EU leaders approved a document in June that laid out the principles, objectives and instruments of the bloc’s foreign and security policy. In the first attempt for 13 years to codify a global strategy for the EU, the leaders placed special emphasis on US-European military, political and economic relations. “We will keep deepening the transatlantic bond and our partnership with Nato,” the document stated.
Seven months later, these fine sentiments risk appearing beside the point as the Trump administration, like a wrecking ball swinging its way across the Atlantic, pounds into Europe’s strategic assumptions. Donald Trump’s “America first” instincts, his seemingly lukewarm commitment to Nato and his low opinion of the EU indicate that the president is challenging cardinal tenets of US foreign policy in ways that would have horrified all his predecessors since Harry Truman.
It follows that Europe’s leaders must not flinch from asking themselves the most searching questions about how best to protect peace, prosperity and political pluralism on their continent. Encouragingly, they started this process soon after Britain’s vote in June to leave the EU, an unwelcome blow in itself to European unity. They intensified it after Mr Trump’s election in November and they will develop it further at a summit on Friday in Malta.