Europe’s 5 stages of grief

Now, the question for 2026 is whether the bloc has the will and strength to turn this acceptance into real action.

Trump’s reelection and inauguration represented the end of Pax America — a period of over 75 years where the U.S. was the undisputed Leader of the Free World, and successive presidents and administrations in Washington placed relations with Europe at the core of America’s global engagement.

It was clear Trump would end this era and instead adopt a narrow, regionally focused policy of “America First.” And yet, few in Europe believed this would truly be the case.

At a lunch attended by some dozen NATO ambassadors in mid-December 2024, one envoy after another declared that with a little more European spending on defense, everything would be okay. When I suggested they were in denial about how fundamental the change would be, one of them turned to me and said: “You can’t seriously believe that the United States will no longer see its security as tied to Europe’s, do you?”

But not long after, Europe’s refusal to accept the fundamental transformation that Trump’s reelection entailed was put to the test by a series of events in February.

At his first NATO meeting, new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told his colleagues that Europe needed to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent.”

Next, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. and Russia would negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine — without Ukraine’s or Europe’s involvement. And then came Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said that the biggest threat to Europe wasn’t Russia or China but “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”

Finally, at the end of the month, Trump and Vance confronted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, on live television. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump exclaimed, berating Ukraine for failing to end a war it had not started, and ignoring how Ukrainians had valiantly held off their subjugation and occupation by a much larger foe for more than three years.

So, by February’s end, Europe’s denial turned to anger.

When I met with a foreign minister of a major ally just days after Munich, the longtime supporter of the U.S. appeared despondent. “You stabbed us in the back. You’re leaving us to deal with Russia alone,” he shouted.

But the anger lasted only so long, and in the next few months, the bloc shifted to bargaining. Key European leaders convinced Zelenskyy to forget about the Oval Office showdown and tell Trump he was fully committed to peace. Europe would then join Ukraine in supporting an unconditional ceasefire — as Trump had demanded.

Similarly, in April, when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, hitting allied countries just as hard as non-allies, the U.K. and the EU moved swiftly to negotiate deals that would lower rates from the initial levels of 25 percent or more.

By June, NATO leaders had even agreed to raise defense spending to the 5-percent of GDP mark Trump had insisted on.

Europe’s negotiating on Ukraine, trade and defense gave Trump the victories he long craved. But it soon became clear that however great the victories or however fawning the flattery, the U.S. president would just pocket them and move on, with little regard for the transatlantic relationship.

Trump was already back to negotiating Ukraine’s fate directly with Putin by August — in a red-carpeted summit in Alaska, no less. And though he had flown to the meeting promising “severe consequences” if the Russian leader didn’t agree to a ceasefire, he left having adopted Putin’s position that the war could only end if there was a fully agreed-upon peace agreement.

Days later, no less than eight European leaders flew to Washington to try and persuade Trump to change course and push Russia to accept the ceasefire he had long proposed. And while it sort of worked, most of the leaders still left Washington deeply depressed. No matter what, when it came to Ukraine, an issue they deem existential for their security, Trump just wasn’t on the same page.

Eventually, it was the publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy in early December that proved too much — even for Europe’s most stalwart Atlanticists. The strategy not only berates the continent for supposedly causing its own rendezvous with “civilizational erasure,” it also clearly underscores that both Trump and his administration view Russia very differently than Europe.

Gone is any mention of Moscow as a military threat. Instead, the U.S. is seeking a return to “strategic stability” with Russia, even offering itself up as a mediator between Russia and Europe on security.

An ally just doesn’t say these things or behave in this way.

So, after a long year, Europe has now come to accept the reality that the transatlantic relationship they have long known and depended on is no more. “The decades of Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe, and for us in Germany as well,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier this month. “The Americans are now very, very aggressively pursuing their own interests. And that can only mean one thing: that we, too, must now pursue our own interests.”

What remains to be seen is whether Europe will do so. On that, the jury is still very much out.