A relationship on the rocks: Europe and America need each other but trust is gone 

MUNICH — European and American leaders spent three days pledging cooperation and offering to slap a new coat of paint on the façade of the transatlantic relationship. But the cracks are still showing.

The United States was less combative than a year ago in its showing at the Munich Security Conference, when Vice President JD Vance launched a scorching attack on Europe.

But the gathering showed that while the alliance continues to function, the old order that bound the two sides of the Atlantic for decades has broken down. There is no consensus on how the relationship can move forward given the regular seismic shocks the Trump administration revels in delivering to the system. 

The list of injuries is a long one. Donald Trump has called to annex Greenland while imposing tariffs on European allies who pushed back; the continent has been bumped down to third place after the Western hemisphere and China on the administration’s list of priorities; new U.S. aid to Ukraine has shriveled to almost nothing; and Europe has been subjected to constant attacks over free speech and digital regulation.

Meanwhile, the continent is fighting the rise of MAGA-backed far-right parties at home and a wounded but dangerous Russia on its doorstep that Trump insists on bringing back into the global order. 

“I don’t think we will be doing business as usual,” Evika Siliņa, the prime minister of Latvia, a country on the frontline of a potential Russian attack and which depends on allies for its security, told POLITICO.

One European CEO said it would take “a generation” to rebuild the trust that has been lost over the past year.

Smooth talk

That’s despite a clear attempt by top U.S. officials speaking at the stately 18th century hotel in central Munich to tone down recent attacks and pledge a continuing American presence in NATO.

“For the United States and Europe, we belong together,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who replaced Vance at this year’s conference, to relieved applause from the gathered leaders.

But he framed his appeal in terms of blood and soil familiar to Make America Great Again supporters, based on common (often economic) interests and not the common values of democracy and rule of law that had held the alliance together in past decades.

“We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir,” Rubio said.

The response from European leaders was polite — no one wants to break the remaining bonds with an increasingly unpredictable United States, whose troops, nuclear weapons and military capabilities still give the continent crucial security against Russia.

Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured by the speech of the secretary of state.” | Thomas Kianzle/AFP via Getty Images

But on the sidelines of the event, multiple officials compared the current state of affairs to an abusive relationship in which the abuser blames the victim while vacillating between violence and sweet talk.

U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, said the past year has been a “roller coaster of emotions” for European policymakers. “I feel like the toxic girlfriend or toxic boyfriend right now … and Europe just wants us to be better.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured by the speech of the secretary of state,” calling him a “good friend” and a “strong ally.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer stressed that ties with Washington remain very strong as “we are working with the U.S. on defense, security and intelligence 24-7.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed in an interview at the POLITICO Pub: “I would argue that NATO is the strongest it has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Pulling away

But European leaders are increasingly looking to themselves for their long-term defense.

“The international order based on rights and rules … no longer exists in the way it once did,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Munich, though like other European leaders he didn’t call for a break with the U.S.

French President Emmanuel Macron — who didn’t mention NATO once in his speech — told the audience that “Europe has to become a geopolitical power. We have to accelerate and deliver all the components of a geopolitical power: defense, technologies and de-risking from all the big powers.”

France, Germany and Sweden are breaking a taboo and starting tentative talks about how France’s atomic arsenal could contribute to the continent’s security — driven by concern about the reliability of America’s nuclear umbrella.

Other leaders are thinking the same way. Poland’s pro-MAGA President Karol Nawrocki — who was not at Munich — said on Sunday that Warsaw developing nuclear weapons “is the path we should take” to repel an “aggressive, imperial Russian Federation.”

Even Starmer, the most pro-American major European leader, is looking to the continent. “There is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain,” he said.

Other pro-U.S. leaders are similarly unmoored by what’s happening in Washington.

“American foreign policy has changed,” said Alexander Stubb. | Gints Ivuskans/AFP via Getty Images

“American foreign policy has changed,” Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland and occasional golf buddy of President Donald Trump, told POLITICO, calling the new approach a blend of MAGA and “America First.”

Greenland is a problem

While the past year has seen a host of challenges from Trump to the old security relationship, the most profound break was caused by the U.S. president’s repeated calls to annex Greenland, a Danish territory.

U.S. officials in Munich tried to move past the turmoil created by Trump, with Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham proclaiming: “Who gives a shit who owns Greenland?” 

At Munich it was clear that Europeans still care very much.

“Everyone is quite confused” by the Trump administration’s signals on taking control of the island, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said on the sidelines of the summit. 

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the continuing U.S. pressure “unacceptable” and warned: “Let me put it this way: If one NATO country attacks another NATO country, then NATO ends. Then it’s game over.”

Natalia Pouzyreff, a French lawmaker who sits on the National Assembly’s defense committee, declared a “crisis of confidence” on the continent amid a resigned acceptance that more American provocations are still to come.

“We know the issue of Greenland will come back, as will pressure on Canada. Europeans are not ready to take over from the U.S. now: Optimists think it’ll be easy, but realists know it’ll take a few years.”

That has Europeans boosting their defense spending to levels not seen since the Cold War — fulfilling a long-standing American demand.

But this time, a lot of that cash is being hemmed in with restrictions aimed at focusing much of the spending on Europe’s own military industrial complex in order to minimize reliance on outsiders, including the U.S.

Von der Leyen advocated dusting off the EU’s own common defense pact alongside the NATO version, while EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius reiterated his idea of creating a European rapid reaction force of up to 100,000 troops to replace American soldiers if they’re ever withdrawn from the continent.

Despite the warmer words from administration officials, there’s no consensus on the continent over how to view the U.S. and where it is heading, even if elections restore a friendlier leadership to Washington. One thing is widely accepted — the post-war alliance as it once stood is gone. 

There are few illusions left, as underscored by Rubio’s boarding a plane from Munich to Russia-friendly Hungary and Slovakia. It also wasn’t lost on Europeans that Rubio barely mentioned Russia and Ukraine during his address, several officials told POLITICO.

“We know there will be more volatility in the transatlantic relationship,” French Deputy Defense Minister Alice Rufo told reporters. The ties “will never be like before. The shift began a long time ago.”

Jack Detsch, Joe Gould, Felicia Schwartz, Chris Lunday, Victor Jack, Esther Webber and Jacopo Barigazzi contributed to this report.