Europe believes it is ready for Donald Trump 2.0. Having survived one Trump administration, European policymakers believe they have a recipe for navigating a repeat. Their confidence, however, is unwarranted. Focused on the wrong goals and distracted by political crises, Europe is far from equipped for the challenges of Trump’s second term as U.S. president.
Most significantly, European bureaucrats have yet to internalize the urgency and extent of the changes that will be required in military spending and strategy. Bribes and flattery may mollify Trump temporarily, but neither is likely to derail his plans to shift U.S. military commitments away from Europe. Europe may soon find itself exposed, lacking both the U.S. security blanket and a viable alternative of its own.
For Trump and his advisors, European complacency poses a challenge to one of their core objectives: shifting Europe’s defense burden onto NATO allies. But the new administration does have some levers it can use to force Europe out of its reverie and signal the seriousness of its intentions: reducing the U.S. military footprint in Europe decisively early in his term and pushing security responsibilities onto European Union member states.
Since Trump’s election victory last November, European leaders have been proactive, engaging in furious diplomacy and promising Trump all sorts of policy wins to forestall the punishing tariffs and U.S. military drawdowns he threatened during his presidential campaign.
At the top of the list of goodies are pledges to spend more on defense, one of Trump’s longtime demands. In recent weeks, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has been clear that Europe knows it must spend more. With many countries now at or above NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, European policymakers are discussing raising the goal to 3 percent in hopes that higher budgets—though still short of Trump’s 5 percent ultimatum—might keep U.S. military forces committed to the continent’s defense.
Europe also hopes to use economic alignment and engagement with Washington to avoid spats over trade and defense. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, for instance, has called for Europe to adopt a “checkbook strategy,” buying more U.S. natural gas and weapons to stay on Trump’s good side.
Other European policymakers have urged their counterparts to more vigorously adhere to U.S. export controls and de-risking initiatives aimed at Beijing, implying a possible bargain: Europe’s help—economically if not militarily—with Washington’s “contain China” agenda in return for U.S. support against Russia. Concessions on economic or China policy may buy some time for Europe, but are unlikely to deter Trump. Shifting NATO’s defense burden to Europe is a top priority for Trump and his inner circle, one on which they may have little willingness to compromise.
Beyond carrots, European leaders have also turned to scare tactics, hyping the so-called “interlinkages” between the Asian and European theaters. They warn, for instance, that U.S. global credibility and containment of China require that the United States maintain its presence in Europe—and bankroll Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.
There are several versions of this narrative: one emphasizes the North Korean and Chinese role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, another that Taiwan might be the next domino if Ukraine falls. A third suggests that a U.S. withdrawal from Europe could drive Europe itself into China’s arms. But all play on long-standing U.S. fears about loss of influence on the world stage and are aimed at those in Trump’s circle who argue for prioritizing U.S. resources toward Asia.
Europe’s efforts to prepare for Trump’s return have not been entirely in vain. Increased defense spending by NATO members since 2020 should please the new administration. Indeed, Trump has already taken credit for this progress. But while promises of more military spending are good, few countries have figured out where to get the money for larger defense budgets. Many countries are more focused on Ukraine—and the consequences of a U.S. pullback from that war—than on bolstering their own defenses.
All this leaves Europe badly out of sync with an impatient U.S. administration about the degree and speed with which burden-shifting should occur.
This complacency is perhaps unsurprising when one considers the long history of back and forth between Washington and European countries on burden-sharing, a debate that stretches back at least as far as NATO itself.
For decades, U.S. policymakers have pushed for more burden-sharing (while being unwilling to apply actual pressure), and European policymakers have pledged to do more (while failing to do so). On both sides, there has been a generally accepted assumption that Europe cannot defend itself thanks to internal divisions.
Perhaps counterintuitively, European policymakers also have the record of the first Trump administration to reassure them. Despite Trump’s rhetoric, his first administration made no significant changes to the U.S. commitment to Europe. NATO even expanded under his watch—adding Montenegro and North Macedonia—and his administration increased the provision of weapons to Ukraine.
But Trump’s second term will likely differ from his first. From 2016 to 2020, the primary voice calling for the United States to pull back from Europe was Trump himself. Most of his advisors opposed retrenchment and subscribed to Washington’s elite consensus that shifting the burden to Europe would reduce U.S. influence and put U.S. security at risk. Today, however, the forces within the Trump administration pushing for the United States to commit fewer resources to European defense are much stronger.
