Trump’s Trade War: More Trust With Europe and a Better NATO

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With the United States focusing its trade war on China, this provides an opportunity for NATO and Congress to help transition America’s defense focus to the Pacific, as outlined by a recent Pentagon memo. The NATO alliance is lop-sided: Europe receives most of the benefits, while the United States is the largest contributor, yet faces no conventional threat from Russia, NATO’s main rival. Furthermore, the United States faces urgent and rising threats in other parts of the globe which will readily impact Americans’ way of life far more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Trump administration argues NATO countries should be more responsible for their own defense, a concern that predates even Trump’s first term. Even if burden-shifting sounds reasonable, reason has little bearing in Congress. Moreover, European leaders are not incentivized to end their free riding. President Trump’s term expires in 2028, and the process of Europe building up their military without the U.S. carrying most of the burden may take a decade or more. The Trump administration needs to build a sustainable understanding with Congress so they will continue putting pressure on Europe to pick up the slack regardless of who occupies the presidency.

Although most elected Republicans do not want to cross President Trump, they’ve demonstrated they’re open to legislatively deny his agenda in the past. The only veto which was overridden in Trump’s first term was the last National Defense Authorization Act of his first administration (it is worth noting this occurred when he was a lame-duck president). Even if the Trump administration gets everything it wants for the next four years, there needs to be an understanding of the proposed changes between NATO, Congress, and the White House. Those changes start with reimagining the current relationships.

It is in Europe’s interest to drag out American military assistance as long as possible and Congress loves change — when it’s at a glacial pace. The two Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees wrote a joint statement declaring:

We support President Trump’s efforts to ensure our allies and partners increase their contributions to strengthen our alliance structure, and we support continuing America’s leadership abroad. As such, we will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress.

Leaders in Congress have kindly shown Trump their hand: they want a process. Unless members go out of their way to define this process or provide a timetable, the ball is in Trump’s court to provide such definitions.

This is an excellent case where transparency will help the Trump administration. Give members special briefings, memos, social media messages, announcements, and statements every step of the way. In addition to talking about what the United States is doing, the administration should also highlight European efforts to take on more of the burden of their own defense. Congress may want to maintain American prestige in Europe, but more capable allies are more reliable allies.

Taking this to the next level, the Trump administration should put European countries in the position of explaining the process to Congress. As part of the ongoing trade negotiations with all countries, increasing defense contributions should absolutely be a part of the negotiations for NATO members. As a factor for reaching a final deal on trade, the United States should allow a favorable business environment for development of the European defense sector. This helps guarantee NATO countries will pay a greater share of GDP into their defense and fosters friendly competition which leads to innovation among allies.

Even if the Europeans did not like Vice President J.D. Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference, they cannot claim they did not see this policy change coming. Admirably, most NATO countries have been increasing their defense spending over the last decade to 2% of GDP or more, which is the NATO recommended target. In fact, the head of NATO, Mark Rutte, stated countries should start spending “considerably more than 3%” of GDP. However, Secretary Rubio stated at the NATO security conference in Brussels that the Trump administration wants them to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

It’s very doubtful the Trump administration will support pulling out of NATO, as Secretary Rubio made clear in the same conference: “We are as involved in NATO today as we have ever been, and we intend to continue to be.” However, Europe needs to take its own responsibilities more seriously, and Congress should not enable European defense dependence on America.

Leveraging the opportunities opened by trade negotiations provides an opening for the administration to convince Congress to support the U.S.’s pivot from the threats in the West to the threats in the East.

Alex Madajian is a foreign policy analyst who has worked as a staffer in Congress and in nonprofits both in Washington D.C. and abroad.