Did 'America First' lead to lasting changes in NATO cohesion or restart debates about European strategic autonomy?
Executive summary
“America First”-era pressures rekindled long-standing tensions over burden-sharing in NATO and accelerated European discussions about strategic autonomy: NATO leaders agreed new, higher defense-spending targets under heavy U.S. pressure, a move some allies saw as catering to President Trump [1], while EU institutions and analysts report renewed momentum for European strategic autonomy debates in 2025 in response to a more adversarial U.S. approach [2] [3].
1. America First as a catalyst, not a collapse trigger
Donald Trump’s transactional “America First” posture pushed allies to raise defence commitments and provoked alarm in Europe, but the alliance’s institutions held—The Hague summit produced a collective spending benchmark and public unity even as analysts warn that political cohesion is brittle beneath the rhetoric [1] [4]. Commentators note that some allies view new NATO spending benchmarks as designed to appease or placate Trump, indicating that U.S. pressure changed bargaining dynamics inside NATO even where formal cohesion endured [1].
2. Concrete NATO outcomes tied to U.S. pressure
The 2025 NATO summit produced a bold collective benchmark—a reported move toward higher defense spending (described as up to 5% of GDP by some commentators)—which analysts say resulted from direct American leverage and was debated within the alliance as both necessary and politically uncomfortable [1] [5]. Think tanks and policy centers emphasize that alliance credibility increasingly depends on comparable effort and transparent burden‑sharing, a theme amplified by calls from Washington [4] [1].
3. The political fault lines inside NATO
Multiple sources describe internal fissures—populist movements, far-left pacifism, and far-right Kremlin sympathies—that stress NATO’s political cohesion, underscoring that U.S. pressure intersects with domestic politics across capitals, complicating collective decision-making [6]. Reports stress that while NATO’s military architecture remains intact, political cohesion is “more brittle” and vulnerable to domestic shifts and external exploitation [4] [7].
4. European strategic autonomy: revival and variety of views
European institutions and academics document a tangible revival of strategic autonomy debates in 2025, explicitly linked to a second Trump administration’s adversarial approach; EU actors and member states have renewed incentives to ask whether Europe must be able to act without depending on the United States [2] [3]. Scholarship frames this as a resurgence, not a brand‑new demand—strategic autonomy has evolved since 2013 and expanded from defence into trade, industry and technology policy after the Ukraine war [8] [9].
5. Practical steps and limits on autonomy
EU-level initiatives—ReArm Europe, SAFE financing instruments, chip and industrial programs, and policy shifts toward “open strategic autonomy”—signal concrete investment and planning to reduce vulnerabilities, but analysts caution fragmentation, financing gaps, and interoperability problems that limit how fast and how far autonomy can progress [10] [11] [12]. Papers note that autonomy remains contested among member states and can be implemented in different, sometimes contradictory, ways [8] [9].
6. Competing narratives: doom vs. pragmatic adaptation
Some voices argue Trump-era pressure has fractured the transatlantic relationship and forced Europeans into a race for independence [2] [3], while others emphasize continuity: U.S. leadership remains central to NATO and Europe still often prefers U.S. guarantees, meaning strategic autonomy will be a complement to—not a wholesale replacement for—transatlantic security ties [13] [14]. Academic reviews warn that European strategic autonomy debates are as much about internal political choices as about external coercion [15].
7. What “lasting changes” look like
Available reporting shows durable shifts in debate and policy emphasis—higher NATO spending pledges, institutional commitments to burden-sharing, and a reinvigorated EU agenda on open strategic autonomy and industrial resilience—but also persistent constraints: political fragility within NATO, differing national visions in the EU, and practical limits on rapid capability-building [1] [4] [10] [8]. Whether these become irreversible structural changes or cyclical adjustments will depend on implementation, domestic politics, and whether the transatlantic relationship normalizes or remains transactional—issues discussed throughout the literature [4] [2].
8. Bottom line for readers
“America First” did not collapse NATO, but it changed incentives and negotiating dynamics: it produced immediate policy outcomes (new spending benchmarks) and revived European political will to pursue strategic autonomy; however, both NATO cohesion and EU autonomy ambitions face political and economic limits that scholars and policymakers flag repeatedly [1] [2] [10].