The Transatlantic Alliance Can’t Survive Without Trust
Washington Dismisses NATO’s Value at Its Own Peril
Wolfgang Ischinger
WOLFGANG ISCHINGER is Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. He previously served as State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and German Ambassador to the United States.
For over a decade, U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Washington’s European allies of free-riding on American security guarantees. He has been criticizing NATO members that do not pay “their fair share” since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015. He threatened to pull out of the alliance after winning office, and then again when running for president in 2024. Just a few weeks ago, at a NATO meeting, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a six-month review of the American military presence in Europe and declared that Washington’s payment of its annual NATO dues would be “contingent on other countries’ meeting their defense spending targets.” And at this month’s NATO summit in Turkey, the Trump administration’s threats to stop supporting Europe will surely hang over the proceedings.
The United States has suggested it might cut back its contributions to European security on many occasions since the end of the Cold War, but it has always come to the continent’s defense when required. When Europe proved unable to manage the war that broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, the United States intervened, paving the way for negotiations that ended the conflict. And even though Washington showed little appetite for coordinating a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, handing the diplomatic reins to France and Germany, the U.S. government stepped up after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, offering strategic leadership and providing the bulk of NATO members’ military support to Ukraine. Throughout this time, the United States has pushed Europe to shoulder a greater share of NATO’s defense burden. But Europeans, confident that Washington would continue to support them when it counted, did not take this message as seriously as they should have.
The Trump administration has now challenged Europe’s sense of safety. It has downplayed U.S. interests in Ukraine, excluded European countries from talks to end the war there and from American deliberations to start a war with Iran, and eschewed formal processes to coordinate withdrawals of U.S. conventional forces from Europe. Unsure of the United States’ reliability and worried about facing Russian aggression alone, Europe has begun gathering the necessary resources to become a capable military power. The irony is that just as Europe becomes the kind of partner the United States should want on its side, Washington’s behavior has created a crisis of trust within the alliance. Now, if Washington cannot repair the damage it has done, it risks losing this ever more valuable ally altogether.
ESTRANGED PARTNERS
On paper, the transatlantic alliance is stronger and more balanced than ever. Almost all NATO members have met or exceeded the alliance’s defense spending target of two percent of GDP as of 2025, with spending increasing by 20 percent between 2024 and 2025. European allies and Canada now account for 40 percent of NATO’s total defense spending, up from 30 percent in 2020. If Europeans meet NATO’s 2035 targets, they would be spending more than $800 billion, a significant increase from Europe’s estimated total spending of $574 billion in 2025 and almost on par with the United States’ spending in 2025. In effect, the continent is beginning to do precisely what successive U.S. administrations have demanded for decades: assume greater responsibility for its own defense and thus enable Washington to focus resources elsewhere.
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Yet a prolonged crisis of trust could erase any benefits Europe’s new defense commitments bring to the alliance. European leaders are increasingly frustrated with the United States’ lack of consultation with its allies. Washington, for instance, did not discuss its plans with European leaders before attacking Iran, and European governments have distanced themselves from the subsequent war as a result. In 2003, by contrast, several European governments opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq but still offered limited support because of a sense of allied solidarity. They participated in NATO consultations and shared intelligence. Today, European governments are far more reluctant to engage at all. Some have even restricted U.S. military access to their airspace or bases for operations linked to Iran.
This wariness of the United States has been building for months. In Ukraine, rather than clearly representing collective allied interests in the diplomatic process to end the war, Washington has presented itself as a mediator between Russia and NATO. This was most apparent in Trump’s 28-point peace plan, leaked in November 2025, that heavily favored Russian interests, causing consternation in European capitals. Meanwhile, his public threats to seize Greenland have been met with outright hostility. In January, when Washington threatened to impose tariffs on European countries that opposed Trump’s ambition to acquire the territory, the European Union started to consider retaliatory economic measures whose use against an ally would previously have been unthinkable. The Greenland episode generated ill will among the European public, too. A poll commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations and conducted in May 2026 in 15 European countries shows that a quarter of Europeans now view the United States as a rival or even an adversary—and the numbers are rising.
Trump has now challenged Europe’s sense of safety.
The consequences of this erosion of trust should be of immediate concern to Washington. One potential outcome is that Europeans might start looking for alternatives to the transatlantic partnership. Some countries might be tempted to hedge between China and the United States—as countries in Latin America and elsewhere are doing already—including by deepening economic ties with Beijing. Others might even choose to side with China. And if far-right parties gain power in certain European countries, their leaders have suggested they might seek to rekindle political, business, and energy ties with Moscow rather than Washington.
Perhaps more important, by allowing the crisis of trust to persist, the United States risks missing out on the benefits of an alliance with a truly capable partner. Europe has ceased to be a free rider and is quickly becoming a strategic asset. Its contributions are most obvious in Ukraine, where European countries have filled in the gaps as American assistance has declined. In 2025 alone, they increased their financial and humanitarian support by almost 60 percent and military assistance by 67 percent, spending more than $80 billion, according to the Germany-based Kiel Institute. Europe has financed the continued delivery of American weapons to Ukraine using a NATO procurement mechanism, and the EU has kept Ukraine from financial collapse by providing it with a loan package worth more than $100 billion. The United States’ allies, in effect, have enabled Washington to reduce its involvement in the war without severely jeopardizing Ukraine’s prospects—which is precisely what American officials have long wanted.
