The transatlantic order established during the Cold War was not merely a security architecture, but also the way the West presented itself to the world. Built on NATO, the free market, liberal democracy, and supranational institutions, this structure was based on a powerful balance that combined America’s hegemonic power with Europe’s legitimacy. America provided military security; Europe built a political, legal, and moral order on top of this security. It was an asymmetrical but stable relationship.

With Trump’s arrival on the scene, this axis began to lose its footing. Trump’s political language redefined the founding concepts of the transatlantic order. Concepts such as “alliance, shared values, liberal world order” found little resonance in his vocabulary. Instead, accounting terms such as “cost, gain, exploitation, unfair deals” took their place. This was not merely a difference in style. It was the removal of foreign policy from a moral and normative framework and its reduction to a direct bargaining of interests.

This transformation led to three fundamental fractures in US-EU relations:

First, it was the hollowing out of the idea of alliance. Trump saw NATO not as a mechanism for producing collective security, but as a cost item weighing on America’s shoulders. The failure of European countries to increase their defense spending was not a political problem in his eyes, but a commercial injustice. This perspective eroded NATO’s idea of a “shared destiny” and brought to the surface the desire for strategic autonomy that had long been suppressed in Europe. Indeed, the European Commission’s move during this period towards initiatives aimed at strengthening its own defense capabilities and implying a reduction in structural dependence on NATO (such as the emphasis on the defense industry and joint military capabilities within the framework of Readiness 2030) was significant in terms of being the institutional reflection of this mental shift. Macron’s call for a “European army” was not a romantic vision in this context, but a powerful declaration that the alliance no longer functioned as it once did.

Secondly, it was the questioning of the multilateral order. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and various trade mechanisms sent strong signals that America no longer wanted to assume the role of the “power that preserves order.” For Europe, this was not just a diplomatic crisis, but also an ontological shock. This is because the European Union was founded precisely on such multilateral norms and institutions. As the US withdrew, Europe realized that the ground beneath its normative foundation was crumbling and sought to fill this void with concepts such as “strategic autonomy, normative sovereignty, and the protection of European interests.”

Thirdly, economic relations became politicized. Trade wars, tariffs, technology competition, and energy policies are no longer technical areas of negotiation but have become geopolitical weapons. The US’s threats to impose additional customs duties on European-made automobiles and industrial products, and even the occasional discussion of tariffs as high as 15%, were the first major cracks in this new relationship model. Trump conceived of trade not as an extension of foreign policy, but rather foreign policy as an extension of trade. This pushed Europe to view its economic ties with America not as a “mutual dependency” but as a potential area of vulnerability. At the same time, digital sovereignty initiatives such as EuroStack, which aimed to reduce Europe’s dependence on US-centric technological infrastructure, constituted another dimension of this economic-political disconnect.

All this transformation has shifted the US-EU axis from a “hegemonic order” model to a “negotiated relationship” model. America is no longer a leader protecting Europe; it has positioned itself as a power that acts in concert with Europe when its interests align, but can easily exert pressure when they do not. Europe, meanwhile, has moved away from being a norm-producing actor in America’s shadow and has become a subject searching for its own strategic identity, but one that has not yet managed to construct it.

Trump’s influence has changed not only America’s policy but also the way Europe perceives itself. For the first time, Europe has seriously confronted the question, “Who am I without America?” This question has yet to be answered. Europe has long been militarily weak, politically divided, and economically inward-looking. But it has collided with the reality that America’s security umbrella is not permanent for the first time in such a harsh manner.

We cannot say that Trump ruined US-EU relations, but he made their already weakened ontological foundation visible to everyone. He was more of a revealer than a destroyer. He made it clear that the transatlantic order is no longer based on values but on interests.

Today, US-EU relations are neither a breakup nor a union. They are like a union sustained by the habits of an old marriage but without any shared vision for the future. Trump did not end this marriage, but he revealed that it is no longer a union of destiny that will last forever, but a fragile relationship that can be renegotiated at any moment.

The transatlantic axis is still in place, but the ground that made it meaningful is slowly being pulled out from under it. The language of the alliance has changed, its vision has dissipated, its moral framework has dissolved. What remains is not an order, but mere habit. Therefore, the issue is no longer the possibility of collapse, but what meaning this relationship will be rebuilt with; whose interests the new order will serve, and who will be left out.

This article was first published on the Türkiye Research Foundation’s Turkish website on January 7, 2026.