Welcome to Post-American Europe

By Julie Bolejack

I heard a phrase this week that stopped me cold.

Post-American Europe.

Not anti-American Europe.

Not Europe frustrated with America.

Not even Europe preparing for another difficult four years with an American president it doesn’t particularly like.

Post-American Europe.

Think about what those words mean.

For most of my lifetime, Europe has lived with one enormous geopolitical assumption: whatever arguments we might have, whatever presidents came and went, whatever disagreements erupted over trade or wars or diplomacy, the United States and Europe were fundamentally on the same side.

We were family.

Perhaps one of those families where Thanksgiving occasionally ended with somebody storming away from the table, but family nonetheless.

NATO embodied that relationship. So did America’s support for European democracy after World War II, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War alliance, and generations of cooperation.

Then came Donald Trump.

And now I find myself wondering:

What must America look like from Europe?

Imagine being Danish and hearing an American president repeatedly talk about acquiring Greenland.

Imagine being Ukrainian and wondering whether the country you depended upon most might eventually decide that maintaining a relationship with Vladimir Putin matters more than defending you.

Imagine being Polish, French, German or British and realizing that questions once considered settled — Will America stand with us? — are suddenly questions again.

That isn’t simply political disagreement.

It is the erosion of trust.

And trust is a peculiar thing.

It takes decades to construct and remarkably little time to damage.

Mark Twain is often credited with enough clever observations to keep the Internet supplied with quotations until approximately 2147, including quite a few things he apparently never said. So perhaps the most Twain-like observation I can safely offer is my own:

Nothing tests a friendship quite like discovering your friend has begun negotiating with the fellow who keeps threatening your house.

Europe is learning that lesson.

And the numbers suggest this isn’t something commentators have invented.

Recent international polling shows confidence in Donald Trump extraordinarily low across much of Europe. Large majorities in European countries surveyed say they lack confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs.

Even more remarkable is what is happening to attitudes toward America itself.

Europeans increasingly question whether the United States is a reliable partner.

That distinction matters enormously.

Presidents come and go.

But when distrust migrates from the president to the country, something much more consequential has happened.

And here’s where this becomes uncomfortable for Americans like me.

We can say:

But Trump isn’t all of us.

And that is true.

Millions upon millions of Americans oppose what he is doing. Millions are appalled by attacks on longtime allies, disturbed by the treatment of Ukraine, alarmed by tariff policies and deeply concerned about America’s retreat from the democratic leadership role it held for generations.

American public opinion itself is deeply divided, and Trump does not enjoy majority confidence on many of the major issues confronting the country.

But Europeans are entitled to respond with an uncomfortable fact:

You elected him.

There it is.

We don’t get to completely separate ourselves from the government our country chose.

And Europeans don’t have the luxury of assuming that another American election will magically restore everything.

Because Trump has now happened twice.

If you are sitting in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw or Copenhagen, the lesson may no longer be Donald Trump is an aberration.

The lesson may be:

American foreign policy can fundamentally change every four years.

That changes everything.

It means Europe has to think seriously about building its own military capacity.

Its own defense industry.

Its own energy security.

Its own diplomatic muscle.

Its own ability to deter Russia.

And perhaps even its own identity independent of American leadership.

That is what post-American Europe really means.

It doesn’t necessarily mean Europe hates America.

It may mean Europe has stopped depending upon America.

Those are very different things.

In some ways, I imagine Europeans looking at us the way you might look at an old friend going through a spectacularly messy midlife crisis.

You still love them.

You remember who they were.

You hope they come back to themselves.

But you probably don’t give them the keys to your house.

And perhaps that is the tragedy underneath all of this.

America’s greatest power was never simply its aircraft carriers, nuclear arsenal or enormous economy.

It was trust.

Countries believed that when America made commitments, those commitments meant something.

Our alliances multiplied American power because nations wanted to stand beside us.

That kind of influence cannot be measured neatly on a balance sheet.

But it can disappear.

And once lost, it may be extraordinarily difficult to rebuild.

There is another part of this story that Americans should understand.

Europe isn’t simply sitting around waiting for us to straighten ourselves out.

It is adapting.

The longer American reliability remains uncertain, the stronger the incentive becomes for European nations to create institutions and capabilities that don’t require Washington.

Ironically, an administration determined to demonstrate American strength may ultimately accelerate something very different:

a world that learns how to function without us.

That should concern conservatives, liberals, independents and anyone else who cares about America’s influence in the world.

Because there is an enormous difference between America choosing not to lead and discovering someday that nobody is waiting for us to return.

I also hope Europeans remember something about us.

America is not one man.

We are more than 300 million complicated, arguing, voting, protesting, volunteering, organizing, occasionally exasperating human beings.

Many of us still believe deeply in democracy.

Many still believe NATO matters.

Many believe Ukraine’s sovereignty matters.

Many believe alliances aren’t acts of charity but investments in a safer world.

Many of us look across the Atlantic right now and want to say:

Please don’t confuse the entirety of America with the actions of this administration.

But perhaps we also need enough humility to understand why Europeans might hesitate.

Trust doesn’t work because someone demands it.

Trust works because someone earns it.

And right now Europe appears to be asking a question I never imagined hearing during my lifetime:

Can we still trust America?

Maybe the most important question isn’t how Europeans answer it.

Maybe it is how we do.

Because “post-American Europe” sounds like a description of Europe.

I’m beginning to think it may actually be a warning to America.

Julie Bolejack, MBA

The Mindful Activist

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