Welcome to FP Free Week. To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, our entire site is completely unlocked this week only. Enjoy the article.

The obituaries for trans-Atlanticism are being written too soon. The Trump administration has indeed profoundly shaken the U.S.-European relationship. But Nathalie Tocci’s recent essay in Foreign Policy, which posits that trans-Atlanticism as a living, operative force is over, mistakes a needed transformation for a terminal diagnosis. The evidence points not to the end of the trans-Atlantic alliance but to the emergence of a more demanding and ultimately more durable partnership that signals Europe’s long-delayed emergence as a geopolitically mature entity.

The case for the demise of trans-Atlanticism rests on the claim that it is inseparable from the liberal international order that has collapsed. But trans-Atlanticism was never only a values project. It was—and remains—a convergence of security, economic, and technological interests between two regions that together account for roughly 43 percent of global GDP and comprise the world’s most capable military alliance.

The obituaries for trans-Atlanticism are being written too soon. The Trump administration has indeed profoundly shaken the U.S.-European relationship. But Nathalie Tocci’s recent essay in Foreign Policy, which posits that trans-Atlanticism as a living, operative force is over, mistakes a needed transformation for a terminal diagnosis. The evidence points not to the end of the trans-Atlantic alliance but to the emergence of a more demanding and ultimately more durable partnership that signals Europe’s long-delayed emergence as a geopolitically mature entity.

The case for the demise of trans-Atlanticism rests on the claim that it is inseparable from the liberal international order that has collapsed. But trans-Atlanticism was never only a values project. It was—and remains—a convergence of security, economic, and technological interests between two regions that together account for roughly 43 percent of global GDP and comprise the world’s most capable military alliance.

In his landmark 1997 essay, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse,” Stephen M. Walt made an essential point: Alliances persist not because of shared values alone but because members perceive a common threat and find their interests better served together than apart. Today, shared values and strategic alignment are being tested simultaneously—and the divergences are sharpening. On values, U.S. President Donald Trump’s open support for far-right movements across Europe is a glaring contradiction: The parties his administration backs oppose the very expectations that Washington places on European allies, including higher defense spending, de-risking from Chinese technology and supply chains, and maintaining sanctions pressure on Moscow. On interests, Europeans see Russia as an existential threat to their long-term security, while Washington sees China as its........

© Foreign Policy