Europe did not suddenly decide to move towards China. However, since US President Trump returned to the White House, a consequential shift has been unfolding across European capitals with their leaders often rushing to China. It is not a geopolitical realignment, nor a rejection of the transatlantic alliance. It is a reassessment—born of discomfort—with how much Europe can actually tolerate this great-power rivalry.

Trump’s revived “America First” approach has brought back tariffs, transactional diplomacy, and blunt demands for greater burden-sharing from allies. For Europeans, this has produced less outrage than recognition. The assumption that close alignment with Washington guarantees influence has been steadily eroding.

Nothing captured this unease more vividly than recent tensions surrounding Greenland. What looked like an isolated dispute over Arctic territory became a broader reminder: even among allies, power still speaks loudly. The episode mattered less for its substance than for its symbolism. It exposed how limited Europe’s room for manoeuvre can be when strategic pressure arrives from multiple directions at once.

Europe’s relationship with the United States remains foundational. NATO anchors European defence, and no serious European leader is proposing to abandon the alliance. But recent experience has reinforced a distinction that now looms large in European thinking: security dependence does not equal political influence.

Europeans increasingly find themselves aligned with U.S. positions yet unable to shape them. Trump’s willingness to impose tariffs on European goods while simultaneously demanding greater defence spending underscores this asymmetry. Europe is being asked to take more responsibility, but without gaining more........

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