On December 15, 2025, a political storm erupted across the Atlantic as U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of criticisms against Europe’s leaders, warning of what he called the continent’s “civilisational erasure.” Trump’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS), unveiled with typical fanfare, didn’t mince words. It accused the European Union and other transnational bodies of undermining political liberty and sovereignty, and painted a dire picture of Europe’s future if current trends continue. According to both the NSS and a new Strategic Assessment Memo (SAM) published by the Global Ideas Center in Berlin on The Globalist, the Trump administration believes Europe is on a path to economic decline and faces the “real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”
These criticisms are not simply rhetorical flourishes. The NSS specifically highlights mass immigration policies, which it claims are “transforming the continent and creating strife,” as well as “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” Trump’s interview with Politico drove the point home. “I think they’re weak,” he said of Europe’s leaders, “but I also think that they want to be politically correct. I think they don’t know what to do.” The president’s blunt assessment extended to social controversies, with Trump questioning the wisdom of European leaders’ stances on gender identity and women’s rights.
Trump’s frustration with Europe has been building for years, but the new NSS marks a strategic escalation. According to the Strategic Assessment Memo in The Globalist, Trump’s real irritation stems from the EU’s insistence on regulations and laws that diverge sharply from American norms. U.S. corporations are accustomed to lobbying away obstacles, the memo argues, and Europe’s resistance is seen as a royal insult—“lèse majesté”—to the American way of doing business. Trump, described as a “hyper-mercantilist,” is said to view foreign policy through the lens of profit maximization, believing “everyone can be bought, including Vladimir Putin.”
This approach, the memo contends, has transformed the U.S. agenda abroad. Trump’s administration is laser-focused on controlling global natural resources, seeing every diplomatic relationship as a potential commercial opportunity. In the president’s worldview, only the most powerful can negotiate the best deals—a stance that puts him at odds not just with Europe, but with much of the international community. “Military, technological and economic power will increasingly depend, according to the White House view, on control of the world’s natural resources,” the SAM notes.
Trump’s ambitions have played out in real time. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, was dispatched to Kyiv to secure deals giving the U.S. preferential access to Ukraine’s rare earth deposits in exchange for pledges to support post-war reconstruction. The memo suggests this is just one example of the kind of arrangements Trump wants to replicate worldwide, from Sudan to Ecuador, and from Angola to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Trump’s view of the war in Ukraine is equally transactional. In his Politico interview, he dismissed Europe’s efforts to support Ukraine, saying, “They talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.” According to The Globalist, Trump and Vice President JD Vance believe the EU should align itself with the U.S. in forging a relationship with Russia, rather than maintaining its current support for Ukraine. Trump’s belief that Putin can be persuaded to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for deals that benefit both the Russian and American economies is, according to the memo, “a flight of utter fancy.”
Yet, for all the bluster, Trump’s critiques of Europe resonate with a significant segment of the European public. As reported by Politico and confirmed by a December YouGov poll, many Europeans share concerns about mass migration, national sovereignty, and the perceived weakness of their leaders. The numbers are striking: 64% of French voters, 79% of Germans, 64% of Italians, 80% of Spaniards, 91% of Danes, and 72% of UK respondents hold an unfavorable view of Trump. But that’s only part of the story. Despite these unfavorable ratings, a major Politico poll found that majorities in the UK (54%), Germany (53%), and France (43%) considered Trump’s re-election to be more significant for their countries than the election of their own national leaders. It’s a paradox that speaks volumes about the shifting sands of global influence.
National conservative leaders in Europe—such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and the UK’s Nigel Farage—have not been politically damaged by their association with Trump. If anything, their political success suggests that Trump’s brand of patriotic, sovereignty-focused politics is gaining traction on the continent. Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, drove this point home in Munich earlier this year, declaring that the EU elite is an “enemy within” that has betrayed the principles on which Europe is built.
Of course, there’s no shortage of critics on the other side of the Atlantic. The Strategic Assessment Memo in The Globalist argues that Trump’s approach amounts to “browbeating” Europe into submission—a strategy unlikely to succeed, given the EU’s tradition of legalism and compromise. The memo also contends that Trump’s foreign policy is shaped less by strategic vision than by a desire for material gain, both for the country and, allegedly, for himself and his associates. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote, “I can think of no other American president who would have acted as if American values and interests dictated that we now be a neutral arbiter between Russia and Ukraine and, on top of that, an arbiter who tries to make a profit from each side in the process – as Trump has done. This is one of the most shameful episodes in American foreign policy, and the entire Republican Party is complicit in its perpetration.”
Trump’s NSS also asserts U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, warning China and Russia to tread carefully and signaling potential military action against Venezuela’s President Maduro, whose country boasts some of the world’s largest oil reserves. The administration’s priorities, the memo concludes, have shifted decisively away from supporting democracy, human rights, and anti-corruption efforts, and toward commercial and resource-driven goals.
For all the heated rhetoric, one thing is clear: Trump’s criticisms are not the cause of Europe’s current turmoil, nor are they likely to be the solution. As the NSS itself puts it, the U.S. “wants Europe to remain European, to regain its civilisational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.” But as European voters increasingly turn to national conservative parties and question the legitimacy of their own leaders, the continent’s future will likely be determined not in Washington or Brussels, but in the hearts and minds of its own citizens.