At the World Economic Forum 2026 and in the preceding Munich Security Conference, blunt American criticisms of European politics and policy have laid bare a widening rift across the Atlantic. What once could be contained beneath shared institutions and overlapping interests is now visible in public rebuke, tariff threats and strategic exhortations from Washington for Europe to shoulder more of its own defence.
The split is not merely personal or rhetorical. Chinese commentary notes that it mirrors deeper shifts in the international order: a relative decline in Western economic dominance and the concurrent rise of the Global South. When the United States enjoyed overwhelming postwar hegemony, frictions with European allies could be managed and partly masked by American primacy. Today, with Washington emphasising "core national interests," threatening tariffs and pressing allies to increase military spending, old arrangements are coming under stress.
Values and narratives that long bound the transatlantic partnership are fraying. American scepticism toward migration, climate policy and certain liberal social norms has led some US officials to cast Europe as ideologically adrift. Washington’s suggestion that internal opposition should be cultivated in Europe and its public questioning of shared democratic trajectories signal a breakdown in the ‘values-based’ language that has underpinned allied coordination.
Security alignments are shifting as well. Doubts from parts of the US leadership about NATO’s continued relevance, and even extraneous talk about using force to secure territory such as Greenland, have unsettled European publics and policymakers. If collective-defence commitments appear negotiable or contingent, the deterrent fabric that has restrained great-power competition since 1945 will be weakened.
On order and institutions, the trend is toward fragmentation. An “America First” posture that prioritises unilateral or narrowly defined national actions over multilateral stewardship has seen Washington scale back its engagement in and leadership of postwar institutions. The result is not only a rhetorical repudiation of the liberal international order but practical retrenchment that invites others to fill the vacuum.
What happens next is uncertain. Historical parallels abound — from Henry Kissinger’s description of a "troublesome partnership" to the post–Cold War recalibrations after the Soviet collapse — but whether the current rupture is episodic or structural remains unclear. The piece’s author, a leading scholar of American affairs at a Chinese research institute, suggests the split will persist through the present US administration, pushing Europe to rethink burden‑sharing and strategic posture.
For external actors and global markets, the implications are immediate and material. Europe’s pursuit of strategic autonomy could accelerate closer economic and diplomatic engagement with non‑Western powers; supply‑chain and trade frictions could multiply; and the risk of miscalculation in contested regions may rise as collective deterrence agendas fray. Beijing and other capitals will watch closely, weighing whether to exploit transatlantic discord or to avoid destabilising competition.
The public airing of these grievances is itself a symptom: the postwar security and economic bargain that underwrote relative stability is under pressure from shifting power, domestic politics and competing visions of order. How Europe responds — by reinvesting in collective capabilities, deepening EU cohesion or seeking new alignments — will help determine whether this is a transient quarrel or the start of a durable realignment of global politics.