The European Union needs to update its web page on human rights. The fundamental right to freeload off American defense seems to be missing.
The EU acts like it is entitled to unencumbered American protection, given the responses to President Trump. I guess that’s what happens when the continent that invented the welfare state gets cut off from American welfare. Too bad all the brave talk about separating fully from the U.S. is just that — a lot of talk.
The basic fact of the matter is that Europe has no good alternative to making every attempt to salvage some partnership with America and Trump.
To start, the Europeans need a history lesson. Since 1917, Europe has been bailed out eight times by the U.S., in situations where the continent could have devolved into authoritarianism, chaos, depression and mass mortality. There have been two world wars, massive famine relief in the wake of World War I, the Marchall Plan after the Second World War, the Cold War, the Yugoslav civil war, the 2010-11 Euro crisis and the current war in Ukraine.
And the bill for the U.S. taxpayer has been pretty high. The Marshall Plan alone cost $135 billion (in 2018 dollars). Two world wars add over $4 trillion to the bill (2008 dollars). Post-World War I famine relief was a relatively cheap $4 billion.
It is absolutely true that the U.S. benefited from these interventions, but Europe benefited far more. Consider the 1919-1921 Hoover famine relief program.
Herbert Hoover and the U.S. government used its food aid program to buy excess American grain, with the political objective of limiting the expansion of communism by feeding those in need in Russia. For many in Europe (particularly on the left), ulterior motives cancel out any credit due to America. However, I would suggest a starving child is probably grateful to be fed even if a farmer in Iowa gets a check out of it.
It is difficult to come up with a major security or economic crisis in the past 100 years Europe has successfully handled on its own. Europe could not go three years past the end of the Cold War for it to need American military force and diplomatic mediation to stop the genocidal Yugoslav civil war, for example.
Even the more recent portents are not good for Europe defending itself militarily and economically. EU members are still buying Russian oil and gas. In fact, EU nations have purchased $220 billion in Russian hydrocarbons since the start of the war in Ukraine. And despite sanctions, Russian weapons are packed with European parts and technology (and American, to be fair).
Worst of all, the EU is sitting on over $200 billion in frozen Russian assets. Only now, after more than three years of war and the prospect of the loss of American protection, are Europeans considering tapping into frozen Russian assets — and they still are not planning on liquidating them. What the Europeans can’t (or won’t) figure out is that weakness encourages aggression when it comes to Russia. The failure to cash in Russian assets is a signal Europe is still not serious.
The EU should have learned this lesson when Russia invaded Ukraine. Much of Europe, but mostly Germany, had become dependent on Russian gas. What the Germans saw as a linking of two economies for mutual benefit and the promotion of peace, the Russians clearly saw as energy dependency that would give them free rein for aggression against their neighbors. The Russians certainly miscalculated, but Europe is paying the price.
So where does Europe go now that Trump won’t pay any more bills? It’s hard to see. There has been defiant talk about partnering with China. Good luck with that.
Economically, China and Europe don’t match up. The EU has a 158 billion Euro trade surplus with the U.S. and 176.9 billion surplus overall. Meanwhile, China’s trade surplus for 2024 approached $1 trillion, including over 300 billion Euros with the EU — and that deficit has been on an upward trajectory for over 10 years.
Countries with export-dependent economic models make very bad partners — somebody has to absorb the deficit. There could be a match between a natural resource producer and a manufacturer, but that’s not the case here, with both China and Europe relatively resource-poor and focused on manufacturing.
Worse, China has massive manufacturing overcapacity, and its dumping of products has spurred nations in Asia and Latin America to impose selective tariffs. Trump’s general tariffs add to the pain. China also wants to move up the value chain, which means displacing any European companies sitting at the top. Who knows, maybe the EU will agree to buy sophisticated goods from China and Europe will make the cheap stuff they sell on Temu.
Europe could go back to its pre-Ukraine war model of cheap Russian energy propping up its own manufacturing and consumers. Of course, that means ceding Russia a free hand in Ukraine and any other parts of the old Russian Empire Putin wants to grab. That kind of makes the last three years pointless.
To top it all off, Europe and the EU are stuck with a bad currency, an unwieldy bureaucracy and a decision-making process that is simply impossible in a crisis where difficult decisions must be made. The requirement for supermajorities on many votes and a de facto veto for the “Big Four” (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) slows and de-rails the process.
Spain, run by socialists and far from Russia, has very different concerns than Poland, the Baltic states and other “frontline” countries. France and Italy have massive debts, with France barely having a functioning government. In the midst of a panic attack over J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich, the so-called “emergency summit” called by Emmanuel Macron resulted in no agreement.
Europe is an aging continent too dependent on legacy manufacturing. It has been coasting along under the umbrella of American military protection, while ignoring American security concerns with respect to China and Iran. Their leaders and the voters have shown zero willingness to sacrifice and restructure their economies and security arrangements and there is no one ready to bail them out.
The blunt truth is that their best option is to knuckle under to whatever Trump wants. Europe put itself in this position: It deserves no sympathy.
Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.
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