Written by: Riccardo Castagnoli

Edited by: Conley Austin

On November 5^th, 2024, former President Donald J. Trump was elected as the 47th President of the United States of America for a second mandate after the four-year interval of President Joe Biden’s Democratic Administration (Miller et al., 2024). Alongside Trump’s return to the White House, the Republican Party secured control over the Senate and is currently leading the race for the House of Representatives. Such an outcome will likely impact the current geopolitical landscape across the European continent and may drive EU Member States to reconsider the European security environment entirely.

President Trump’s unexpected election in 2016 already caught Europe off-guard with a more assertive and unpredictable American foreign policy (Cave & Porter, 2024). European states and institutions got used to dealing with President Trump’s exuberant communication style and aggressive rhetoric. However, a second mandate characterised by a majority in both chambers of Congress in a changed geopolitical context could threaten the existing European defence architecture.

After eight years, Donald Trump remains a champion of US isolationism under the ‘America First’ banner (Macdonald, 2018). While foreign policy is certainly not the main priority of US voters (Nadeem, 2024), the support he has gathered suggests that the American population is again reacting to high global volatility by focusing on domestic issues and calling for disengagement from different international theatres (Rice, 2024). It is important to notice that this would mainly be a long-term process, unlikely to produce short-term consequences, despite Trump’s emphatic declarations on rapidly stopping ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East (Lyons, 2024). Nevertheless, Europe will urgently have to prepare for a world in which the US plays a different role than before.

Certainly, many issues potentially central to the new US President’s foreign policy will remain the same. For example, during the electoral campaign, Trump insisted that NATO’s European allies increase their defence spending to respect the commitment to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) in defence. While European military expenditures extensively increased over the last year, with an average 18% annual rise (NATO, 2024), some European NATO members have not yet reached the target fixed more than a decade ago by NATO Defence Ministers, despite continuous exhortations coming from the other side of the Atlantic. Moreover, at a campaign rally in February, Trump stated he would not defend NATO members from an attack by the Russian Federation if they failed to meet their spending obligations (Hess, 2024). His vocal approach towards Europe does not mean the US will completely withdraw from the old continent, cut EU-US ties, or dismantle NATO (Gardner, 2024).

The North Atlantic Alliance remains a pillar of European collective defence, and US policymakers and advisors recognise that keeping a foothold in Europe provides enormous advantages from a geopolitical perspective (McInnis, 2022). However, if the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Washington may halt multibillion-dollar packages of military and financial assistance to pressure the Ukrainian government to reach an agreement, even under disadvantageous terms (Hansler, 2024). This would aggravate the position of the EU and largely place the burden on European states to sustain Ukrainian efforts to gain the best possible negotiating position.

European politicians’ first reactions to the elections arrived on the morning of November 6^th. French President Emmanuel Macron announced he talked with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about working towards a more integrated and stronger Europe (Gatinois, 2024). In turn, despite being in the midst of political turmoil, Berlin invited Europeans to take on more responsibility in terms of security policy. To achieve this, EU Member States should prioritise following the roadmap set by the European Commission to strengthen the EU’s defence industrial base and enhance its military capabilities without necessarily yielding to Washington’s demands (Spatafora, 2024b). Anticipating the moves of the new US Administration could be crucial to react swiftly when needed. Consequently, the EU could prepare to mobilise further resources for Ukraine and assume a common position on the acceptable conditions of a potential ceasefire deal (Spatafora, 2024a). This can also encourage a more proactive approach to transatlantic relations, ensuring a sustained American commitment to European security through concrete proposals while showing the potential positive impact the development of autonomous capabilities could have on European collective defence, one of NATO’s main strategic objectives (Everts, 2024). Whether the EU manages to enhance its strategic autonomy and respond to the challenges posed by the new US administration will thus determine the future of European security.

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