There’s a growing sentiment among Republicans that Washington has paid far more than its fair share in Ukraine and elsewhere. Then there’s a strong push from so-called “prioritizers,” such as Elbridge Colby (the administration’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy), who argue that Washington should focus most of its resources on the Indo-Pacific, where its most pressing interests and most serious rival are located. Finally, the Defense Department is increasingly—if quietly—concerned about budgetary issues, shrinking stockpiles, and the strain that multitheater deployments place on limited personnel and systems.
European states have made progress in building their defense capabilities in recent years. Spending has increased, partly because of Trump’s first-term rhetoric and far more due to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The European Union has debuted initiatives in joint procurement and financing—such as the European Defense Industry Program– that enable smaller states to coordinate on defense programs, avoid duplication, and build a better defense industrial base. Non-EU minilateral agreements have proliferated, such as Sky Shield, which currently brings together 22 European states to coordinate on ground-based air and missile defenses. (Austria may leave under its new government.)
But while these steps are dramatic by European defense standards, they are at least 10 years too late. Joint defense among European states remains embryonic. Their militaries are too small and lack key technology or combat enablers (such as in-flight refueling or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities). Nor do they have a common system of command and control outside the existing U.S.-dominated NATO framework. Put bluntly, Europe’s militaries are not even remotely ready for prime time.
Worse, there is no real sense of urgency about making the investments required to establish an independent European defense. Many European policymakers talk as if defense coordination were a generational problem to be solved; the head of the French aerospace company Dassault, for instance, told the Financial Times in March 2024, “The reality of building a European defense industry [is] it’s going to take many years and even many decades.”
Europe’s leaders engage in bargaining, hoping for clarity on what they can expect from the United States in the future, and explain all the reasons why they cannot—politically or economically—replace Washington’s contribution to their security. However, with a Trump administration poised to lean on burden-shifting, European leaders may find that these excuses fail to win them much of a reprieve.
Fortunately, solutions to Europe’s security deficit are within reach. At a minimum, Europe’s nations will need to increase spending, augment the size and readiness of existing militaries, and source needed systems and platforms. These steps will require political choices about prioritization, but they are not unsolvable.
And if Trump and his advisors are serious about getting Europe to do more, they have options. If the biggest problem is a lack of political imagination on the part of European leaders, then Trump is well-placed to shock them into action by making some of his past threats credible.
The most obvious step would be to withdraw a substantial number of U.S. military forces from Europe soon. This is easier than it sounds. Under former President Joe Biden, the number of U.S. military forces in Europe increased by at least 20,000. With the risk of broader war in Europe far lower than in 2022, these forces could be pulled back without significant risk or hassle. This would signal to Europe that Trump’s team is serious about rapid burden-shifting.
Trump’s team can also lean on existing institutions to directly off-load defense responsibilities onto European states. NATO’s force-planning process—which sets capability requirements for the alliance—is one such mechanism. Washington could set aggressive force and capability targets for NATO’s European members. Defense plans could be rewritten to give European forces primary responsibility in certain scenarios, pushing them to assume a bigger role and providing a more acute motivation to build their military forces.
Even the war in Ukraine offers opportunities. For the most part, the war has served as an impediment to discussions and investments needed to make burden-shifting a reality. Reducing U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine itself can be a step toward a more balanced U.S.-European defense relationship, allowing the administration to push Europe to step up and meet some of Ukraine’s armament or funding needs outside the U.S. security umbrella. Just as important is that Trump’s team should not let European states use Ukraine as a stalling tactic to push off conversations about their own security.
Pursuing a hard line on burden-shifting may come with trade-offs for the United States, too. There may be limits to how much cooperation the Trump administration can expect on economic issues, such as trade and export controls on China, while it presses Europe on security and defense issues. Yet, in the long run, getting Europe to carry the responsibility for its own defense would be worth the reduced economic alignment, particularly if it allows the United States to focus its own resources more squarely on more important economic and security priorities.
However hard the Trump administration chooses to press Europe, though, it is increasingly acknowledged in Washington—even among diehard trans-Atlanticists—that burden-shifting is coming to NATO. European leaders may have lulled themselves into a false sense of optimism, believing that they have figured out the formula to persuade Trump. But his concerns on European defense are no longer a passing whim; they are increasingly common wisdom. Europe needs to wake up to reality: Its security freeriding is over.