Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1697818390-scaled

New survey of European public opinion signals trouble for transatlantic alliance

Supporters of a strong U.S.-European relationship should be mindful of the problems with this alliance beyond Trump, which have become more apparent in the context of the global pandemic.

Analysis | Washington Politics

Amid the ongoing global crisis caused by COVID-19, a new report from the European Council on Foreign Relations has troubling implications for the much-vaunted transatlantic alliance.

The report, released June 29, shows that the present crisis has brought European trust in the United States to an all-time low. In several European countries, including Denmark, Portugal, and Germany, two-thirds or more of respondents said that their views of the U.S. had worsened during the pandemic; in Germany, 65 percent, in Portugal, 70 percent, and in Denmark, 71 percent. Even in Poland, a country generally more sympathetic to the U.S. under Donald Trump, 38 percent said their view had worsened, while only 13 percent said it had improved.

Similarly, in no country did the percentage of respondents who said the U.S. had been their “greatest ally” during the crisis exceed the mid-single digits. In Germany, France, Spain, and Sweden, it was a dismal 1 percent, in Poland, 4 percent, and in Italy — which gave the U.S. its highest marks — 6 percent.

This data caps off several years of decline in European — and particularly Western European — perceptions of the United States in the Trump era. While the survey does not break down respondents’ reasoning for their change of views, the Trump administration’s abysmal handling of coronavirus both at home and abroad surely accounts for much of this shift.

Within the United States, the Trump administration has utterly failed to develop or implement a strategy for containing the pandemic on a national level. It was slow to support lockdowns, and slow to marshal resources for producing more medical equipment and PPE, while the president himself has proffered dangerous misinformation about the disease and has, through muddled messaging, actively discouraged mask-wearing and social distancing.

Internationally, the Trump administration has adopted a downright thuggish “every man for himself” approach to the pandemic. The administration has put more effort into casting blame on China and the World Health Organization — even attempting to pull funding from the latter — than to coordinating an international response to the pandemic. Even more egregiously, the Trump administration has been accused of seizing or diverting shipments of masks and other medical equipment bound for countries including Germany and several Caribbean nations.

It is no surprise, then, that such a vanishingly small number of Europeans see the United States as an ally in the fight against COVID-19.

It is worth noting that predictions that the pandemic would herald a new China-led world order appear premature, at least from a European standpoint, as the ECFR’s report shows that European perceptions of China have also worsened significantly during this crisis — even in Italy, where 25 percent say that China has been a key ally in addressing the pandemic.

Optimistic transatlanticists may take comfort in knowing that European views of the United States have plunged severely before — notably in the final years of the George W. Bush administration, due the Iraq war and Great Recession — only to recover under a new administration. But it’s worth asking whether Europeans will be so forgiving in the future. After at least two decades of such flagrant conduct abroad, Europeans may be less willing to separate their views of U.S. presidents from their views of the country itself.

In light of this, supporters of a strong U.S.-European relationship should be mindful of the problems with this alliance beyond Trump, which have become more apparent in the context of the global pandemic.

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, his administration has kept the structure of the transatlantic military alliance basically intact. Even with its latest controversial move to pull U.S. troops from Germany, the administration has chosen to relocate them to Poland rather than withdraw them entirely. Yet the Coronavirus pandemic has revealed the essential outdatedness of this structure in a world in which the existential threats the United States and Europe hold in common are largely non-military in nature — most notably, climate change and pandemic disease.

In the face of threats like these, the Cold War military alliance has served little purpose. It need not be scrapped entirely, but the U.S.-European relationship at a minimum should be restructured to center mutual cooperation against pandemics, climate change, and their secondary effects. The ECFR’s report suggests that such a change would be welcomed by Europeans, who during this crisis have become more supportive of both strengthening European institutions and of international efforts to address climate change.

The Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed deep fissures in the transatlantic alliance. It is probable that, should Trump lose the presidential election this fall, his likely successor Joe Biden will bring a rebound in global attitudes toward the U.S. simply by not being Trump. But his administration should not see this as an invite to return to the status quo. Deeper problems in the U.S.-European relationship, and in U.S. foreign policy more broadly, must be addressed, or we may well find ourselves in the same place a decade from now.


A member of the health staff team loading a coronavirus patient in an ambulance in Madrid, Spain, April 7, 2020 (Chirag Nagpal / Shutterstock.com)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Benjamin Netanyahu
Top photo credit: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Shutterstock/ Mustafa Kirazli) and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Salty View/Shutterstock)
Is Turkey's big break with Israel for real?

Why Israel is now turning its sights on Turkey

Middle East

As the distribution of power shifts in the region, with Iran losing relative power and Israel and Turkey emerging on top, an intensified rivalry between Tel Aviv and Ankara is not a question of if, but how. It is not a question of whether they choose the rivalry, but how they choose to react to it: through confrontation or peaceful management.

As I describe in Treacherous Alliance, a similar situation emerged after the end of the Cold War: The collapse of the Soviet Union dramatically changed the global distribution of power, and the defeat of Saddam's Iraq in the Persian Gulf War reshuffled the regional geopolitical deck. A nascent bipolar regional structure took shape with Iran and Israel emerging as the two main powers with no effective buffer between them (since Iraq had been defeated). The Israelis acted on this first, inverting the strategy that had guided them for the previous decades: The Doctrine of the Periphery. According to this doctrine, Israel would build alliances with the non-Arab states in its periphery (Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia) to balance the Arab powers in its vicinity (Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, respectively).

keep readingShow less
Havana, Cuba
Top Image Credit: Havana, Cuba, 2019. (CLWphoto/Shutterstock)

Trump lifted sanctions on Syria. Now do Cuba.

North America

President Trump’s new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on Cuba, announced on June 30, reaffirms the policy of sanctions and hostility he articulated at the start of his first term in office. In fact, the new NSPM is almost identical to the old one.

The policy’s stated purpose is to “improve human rights, encourage the rule of law, foster free markets and free enterprise, and promote democracy” by restricting financial flows to the Cuban government. It reaffirms Trump’s support for the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which explicitly requires regime change — that Cuba become a multiparty democracy with a free market economy (among other conditions) before the U.S. embargo will be lifted.

keep readingShow less
SPD Germany Ukraine
Top Photo: Lars Klingbeil (l-r, SPD), Federal Minister of Finance, Vice-Chancellor and SPD Federal Chairman, and Bärbel Bas (SPD), Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and SPD Party Chairwoman, bid farewell to the members of the previous Federal Cabinet Olaf Scholz (SPD), former Federal Chancellor, Nancy Faeser, Saskia Esken, SPD Federal Chairwoman, Karl Lauterbach, Svenja Schulze and Hubertus Heil at the SPD Federal Party Conference. At the party conference, the SPD intends to elect a new executive committee and initiate a program process. Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect

Does Germany’s ruling coalition have a peace problem?

Europe

Surfacing a long-dormant intra-party conflict, the Friedenskreise (peace circles) within the Social Democratic Party of Germany has published a “Manifesto on Securing Peace in Europe” in a stark challenge to the rearmament line taken by the SPD leaders governing in coalition with the conservative CDU-CSU under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Although the Manifesto clearly does not have broad support in the SPD, the party’s leader, Deputy Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, won only 64% support from the June 28-29 party conference for his performance so far, a much weaker endorsement than anticipated. The views of the party’s peace camp may be part of the explanation.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.