Linde Desmaele is Assistant Professor of Intelligence and Security at Leiden University.

This piece draws on the insights of her book ‘Europe’s Evolving Role in US Grand Strategy: Indispensable or Insufferable?

As the United States continues to reorient its strategic focus away from Europe and towards competition with China, European policymakers have been left questioning where Europe fits into U.S. grand strategy.

Over the past couple of decades, successive U.S. administrations have signaled shifting priorities: George W. Bush prioritized the Middle East, Barack Obama promised a rebalance to Asia, and both Donald Trump (during his first term) and Joe Biden placed China at the center of U.S. defense planning. However, no administration has created as much uncertainty about the future of the transatlantic relationship as the current one. Trump’s track record of skepticism toward NATO, coupled with the administration’s broader seeming disdain for Europe (and the EU), has unsettled many European leaders. Thus, when he signed onto a declaration that reaffirmed the United States ‘ironclad commitment’ to NATO’s collective defense at the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, many in Europe breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet, this moment of reassurance may be misleading. A generous reading of the recent summit might suggest that, beneath the rhetoric and theatrics, little has fundamentally changed in America’s role in Europe. But setting the bar at ‘the United States remains committed to Article 5’ overlooks a crucial point: The key question is not whether the United States stays in NATO, but under what terms and with what expectations from its allies. What is emerging under Trump 2.0. is arguably not so much a dismantled NATO, but rather a repurposed one.

Specifically, Trump’s behavior signals a transformation of the alliance along two dimensions: First, in line with previous trends, the United States is continuing to downgrade Europe in its strategic outlook, pushing European allies to take on more responsibility as Washington focuses on the Indo-Pacific. Second, and more unique to Trump, it is imposing a more coercive model of alliance relations, in which protection becomes explicitly conditional upon compliance with U.S. preferences. This risks putting Europeans in an uncomfortable position: asked to contribute more but offered less influence in return.

The Transatlantic Bargain

For many decades, the relationship between the United States and its European allies has rested on an (implicit) political bargain: The United States promised to protect its allies from external threats, and in exchange, it expected some degree of European alignment – politically, economically and diplomatically – with the broader contours of U.S. leadership. This arrangement was never a charity project; rather, both sides saw mutual interdependence as in their strategic interest. NATO, in this sense, was not simply a miliary alliance but the institutional anchor of a larger geopolitical order, in which Europe was the front line in the containment of the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, the transatlantic bargain proved remarkably stable. Despite recurring transatlantic disagreements about how to best operationalize a deterrence strategy against Moscow, the basic structure of mutual dependence held.

Since the end of the Cold War, however, Europe’s centrality in U.S. grand strategy has declined. Rather than being the primary strategic theater for Washington, U.S. policymakers have increasingly treated Europe as a region of long-standing relationships that can be leveraged in support of U.S. goals elsewhere – whether as a junior partner and foundation for U.S. operations in the Middle East, or as an enabler or force multiplier in its rivalry with China. The alliance endured, and even enlarged, but the foundational bargain also gradually became more diffuse.

Under Trump’s second term, this downgrading of Europe is becoming more explicit. The forthcoming U.S. global posture review, for example, is widely expected to reallocate American military assets away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific. The message from Washington is clear: Europe must take greater responsibility for its own defense. Yet, this does not imply that Washington is looking for a genuine power-sharing arrangement. Instead, the Trump administration is combining longer term structural tends with a specific and coercive preference for how the alliance should be managed. What it is promoting is not a rebalancing or redistribution of authority, rather a reassignment of responsibilities and not of rights.

Trump 2.0.: Retooling NATO

Alongside this expected downgrade of Europe in U.S. defense planning, the Trump administration is also reshaping the nature of alliance politics more broadly. While all U.S. presidents have sought to mold the alliance to fit their agendas, Trump is going significantly further. Instead of a mutual commitment, Washington now expects a much stricter and more unilateral form of alignment on the part of its allies. Thus, the alliance is slowly being redefined around a more coercive logic: One where compliance with U.S. preferences is treated as an explicit prerequisite of continued protection.

While previous administration surely pushed for alignment, they generally left considerable room for national discretion and refrained from interfering directly in allies’ domestic affairs or dictating exactly how spending targets had to be met. That space now appears to be narrowing. For one thing, the Trump administration has repeatedly promoted the view that allies ‘owe’ the United States money and must meet specific spending targets to be worthy of protection. This framing has taken hold not only in U.S. discourse, but also across parts of Europe, where there seems to a belief that if Europeans spend enough on defense, they will be able to persuade Trump to stay engaged in their security.

But defense spending is just one element of this broader, more intrusive agenda. The administration has also demanded changes in European trade policy and internal regulation, including calls to lower VAT rates and weaken food safety standards. These demands are presented as ways to enhance market access for U.S. firms. As Andrew Gawthorpe notes, Europe is increasingly treated as an ‘economic periphery’, expected to reshape itself to serve the needs of ‘an imperial center.’

Moreover, The Trump administration’s approach in Europe also includes an important ideological component. Washington now appears interested not just in enforcing policy alignment but also in shaping the broader political orientation of its European allies. The goal here goes beyond specific U.S. policy demands. It appears to involve a desire to promote a political environment in Europe that is overall more ideologically aligned with Trumpism. This includes tacit support for like-minded political actors and pressure on pro-EU governments, and signals a willingness to influence European domestic politics in an overt way.

NATO Reformed?

Together, these two shifts – the strategic downgrading of Europe and the intensification of U.S. conditionality – point to a deeper redefinition of NATO’s core logic. The alliance is slowly being repurposed into a structure of asymmetrical obligations: European allies are being asked to take on more risks, more costs, and more responsibility, while being granted less input, less room for maneuver and less strategic weight. Under Trump 2.0., Europe’s role in U.S. grand strategy is therefore more akin to that of a conditional asset than a central (if junior) partner. No longer the focal point of American geopolitical attention, Europe is being asked to support U.S. priorities – militarily, economically, and ideologically – while being granted less and less influence over their formulation.

NATO, as repurposed by Trump, will probably survive in form, but be hollowed out in its function. For Europe, this creates a difficult strategic dilemma. Should it accept this new model and submit to reduced agency within a U.S. led security order, or build the political will and capacity for greater autonomy? The key issue to watch is not whether NATO will survive Trump 2.0, but what kind of alliance will emerge from it, and what of Europe that alliance will ultimately serve. Indeed, the way in which Washington is fusing strategic, economic and ideologically pressure raises not only questions of sovereignty and burden-sharing, but also about the broader political identity of the transatlantic alliance. If current trends continue, Europe is likely to become ever less central – and ever less equal – in U.S. grand strategy.

Foto header: Trump at the NATO Summit 2025, June 24, 2025 (Shutterstock)