Has there been a more cataclysmic year than 2025 for US-Europe relations? It started with US Vice President J.D. Vance’s ‘sermon’ to EU leaders at the Munich security conference last month – in which he berated Western Europe for its policies on immigration and free speech. The year so far has also taken in the danger of the Nato alliance falling apart after 76 years of peace in Western Europe, with the White House apparently tilting towards Russia and Trump demanding that members of the alliance such as Germany, France and the UK massively up their defence spending.
This week, as the Trump regime imposes tariffs on Europe and Europe responds in kind, we’ve even seen the rumblings of a fully-fledged trade war. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s likely next chancellor, says it’s ‘clear that the Americans… this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe’. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Emmanuel Macron announced, in an address to the French nation last week, that ‘the innocence of the last thirty years, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is now over’.
Merkel is yesterday’s news.
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