Transatlantic Relationship: Rebuilding Trust in a Time of Great Expectations

Over the last decades, Europeans and Americans have enjoyed the benefits of a relatively stable transatlantic relationship. Donald Trump’s presidency, with his unabashed criticism of multilateralism and the United States’ role as a promoter of the liberal world order, has shaken this sense of stability. Four years of his presidency, corresponding with growing isolationism and nativism on both sides of the Atlantic, has spread distrust between the U.S. and Europe and their shared institutions. A key challenge for the future of the transatlantic relationship is to rebuild that once strong trust. 

However, Trump’s presidency is not the only factor shaping transatlantic relations. A rising and more assertive China, new security threats, including those in cyberspace, a growing appeal of autocracy even among Western societies, recurring migration crises, economic consequences of the pandemic, climate change, and many other challenges have had an impact on both the EU and the U.S.

We began our discussion by asking participants to briefly describe how they feel about the current state of the transatlantic alliance. Although many acknowledged a welcome change of tone which came with the new administration – some even spoke of a “honeymoon period” that the EU and U.S. are still enjoying – more cautionary voices soon dominated the discussion. One participant said he was “confused” by the state of the current relationship, given how much the two sides have in common in terms of both values and interests.

Another remarked that Biden’s administration will continue to argue for a change in the security aspect of the transatlantic partnership, pushing Europe to take more responsibility for its own safety, and stability of its immediate surroundings. This “push” has started well under Barack Obama and was continued – though rather unconventionally – by his successor. However, unlike Donald Trump, President Biden does not consider the EU to be a foe, and has reaffirmed his commitment to NATO, yet he also expects the EU to take on more responsibility for maintaining the liberal world order.

Whether the Europeans can rise to the occasion depends on if they are able to conjure up a new, more cohesive foreign policy. The argument that there is no single Europe but “many Europes” with diverse, often conflicting interests came up repeatedly in the discussion.

“European states are competing against each other and even within the states there is no consensus as far as the relationship with the US is concerned. Europe needs to be more coherent and clearer about its intentions” one person said, adding that “internal divisions within Europe” are one of “the major challenges” in renewing the transatlantic alliance. Others pointed to diverse attitudes towards China and Russia.

Another thorny issue is the level of defense spending, as well as ways in which European countries should cooperate to achieve the so-called “strategic autonomy,” another goal not shared universally across the continent.

Lack of coherence, however, is not only a European problem. America is equally polarized. Nativism and isolationism – which the current president wholeheartedly rejects – have long been present in American politics and are here to stay. Biden’s foreign policy must therefore cater to the expectations and needs of at least some of the people who voted for his predecessor.

Achieving the necessary level of coherence will be even more difficult due to electoral calendars on both sides of Atlantic, especially in Germany, where the new parliament will be elected in September, in France where President Emmanuel Macron will run for re-election in April 2022 and in the U.S. with its mid-term elections in November 2022.

Given all these limitations and Biden’s political realism, some participants expressed doubts whether the new president can live up to the expectations he awoke, such as his policy vis-à-vis Russia. “From [my] perspective, we see some tough rhetoric towards Russia and at the same time lifting sanctions on Nord Stream 2. That undermines trust,” one participant said.

On the other hand, many challenges demand closer cooperation between the U.S. and the EU, especially in the realm of advanced technologies and the new regulatory framework to control their use.