it, the diplomat stated. Now, “we are speaking about fundamental elements of international world order.”
As the solar set Wednesday on the mountains of Switzerland, it was clear that the temper in Europe has soured and the continent’s choices are stark.
As Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić put it, “No one is laughing, no one is smiling. Because no one knows what tomorrow will bring.”