Europe is no longer pandering to Trump

In the days after he angered President Donald Trump by criticizing the U.S. war in Iran, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has been expressing sympathy for the United States. When the Pentagon suddenly announced it would withdraw 5.000 troops from Germany, Merz and his aides sought to convey an air of calm.

But he did not apologize. Refusing to back down, Merz embraced a tactic that has by now become widespread among European leaders who have incurred Trump's wrath during the war.

Mujtaba Rahman, director for Europe at Eurasia Group, says that Merz's criticism of Trump was not just a moment of personal honesty, nor just a sign of a rift between Berlin and the White House.

“They pointed to a broader shift taking place among European leaders. They are increasingly willing to publicly confront the Trump administration on issues ranging from Iran and Ukraine to European sovereignty,” says Rahman.

In his opinion, this turn of events can be partly explained by the increasingly unpredictable policies of the Trump administration and the belief that they require a more decisive response.

At an event at a school in his constituency, Merz said he did not believe Trump had a viable exit strategy for a war with Iran. He said Tehran had "humiliated" the United States with skillful diplomacy.

Those comments, according to the New York Times, appear to have contributed to the Pentagon’s surprise announcement that it would move 5.000 of the roughly 35.000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany. Merz later acknowledged that there were differences with Trump over the war, but he did not apologize. “We have a different view of this war, that’s no secret,” the German chancellor said, adding: “I’m not alone in that.”

Rahman points out that Merz's comments cannot be viewed in isolation.

Other European leaders acted similarly when Trump reacted angrily to their criticism of the war, their refusal to make European military bases fully available to the United States for attacks on Iran, and their unwillingness to accept his demands to send military forces to open shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, facing pressure at home, said he was "fed up" with Trump's pressure over the war. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, once seen as an important European ally of the US president, called his criticism of Pope Leo XIV "unacceptable" and did not back down from that even after talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

European leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to influence the course of the war in Iran while simultaneously trying to manage its economic and security consequences, so they are increasingly expressing their frustrations openly to the public, and without much remorse.

The Times writes that this approach should be familiar to Trump, as he has built a large part of his political brand on the "no backsliding" tactic. The list of statements and actions for which he has been asked to apologize, but for which he has never made an apology, is long and growing.

The Trump administration's push regarding Greenland earlier this year crossed clear European red lines when it comes to the territorial integrity of a NATO ally and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination.

The same goes for the attempts by Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance to influence the elections in Hungary in favor of Viktor Orbán.

“Yet none of these crises alone explains Europe’s tougher stance. More important is the growing and justified belief in European capitals that Washington has fewer leverage over the continent today than it did a year ago,” Rahman wrote in The Guardian.

The war with Iran has shown that the United States needs military infrastructure in Europe to project power in the Middle East, suggesting that military dependence is not entirely one-sided. At the same time, Rahman adds, European military spending has skyrocketed since Trump's return to power, with an increasing share going to European arms manufacturers.

The United States remains the dominant arms supplier to Europe. However, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that the US share of arms transfers to Europe in the period 2021-2025 has fallen to 58 percent, from 64 percent in the period 2020-2024.

Rahman says the same logic is now shaping European thinking about Ukraine.

The United States has suspended all funding to Kiev since March 2025, meaning that the bulk of Ukraine's funding now comes from the European Union. Ukraine continues to purchase weapons through NATO's US-sponsored list of Ukraine's priority needs, but it procures a much larger share of its military needs outside the United States. About 60 percent of its military equipment comes from domestic Ukrainian production, and 20 percent from European suppliers.

This is particularly evident in drone production. After years of investing in its own military industry, Ukraine now produces most of the drones it uses, and Ukraine's ambassador to NATO, Alena Getmanchuk, says that domestic interceptor weapons shoot down more than 60 percent of Russian drones.

Given that Trump is extremely unpopular among the European public, opposing the United States to European leaders brings a much-needed boost to support in the polls.

The US continues to provide key capabilities, particularly in intelligence and air defense. But, Rahman says, European officials increasingly believe that even a significant reduction in US support in these areas would not lead to Ukraine’s immediate collapse. “A Ukraine less dependent on the US means a Europe less dependent on the US,” the column notes.

A similar shift toward America is also noticeable in Kiev. With American peace talks effectively frozen since the start of the war with Iran, writes the New York Times, President Volodymyr Zelensky has begun to criticize Washington more openly, assessing that American negotiators "have no time for Ukraine" and that the administration is putting more pressure on Kiev than on Moscow.

European governments, Rahman said, have also seen that many of Trump's threats never fully materialize. Resistance to the president - in Congress, in the courts, and even within parts of his own MAGA coalition - is growing.

The Eurasia Group analyst says EU leaders are also less fearful of the strength of the MAGA movement and its influence on elections in Europe, after Trump and Vance's interventions in Hungary proved to be a spectacular failure.

“Given that Trump is extremely unpopular among the European public, opposing the United States to European leaders brings a much-needed boost to support in the polls,” says Rahman.

He expects this shift in sentiment to shape Europe's response to future disputes with the US, particularly on trade. He is confident that if Washington imposes higher tariffs on European exports, such as cars, as Trump is now threatening, the EU will respond more decisively than it did last year, when it accepted a 15 percent tariff increase under the US-EU Turnberry trade deal.

EU member states have already approved countermeasures that would cover 93 billion euros worth of US exports, although the European Commission would initially leave some room for negotiation. The EU will also continue to take steps to reduce the risks of dependence on the US in defence, digital services and other key areas.

Rahman warns that the Greenland issue could be reopened. Danish, Greenlandic and US officials, who are tasked with addressing US security concerns regarding the Arctic, have so far made little progress. If Trump were to make territorial threats again, the EU would likely respond with its own powerful “anti-coercion instrument,” which could target US high-tech companies and digital service providers, he said.

Ultimately, Rahman believes, Europe's relationship with the United States is becoming less submissive. European governments now believe they have a greater capacity to resist pressure from Washington. Trump's aura of invincibility, he argues, has dissipated not only in the United States but also in Europe. His allies no longer feel they have to fawn over him until the end of his second term.