Michael Carpenter is managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
WASHINGTON — After three and a half years of alternating incompetence and hostility from Washington, the United States and Europe now stand on the brink of a strategic decoupling.
If U.S. President Donald Trump wins another term in November, his administration’s relentless assault on the institutions that have kept the transatlantic community peaceful and prosperous for the past 75 years will have devastating and potentially long-lasting consequences on both sides of the Atlantic.
The damage done over Trump’s term is severe. The president has trampled the transatlantic community’s core democratic principles by attacking the free press, using law enforcement, diplomatic and intelligence agencies for partisan ends and abusing his office for personal benefit.
He has undermined the principle of collective defense by openly questioning America’s commitment to defending its allies and considering a U.S. withdrawal from NATO. And he has turned his back on America’s partner of first resort by referring to the European Union as a “foe” and by waging a trade war against it.
The U.S. must urgently re-establish the credibility of NATO’s Article 5 guarantee and its own commitment to collective defense.
As former European Council President Donald Tusk put it: “With friends like that who needs enemies?”
The chasm across the Atlantic has never been wider on key issues like trade, climate, arms control, democracy and the rule of law. The differences that have emerged on these issues are not just minor tactical disagreements but deep strategic rifts reflecting divergent values and goals.
Perhaps most urgently, this widening rift is a direct threat to America’s national security. Put simply, without the support of its allies and partners in Europe, Washington cannot effectively advance its geopolitical interests. Authoritarian states like Russia and China understand this perfectly, which is why they have both actively sought to deepen the divisions exposed by Trump.
It is not too late to repair the relationship, however. To do so, the next U.S. administration will need to urgently restore a common strategic vision with its European partners and jumpstart cooperation in five key areas.
First, the economic relationship needs to be fixed. In addition to ending Trump’s trade war, this can be done by eliminating transatlantic tariffs, investing together with our European partners in resilient, green and sustainable infrastructure and securing common value chains.
Eliminating tariffs alone would create enormous benefits for the $3.8 billion in goods and services that cross the Atlantic every day. Cooperating on infrastructure investment — for example, by expanding and enhancing the Three Seas Initiative with stronger anti-corruption standards — would kickstart growth and establish a transatlantic alternative to China’s Belt and Road, thereby helping smaller European states avoid Beijing’s debt traps and acquisitions of their strategic assets.
Working together to relocate vulnerable production to areas of lower geopolitical risk (including onshoring) would also help the U.S. and Europe strengthen the resilience of shared global value chains while laying the foundations for more sustainable growth.
Second, Washington must recommit to fighting climate change. Announcing a shared goal of net carbon-neutrality by 2050 would open the door to a renewed partnership with Europe that could lead to joint R&D funding and investments in new technologies for carbon capture, energy efficiency and renewables.
This would also give Washington some leverage to push for additional investments in Europe’s energy security — including critical infrastructure like pipeline interconnectors and LNG import terminals — to connect Europe’s “energy islands” to the rest of the Continent’s energy network and thereby reduce both their vulnerability to Russian coercion and their reliance on dirty sources of energy.
Third, the U.S. must urgently re-establish the credibility of NATO’s Article 5 guarantee and its own commitment to collective defense. Washington should play an active role in helping NATO upgrade its capabilities and keep pace with advanced threats from China and Russia.
It also needs to focus attention on neglected theaters like the Arctic and Black Sea, where Russia is increasingly active. Just as importantly, the U.S. should spearhead a new NATO-EU partnership to counter threats that fall short of armed conflict, such as disinformation, illicit finance and “active measures” operations, which are increasingly the preferred method by which authoritarian states undermine democracies from within.
The U.S. and EU could join 5G forces to counter China | Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images
Fourth, the U.S. and Europe need to reestablish a sense of common purpose in countering the uptick in authoritarian assertiveness and aggression. Trump has destroyed any chances of this happening during his term by coddling Russia, confronting China on the narrow issue of the bilateral trade balance while ignoring Beijing’s coercive economic practices and by unilaterally pressuring Iran without securing any international backing.
On Russia, a more coherent transatlantic approach would be to balance a stronger approach on defense and steeper costs for the Kremlin’s violations of sovereignty with a more robust dialogue on arms control, risk reduction and crisis management. Regarding Beijing, a common strategy should be centered on countering China’s unfair technological and economic coercion. Europe and the U.S. could develop a democratic 5G consortium as suggested by some European leaders, more closely align their investment screening mechanisms, establish a common stance on China’s manipulative trade practices and land on a joint approach to WTO reform. On Iran, the U.S. should rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after securing Tehran’s recommitment to its obligations under the agreement.
Finally, both sides of the Atlantic need to recommit to defending democratic values and reject the practice of muzzling independent media, dismantling democratic checks and balances and politicizing law enforcement, the judiciary and intelligence agencies. More cooperation is also needed on fighting corruption through coordinated anti-money laundering efforts, ideally after an EU anti-money laundering regulator is stood up, stronger anti-graft measures and a commitment on both sides of the Atlantic to finally ban anonymous shell companies.
States that repeatedly violate democratic norms or trample the rule of law should be pressed to change their ways or face the possibility of being frozen out of NATO’s common activities or denied access to EU funds. At the same time, democratic reform should be incentivized outside the Euro-Atlantic space by keeping the door open to NATO and EU accession for aspiring states that meet these organizations’ membership criteria.
Continued American hostility toward Europe risks jeopardizing the most remarkable geopolitical achievement of the last 75 years — the creation of a community of states bound together by collective defense and a shared commitment to peace, liberty and prosperity.
If we turn our backs on this singular achievement, we not only risk sliding back into an era of realpolitik competition, but also empowering authoritarian states to further undermine democratic norms. The transatlantic relationship is too valuable to let it fall apart under the false pretense of “America First.”