Will EU Succeed to Overcome Dependence on White House?

In a speech at the World Economic Forum last month, Ursula Von Der Leyen, head of the European Union’s executive body, repeatedly stressed the bloc’s need for “independence.”

She was speaking against a backdrop of threats by US President Donald Trump to either invade or extort the sale of Greenland – a sovereign territory of Denmark – and punish with tariffs several European countries opposing his plans. It was a watershed for a region that has traditionally opted for cautious diplomacy over confrontation with the White House, reports CNN.

Trump’s threats may have evaporated, but the feeling in Europe that it should become less dependent on the United States for its trade, its energy and its technology, has not. However, loosening those connections would be extremely difficult and come with enormous costs, analysts told CNN.

“You’d be trying to unravel and unpack several centuries of ever-deepening social, historical, institutional, economic, financial ties,” said Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics.

Still, Europe cannot afford complacency as it faces the prospect that Washington’s volatile, winner-takes-all approach to its allies may outlast Trump – and that its dependencies on the United States could become its vulnerabilities.

“I think there’s a kind of fundamental element of distrust now, or concern about what might come (after Trump),” Shearing said.

But the outsized role played by the United States in Europe’s economy would make a hard split unrealistic and potentially ruinous for the region as it currently stands. Here’s why.

Deepening trade ties with other countries is an important way Europe could become less reliant on the United States. Already this year, the EU has inked trade agreements with India and four South American countries – a bloc referred to as Mercosur – after decades of negotiations.

Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro research at ING, said the deals appear to be a step toward decoupling from Washington but that “neither Mercosur nor India will be able in the next decade to take over the role… that the US holds in European trade.”

While it has existed since 2009, the EU’s Article 42.7 mutual defense clause was rarely seen as necessary because NATO’s Article 5 served a similar purpose. But Europe's governments have started to doubt whether the U.S. really would come to Europe's rescue.

In Zagreb, the leaders embraced the EU’s new role as a security actor, tasking two leaders, as yet unnamed, with rapidly cooking up plans to turn the EU clause from words to an ironclad security guarantee.

“For decades, some countries said ‘We have NATO, why should we have parallel structures?’” said a senior EU diplomat who was granted anonymity to talk about confidential summit preparations. After Trump’s Greenland saber-rattling, “we are faced with the necessity, we have to set up military command structures within the EU.”

Europe remains heavily reliant on U.S. military capabilities, most notably in its support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. But some Europeans are now openly talking about the price of reducing exposure to the U.S. — and saying it’s manageable.


Rifat Rafique Badhan is a
freelancer and a columnist.