For nearly 80 years, the alliance between the United States and Europe served as the backbone of the global order. Forged after World War II, it rested on shared commitments to democracy, freedom, and collective security—deterring major wars, defeating communism, and anchoring decades of economic growth.
In 2025, that foundation is visibly cracking.
European leaders are no longer just uneasy; they are openly questioning whether the Western alliance, as they have known it, still exists.
From partnership to suspicion
“What we once called the normative West no longer exists,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently declared, urging Germans to abandon nostalgia for an America that once saw Europe as a strategic and moral partner. Washington, he said, is now pursuing its interests “very, very aggressively”—and Europe must follow suit.
That sentiment is spreading across European capitals. Officials increasingly believe that the United States, under President Donald Trump’s second administration, no longer treats Europe as central to its global strategy. The White House has adopted language toward European democracies that is often harsher than its rhetoric toward geopolitical rivals such as Russia or China.
What was once a relationship built on shared values now feels transactional—and increasingly adversarial.
A clash over values—and identity
At the heart of the rupture is a fundamental disagreement over what “the West” actually means.
Figures in the Trump administration argue that Europe is betraying Western civilization by allowing immigration to dilute what they describe as its white, Christian roots. They accuse European elites of enforcing diversity through limits on speech and political freedoms.
European leaders reject that framing outright. Many point out that European democracies now score higher than the US in global democracy rankings and insist that the West is defined by principles—rule of law, human rights, pluralism—not by race or religion.
They also accuse Washington of abandoning those very principles by courting autocrats, tolerating territorial aggression, and even making provocative claims involving allies such as Canada and Denmark.
Words backed by policy
Europe’s unease deepened as rhetoric turned into action.
Washington is pursuing a geopolitical accommodation with Moscow, partly driven by commercial interests. US envoys have pressed Ukraine to accept territorial and political concessions—moves European leaders fear would legitimize aggression rather than deter it.
“For the US to drop its alliance with Europe and side with Russia, with Putin the aggressor, represents a fundamental break,” said German lawmaker Norbert Röttgen. French senator Claude Malhuret warned that Europe now faces “two enemies: Russia and Trumpism.”
Tensions escalated further with a US-Russia-backed peace plan for Ukraine widely viewed in Europe as favoring Moscow, followed by the release of a new US National Security Strategy (NSS) in December.
To many Europeans, the NSS read like a declaration of estrangement. It criticized Europe’s democratic health, attacked its immigration policies, and questioned whether countries becoming “majority non-European” could remain reliable allies—an implication many saw as racially charged.
The document also labeled the European Union an enemy of national sovereignty and pledged US support for anti-immigration parties, several of which are openly hostile to the EU itself.
British historian Timothy Garton Ash called it “a declaration of war on the European Union.”
What is “the West,” anyway?
Scholars note that the idea of “the West” has always evolved. Georgios Varouxakis, author of The West: The History of an Idea, argues it is no longer credible to define the West as white and Christian.
During the Cold War, the West came to mean the “free world”—a set of political and civic values that any society could adopt. Immigrants and minorities used those values to challenge exclusion and inequality in both Europe and the US.
Many Europeans now believe the US is exporting its internal culture wars abroad. “America ran from the closed societies of the Old World,” said Bulgarian political thinker Ivan Krastev. “Now it feels betrayed because Europe is becoming more like America.”
Still, European leaders concede that some US criticisms hit home—particularly on slow economic growth, overregulation, dependence on American security guarantees, and failures in migration management that are fueling voter backlash.
“If Europe remains dependent on the US for technology, markets, and security, it risks becoming a vassal,” warned former French diplomat Jérémie Gallon.
NATO and the trust deficit
The most serious concern, however, is security.
For the first time in decades, Europeans are openly questioning whether the US would honor NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause if Russia threatened the Baltics after Ukraine.
A senior British naval officer recently admitted he no longer trusts the US to respond unequivocally.
That erosion of trust worries strategists. America’s greatest advantage over rivals like China and Russia has long been its network of allies. “This new transactional approach sees the cost of everything and the value of nothing,” said British historian Andrew Roberts.
Russia, meanwhile, stands to gain. Moscow has long sought to weaken European unity and push the US out of the continent. Today, some analysts see a “strange convergence” between US and Russian interests in undermining the European project Washington once helped build.
Why this matters
The unraveling of the Western alliance would reshape global power.
A divided West weakens democratic norms, emboldens authoritarian states, and accelerates a shift toward a world governed by deals rather than rules. For smaller nations—especially those reliant on international law and multilateral institutions—the consequences could be severe.
Europe is now being forced to confront an uncomfortable reality: the US may no longer be a values-based ally, but a transactional partner—or, at times, a destabilizing force.
The West, as an idea and an alliance, may not disappear overnight. But something fundamental has broken—and rebuilding trust may take far longer than breaking it.
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