US President Donald Trump
Credit: X@realDonaldTrump
President Donald Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” appears to be having an unexpected side effect: He is bringing Europeans together again.
The European Union was in bad shape at the start of the first Trump administration. Public trust in the bloc was at a historic low, Britain had just voted to leave, and the European economy was struggling to recover from the global financial crisis, which had set off a series of debt-related meltdowns across the continent.
But things slowly started to improve from around 2016. In recent months, sentiment around the European Union has picked up further. Trust ratings are approaching a two-decade high. EU leaders are striking trade deals with fast-growing economies like Indonesia, standing up a defence plan that has garnered partnerships with nations including Canada, and even Britain recently struck a deal to reset relations.
The bloc still has very real problems. Its population is aging and economic growth remains slow. Populist detractors who criticise it loudly have been gaining momentum, and it is grasping for ways to revitalise competitiveness. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has come under fierce criticism as she tries to overhaul the bloc’s budget.
But even in member states like Denmark, which has long been sceptical of the EU’s budget and border policies, feelings toward the bloc have turned decidedly more positive.
“Support toward the EU has never been higher,” Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for European Affairs, said in an interview.
About 74% of Danes said that they trusted the European Union in a recent public opinion survey conducted for the European Commission, up from 63% five years ago. That shift is far from isolated — across member states, citizens are feeling more trusting toward the EU, continuing a trend that outside polls have found.
The turnaround is not solely because of Trump. The bloc’s work in organising a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including securing vaccines, helped to bolster its popularity. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrated to many European governments and citizens that their own national security could come under threat.
Yet America’s recent tone toward its longtime allies has also clearly helped to contribute to what Jörn Fleck, a senior director of the Atlantic Council, a think tank, calls a “rally around the European Union flag.”
“We have always had a very strong relationship with the US,” Bjerre explained. “Now, we are met with unjustified tariffs, and we are even accused of not being a good ally. And of course that resonates, and that is why we’re turning a lot to the EU.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has threatened to invade Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. His administration has called Europeans “pathetic” in leaked exchanges on Signal, the messaging app. Trump has said the bloc was formed to “screw” America.
The president has slapped higher tariffs on European goods, and this month, he threatened to impose a new 30% across-the-board levy that European officials warned would hobble trans-Atlantic trade.
Trump has also demanded that Europe do more to pay for its own defence, and has suggested that the United States would not come to the aid of countries that he felt were not contributing enough to their own security.
All of that has pushed Europe further from America — and closer together.
“There’s a creeping awareness that all of the European countries are small at the end of the day,” Fleck said. “That Europe needs to stick together and pool resources.” He noted that the rehabilitation of Europe’s image has taken time, and was down to many factors.
In the face of Russia’s increased aggression and America’s insistence that European governments do more on defence, EU member states are trying to rapidly step up their military spending. But as countries have struggled to find room in their strapped national budgets to ramp up drone and howitzer purchases, the European Union has stepped in.
EU officials unveiled in March a 150 billion euro (about $175 billion) joint procurement loan plan, through which member states can use borrowing backed by Brussels to boost military ability. They also announced that the bloc would give states wiggle room under their budget rules to allow them to increase defence spending.
Individual states within the European Union have also become cosier: Germany and France are collaborating more tightly, especially following the election in May of Friedrich Merz as Germany’s new chancellor. Even Britain, which formally left the bloc in 2020, has pushed to be included in the EU joint defence procurement plan.
“Europe suddenly feels vulnerable,” said Matthias Matthijs, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, in part because it has been “abandoned by the US.”
“They’re suddenly thinking: We have to rely more on ourselves,” he said.
The shared interest in increasing Europe’s defences is not the only issue that is bolstering Brussels’ brand. When it comes to Trump’s trade threats, the European Union is playing an even more pivotal role.
The European Commission negotiates trade deals for all 27 member states. By acting together as the world’s third-largest economy, the bloc has more power than any of its individual countries would have on their own.
While there were initially questions about whether some European states might try to cut side deals with the United States — and Trump administration officials have bemoaned that they cannot talk directly with Germany or other individual governments — European officials have mainly stuck together.
Consider Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. Given her roots in the far right and history of criticising the European Union, she was initially expected to position herself as an ally of Trump. Yet not only did she avoid an Italy-first approach when she visited the White House in April, she has maintained what many see as a pro-Europe tone since.
Meloni’s reaction to Trump’s 30% tariff threat was a case in point. “Europe has the economic and financial strength to assert its position and secure a fair and reasonable agreement,” she wrote on social media last week. “Italy will do its part.”
Von der Leyen has also been pitching the benefits of Europe to outside partners, working to sign a flurry of new or improved trade agreements with countries including Mexico, South Korea and Indonesia.
“We in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, we really consider Europe to be very, very important in providing global stability,” President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia said last week at a news conference in Brussels, at which he appeared alongside von der Leyen.
“Maybe not many of us would like to admit it openly, but I am here,” he added, in a seeming nod to Europe’s bad run in recent years. “I admit openly we would like to see a stronger Europe.”
But if the European Union is seeing an uptick in support, it now must live up to it.
Trade negotiators are racing to strike a deal with the United States before Aug. 1, the date when Trump has threatened to impose the 30% tariffs — or the European Union may need to retaliate.
The difficult part of trade talks is still coming, and the relative consensus that has held up so far could still fall apart.
The bloc is also contending with serious questions about how it can become more dynamic economically at a time when America offers deeper financial markets and China is pulling ahead in key technologies. While it is building its next budget around that goal, and has pledged to chip away at red tape that is holding businesses back, it is not clear that either approach will suffice.