If Europe delivers on its defense spending pledges, becoming a capable military power in its own right, then the United States will have even more to gain from the alliance. With larger numbers of well-equipped soldiers at elevated states of readiness, Europe will be able to engage in high-intensity operations and sustained deployments. A stronger European defense industrial base would also provide additional capacity and useful redundancies for the U.S. defense industrial base, which is already struggling to replenish stockpiles after a few weeks of war against Iran.
MENDING THE RIFT
But having a materially strong ally in Europe will do the United States little good if European leaders are not willing to work closely with Washington. Cooperation on stabilizing the Middle East and building a durable European security architecture depends on mutual trust—and requires that the United States treat Europe as a partner, not as a dependent.
Fortunately for American officials, Washington has an opportunity to win back Europe’s trust: the Ukraine negotiations. During the Balkan wars of the 1990s, the United States coordinated its diplomatic efforts through the Contact Group, which brought together France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom for regular meetings. A similar mechanism could bring key European allies into today’s U.S.-led talks. Europeans, after all, will be indispensable to securing a cease-fire, containing Russia, and ensuring long-term stability after the war ends. The unity on display at the G-7 summit in France in June—where leaders affirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” pledged to deliver more aid, and committed to increasing economic pressure on Russia—indicates that there is a window of opportunity to work toward peace. But Washington now needs to ensure that Europe has a real stake in any deal that might emerge.
Europe has ceased to be a free rider and is quickly becoming a strategic asset.
The United States must also try to mend the rift it created when it began the war with Iran by bringing Europe into the talks to secure the peace. Europeans stand ready to support efforts to restore and maintain freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz; France and the United Kingdom have been advocating a multinational mission to do just that. They bring decades of experience from the negotiations that culminated in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. And they can help Washington secure buy-in from key regional actors, including the Gulf states, for a final settlement with Tehran, lowering the risk of a return to war.
The United States may continue to reduce its military footprint in Europe, but it should carefully coordinate any drawdowns or changes. When American leaders announce troop withdrawals abruptly and as a punishment—such as when Trump announced in early May that thousands of U.S. soldiers would be withdrawn from Germany, after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the war in Iran—they reinforce the perception of an unbalanced relationship and further erode trust. Close consultation is necessary to allow European countries to replace any essential capabilities the United States withdraws. If the United States acts unilaterally, Russia will eagerly exploit the resulting gaps in NATO defenses, putting at risk not only European societies and armies but also U.S. soldiers stationed on the continent.
Finally, the United States must accept that Europe needs to reduce its dependence on the American defense industry. Washington seems reluctant to do so; in December, during the NATO foreign ministers meeting, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau reportedly told European allies that policies he considered to be protectionist and exclusionary, pushing U.S. companies out of the European market, would undermine collective defense. So far, Europe’s rearmament has relied heavily on purchases from American firms: European NATO members sourced roughly 51 percent of their military equipment from the United States between 2022 and 2024. But if Europe is to assume greater responsibility for its own defense, it needs to sustain public support for higher budgets. That requires spending more at home, so that investments in defense generate jobs and broader domestic economic returns. And if Europe’s spending is to yield more effective militaries, the continent will need a genuine single market for defense and cooperation on the procurement and development of weapons. A competitive European defense industrial base does not pose a threat to the United States. Instead, it will make NATO stronger by expanding the alliance’s industrial capacity.
A MATURE RELATIONSHIP
Europe may still look like a free rider to some in Washington. It can be slow to act, and its progress has been uneven. But it is clear that Europeans are increasingly prepared to invest in the defense of the continent. In the years ahead, Europe will want the United States to remain engaged in the continent’s security through its involvement in NATO and provision of its nuclear umbrella. It will also seek the ability to deter Russia conventionally on its own. Europe’s wishes are nothing extraordinary; Washington has long regarded its own freedom of action as indispensable to its security. Yet preserving a transatlantic relationship in which both sides can choose when to act independently and when to act in concert requires trust between allies.
The NATO summit this month is an opportunity to take the first steps toward rebuilding that kind of relationship. Europeans should present a clear and sustainable path to meeting their defense spending pledges and express their willingness and ability to shoulder a larger share of Europe’s conventional deterrence and defense. The United States, in turn, should reaffirm its commitment to the alliance. In practice, that means discussing the details of how to shift defense responsibilities with allies, working out a transition plan with agreed timelines for potential troop or capability withdrawals, and involving Europeans in negotiations to end the wars in Ukraine. Washington should treat NATO’s decision-making body as the go-to forum for coordination and consultation on security concerns that alliance members share.
For decades, Washington complained that Europe was not doing enough. Now that Europe is finally doing more, the question is whether American leaders recognize the opportunity in front of them. If the United States is ready to treat Europe as a genuine partner, it will gain not only a stronger ally but also a more sustainable foundation for its own global leadership.
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