The U.S.-Europe Rift: How Trump’s Iran War is Making it Worse  

There is no shortage of uncertainties amid the fighting in the Persian Gulf: Is it over? Who won? Will Iran emerge stronger or weaker? How badly will the world economy be damaged? Yet two things are clear: The conflict dealt a deep, perhaps lasting blow to American global leadership, and it is straining an already troubled transatlantic relationship—to the detriment of both the U.S. and Europe. 

But there may be one upside: The rift between the U.S. and Europe could accelerate continental efforts to prepare for a future in which America no longer provides a reliable security guarantee. 

American supporters of the Iran War are furious with Europe. My email inbox is filled with messages from friends who see the continent’s refusal to join the fighting as a craven betrayal of the NATO alliance that has kept peace in Europe since the end of World War II. “Alienation,” “frustration,” “outrage,” “disgust”: the language grew sharper as the weeks wore on—and of course, no one was madder than President Donald Trump.  

One Republican ally who spoke to the president in mid-March told the press he had “never heard him so angry.” “COWARDS,” Trump bellowed on social media. “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself,” he warned Europeans, “the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.” 

But there’s another way to see the widening divide between Europe and Washington.  

Few European leaders, on the right or the left, have any illusions about Iran’s murderous, theocratic leadership. “By what right does the Iranian regime threaten, bomb, support terrorism, develop a clandestine nuclear program, seek the elimination of Israel, [and] attack its neighbors?” centrist Nathalie Loiseau argued passionately in the European Parliament in early March. “No right whatsoever, obviously, and this regime must fall.”  

The early weeks of the war saw anguished debates around European dinner tables and in think tank strategy sessions. No European nations joined the offensive military action against Iran. But several—Britain, Germany, France, Portugal, and Greece—eventually allowed American ships and planes to launch strikes, refuel, or rearm at military bases under their control. More than 40 governments are now seeking ways to contain Iran and help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with or without the U.S., when the shooting finally stops.  

Where most Europeans differed from Trump: They distinguished between ends and means and hesitated to join what they saw as a reckless, ill-judged campaign led by an untrustworthy commander-in-chief.  

Some leaders may have been caught between their interventionist instincts and their political interests. Poll after poll showed European voters to be overwhelmingly opposed to joining the war. It’s also true, as some of my angry friends charged, that Europe lacked the military might to play a decisive role in the Gulf. After decades of disinvestment in defense, it’s unclear how much the continent could have helped even if it wanted to. But the European response was not, by and large, a product of weakness. On the contrary, and in stark contrast to Washington, it was rooted in principle and a careful weighing of the facts. 

European leaders saw Trump’s Iran “excursion” as a war of choice—optional, ill-timed, poorly planned, and lacking the public support required to sustain an elective military campaign. They weren’t consulted before the bombing started. Much as they mistrust Tehran, they didn’t agree that the threat was imminent. They predicted the difficulty of what U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called “regime change from the skies” and foresaw the risks that Trump blithely ignored.  

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, among others, made clear he agreed with Washington’s goal: “This Iranian regime . . . must be replaced,” he told the media. Yet he declined to join what he described as “a massive escalation with an uncertain outcome.”  

With the fighting paused and the job unfinished, Europe will likely bear most of the costs. Europe is more dependent on Middle East energy imports than the U.S. The high price of oil will hit harder on a continent already faltering economically. Soaring energy prices are a boon for Vladimir Putin, an urgent danger for Ukraine and a long-term threat to European security. If the war triggers a surge of Middle East refugees, it will reach Europe first, with disastrous implications for centrist governments struggling to hold off populist challengers.  

Many Europeans feel they have been through this before. But this time, in a new twist on former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s phrase, Trump “broke it”—and Europe is left to deal with the consequences. Still, few on the continent, leaders or voters, appear to regret their choices. Americans may scoff, but whatever the outcome in the Gulf, no one in Europe seems ashamed of championing international law. 

The question Europe faces now—likely more consequential than what it did or didn’t do to aid Trump in the Persian Gulf—is what the latest dispute will mean for the transatlantic alliance. 

It’s hardly the first clash since Trump returned to the White House last year, and the impact of the constant quarrels is building. The president’s relentless insults and bullying, his punitive tariffs, the ultimatums for NATO, the threat to seize Greenland, and his decision to abandon Ukraine, leaving Europeans all but alone to fund what they see as an existential, defensive war: Every fresh shock deepens the rift between America and the continent.  

Even the continental leaders who used to bite their tongues and work to maintain the American relationship—Starmer, Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni—are losing patience. “As is normal among allies, we must clearly say even when we do not agree,” Meloni, once one of Trump’s staunchest European supporters, told the Italian parliament last week as she ticked off a list of what she has done in office to stand up to the White House. 

As European alienation builds, the continent is starting to assert its independence. No leader wants to break with the alliance—they still need too much from the United States, both economically and militarily. The U.S. is Europe’s largest export market and its leading supplier of financial capital. NATO depends on American support—intelligence data, air defenses, and long-range missile capabilities, among others. Europeans would be lost without the U.S. tech giants and other global business services—everything from cloud computing to Visa and Master Card.  

But finally, after years of hesitation, the continent is starting to prepare for a new, less dependent, more equal transatlantic relationship. 

It’s not a new debate. Years of discussion have produced a long list of largely agreed-upon imperatives. Europe must prune the red tape and regulations that are strangling its economies. Nation-states must give up more of their prized sovereignty to clear the way for integration—a simplified continentwide regulatory regime, a single European capital market, and defense manufacturing and procurement done collectively. Perhaps most important, the European Union must move beyond its sclerotic decision-making process—an approach that requires not just compromise and consensus but, on many issues, unanimity.  

None of this will be easy. European leaders are up against their greatest weakness—the inability to move quickly and decisively. It generally takes years, sometimes decades, to go from a big idea to a concrete proposal, to a shovel-ready project, and tangible first steps. Still, some fledgling initiatives are picking up steam.  

The EU is moving toward enacting an idea called the “28th regime” that would spare companies doing business across the continent from having to comply with regulatory requirements in every country. Together, 19 EU member states have received more than €90 billion in low-interest Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loans designed to finance collaborative, cross-border defense production. EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius is championing a European “rapid response force” to replace the U.S. troops Trump is threatening to withdraw from Europe. Other leaders are making detailed plans to assume greater operational leadership of NATO. Perhaps most dramatic, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pressing the bloc to scrap unanimity in foreign policy decision-making. 

None of these initiatives is as bold as they ought to be. But a growing number of leaders understand the urgency, and many states are increasingly eager to go around recalcitrant neighbors to form faster, more flexible coalitions of the willing. 

What’s ironic: nothing has done more than Trump’s first 14 months back in the White House—the insults, aggression, and indifference—to drive the continent toward standing on its own without America. Trump never seems troubled by regrets, but it will not be good for American interests if its most important ally goes its own way. 

The post The U.S.-Europe Rift: How Trump’s Iran War is Making it Worse   appeared first on Washington Monthly.