Poll shows most Europeans see US under Trump as more a necessary partner than ally

The polling, of 11 EU member states plus Ukraine, Switzerland and the UK, found most people now regarded the US as merely a “necessary partner” – even in countries such as Poland and Denmark that barely 18 months ago had considered the US an ally.

An average of 50% of Europeans across the member states surveyed viewed the US this way, the study revealed, with an average of only 21% seeing it as an ally, leading the report’s authors to urge a more “realistic, transactional” EU approach.

The figures “speak to a collapse of trust in Washington’s foreign policy agenda” and heralded “the potential death knell of the transatlantic alliance” said Arturo Varvelli, co-author of the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

“This finding alone should really sharpen minds about the need for Europe to embrace greater pragmatism and autonomy in its global dealings, as a means of protecting its citizens and its values in the coming period,” Varvelli added.

Those seeing the US as a “necessary partner” rather than an ally were most numerous in Ukraine (67%-27%), Spain (57%-14%) and Estonia (55%-28%). But even in the UK, which boasts of a “special relationship” with the US, the ratio was 44% to 37%.

But while Europeans were essentially aligned on their view of US foreign policy, there were significant differences on other issues, suggesting scope for Trump’s “America First” administration to play member states off against each other.

While on average EU citizens thought Trump’s return as US president was a “bad thing” for Americans, for their own country and for world peace, Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians were considerably more positive than Danes and Germans.

Far-right supporters across Europe proved Trump’s biggest fans, with fewer than one-fifth of voters for Fidesz in Hungary, Law and Justice (PiS) and Konfederacja in Poland and Brothers of Italy believing his re-election was a “bad thing” on all three counts.

Respondents who voted for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany and the National Rally (RN) in France stood out, nonetheless, in having a plurality (37% and 35%, respectively) who believed Trump’s return to power was a bad thing for their own countries.

There was disagreement, too, over Ukraine. Majorities or pluralities in all countries, including 55% in Denmark, 49% in the UK and 44% in Poland, said a “compromise settlement” was the likeliest outcome of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Some, however, including Estonia, Denmark, the UK and Portugal, felt considerably more strongly than others that continuing support for Kyiv, rather than pushing for peace, must nonetheless remain the EU’s priority.

And views on what should happen after the war varied widely: 47% of French and 50% of Italians said they struggled to see Ukraine as European, and in Bulgaria and Hungary, many saw Russia as an EU ally or necessary partner, not a rival or adversary.

The EU’s engagement with China was another topic of divergence. Half or more of respondents in southern and south-eastern Europe, including Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, said they saw Beijing as a “necessary partner” or ally.

However, in countries in northern and western Europe, roughly similar percentages – 55% in Germany, 52% in Denmark, and 45% in the UK and France – held the opposing view, seeing China instead as a rival or adversary.

The report’s authors argued there was no reason to believe Trump had changed his opinion of the EU from his first term in office, during which he called the bloc a “foe” for the US and referred to Brussels as being “like a hellhole”.

With the new president opposed to Europe’s green transition, alleged “wokeism” and social media regulation, the bloc must expect “strategic, economic and political challenges” and understand that US and European interests were diverging, they said.

European leaders will need to work across the bloc’s faultlines, entertain new forms of flexible cooperation among member states and, above all, resist establishing privileged bilateral relations with Trump at the expense of other European allies.

“The Atlantic community is no longer underpinned by shared values,” stated the ECFR’s Jana Puglierin.

“In a world of Trump 2.0, transactionality reigns. For EU leaders, this will require a positional shift away from the Washington-led status quo.”

Paweł Zerka, another co-author, noted the “Trumpisation of Europe” was evident in rising support for far-right parties, a growing readiness to adopt a transactional approach and acceptance of the need for peace negotiations in Ukraine.

But there were still “opportunities for the EU to learn pragmatism in foreign policy; for its leaders to clarify the stakes to their voters; and for pro-European parties to differentiate themselves from the Trumpian far right”, he continued.