To understand Europe's dependence on the United States in terms of Defense, consider this: between 53% and 60% of the military equipment of European NATO partners and Canada comes from the US, depending on the source: either the Portuguese capital television channel Euronews (the lowest proportion) or the Swedish State think tank Institute of International Peace Studies (Sipri).
Now, the breakdown of the transatlantic bond has highlighted the magnitude of the task of building a European Defense. The NATO summit in The Hague in June was a display of the Alliance's strength, but with little progress. The trust between the two sides of the Atlantic is fading faster than the ice in Greenland, the island that the United States still wants to take from Denmark with such emphasis that Washington has ordered its intelligence services to spy on the Danish state, as reported just two weeks before the Atlantic Alliance meeting by the New York newspaper Wall Street Journal, causing a diplomatic crisis between the two allies.
The rupture was evident at the first major international conference after the summit in The Hague, the Aspen Security Forum, which recently took place in that town in the state of Colorado, USA, and was marked by an unexpected boycott by the Donald Trump administration due to the participation of prominent figures from other US governments, both Democrats and Republicans. It was not only a signal to the Aspen Institute; it was also a message to the international community. In the words of the Forum's co-chair, former National Security Advisor and former Secretary of State under Republican President George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice: "We have to admit that the system is not going to be exactly as it was before."
Trump has changed it forever. And even if the US were to backtrack, a return to the past is impossible for a simple reason: much of the goodwill that existed before between the United States and its allies has evaporated. The mere fact that the US is capable of electing a president twice who seems closer to its enemies than to its allies is a burden of distrust that will not disappear.
The US-EU trade agreement - or rather, imposition - of July 27, in which Washington gave Brussels treatment almost identical to what it has given Japan and worse than what it has given the United Kingdom, has confirmed the distancing.
Not even Trump's announcement that he will sell Patriot anti-aircraft defense systems to European countries so that they can deliver the ones they already have to Ukrainians injected much optimism in Aspen. As explained by the head of one of the world's leading International Relations study centers to this newspaper, "the system will only work as long as Trump wants and the Europeans are willing to buy weapons from the United States to give them to Ukraine."
The idea, moreover, has considerable uncertainties. The White House even privately discussed selling up to 17 Patriot batteries to Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and other countries. That is an absurd number. Each battery has between 8 and 16 launchers. In turn, each launcher has between 2 and 8 tubes. That would mean tripling the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, as the country currently has eight batteries. However, Ukrainians do not need launchers, but missiles to stop Russia's incessant bombings of their cities and infrastructure.
The Patriot case could also have a commercial component: limiting the commercial possibilities of the Franco-Italian SAMP/T NG missile, capable of competing, at least in theory, with the American 'Patriot' and which will begin to enter service next year.
The Patriot case could also have a commercial component: rendering the mass production of the European missile unnecessary.
The distrust is so great that, as EU sources explain, "when European companies present their defense systems to the continent's governments, they always make it clear that these do not have Russian, Chinese, or American components covered by ITAR." In practice, this means that countries with these weapons can use them freely, without having to ask Beijing, Moscow, or Washington for permission.
The fact that the US is now on the same level as Russia and China is significant. ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) are a series of US government regulations, administered by the State Department, under which Washington can prohibit countries buying weapons from the US from using or delivering them to third countries.
ITAR, or similar systems, are accepted worldwide and are practiced by almost all countries. For example, in May, the Swiss government sold 71 Leopard-1 tanks to the German company Rheinmetall, which manufactures them, but with the condition that it cannot deliver them to Ukraine. This led to the paradox that Germany, which produces the Leopard-1, cannot do as it pleases with the tanks it sold to Switzerland, which in turn bought them from Italy, which had acquired them from Germany.
But the arrival of Donald Trump, with his open territorial expansionism, his hostility towards the European Union, and his closeness - at least until now - to Vladimir Putin, has changed the equation. This is not limited to defense. In February, the US company Microsoft cut off email and all access to its products - including the cloud - to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, in compliance with a Donald Trump Executive Order prohibiting US companies from providing any services to that international organization, based in the Netherlands, for its decision to indict the Prime Minister and former Defense Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Joav Gallant, respectively.
Khan's case is an example of the aggressiveness of the current US president and his lack of qualms about pursuing his goals using the incredibly vast US advantage in microprocessors, the Internet, cloud services, communications and satellite imagery, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, quantum computing, and social networks.
The problem worsens because, as noted by the director of the aforementioned think tank, "the next confrontation between the US and Europe will be over digital services. Trump will oppose all regulations, and practically all the European Commission does is regulate, so the clash is inevitable." Digital services include, in one way or another, all the technologies mentioned above. "It is impossible to know if Trump will limit himself to taking actions in the commercial field or if, to pressure, he will extend them to the Defense sphere," the analyst emphasizes. A senior EU official reacted to these words with a resigned "We never get used to Donald Trump's surprises with Europe. As soon as one ends, the next one begins."
The UK and France, the only two European countries with nuclear weapons, have already had a direct experience of the limitations of ITAR even with the Joe Biden administration, which was openly Atlanticist. The problem erupted with the British Storm Shadow and the French Scalp cruise missiles, manufactured by the Franco-British-Italian company MBDA, which, despite their different names, are virtually identical.
In practice, however, they are not. The British version has, as explained by EU sources to this newspaper, some components manufactured by US companies, which the French version lacks. It is a minimal difference, but it has had very important consequences in the war in Ukraine. According to the same sources, when London began delivering Storm Shadow missiles to Kiev in March 2023, the Joe Biden forced him to impose a clause on the Ukrainians stipulating that they could not use the missiles to attack targets on Russian territory. In contrast, Paris, which began supplying SCALP missiles in July of the same year, did not prohibit Ukraine from using the missiles within Russia, as the missiles belonged to Ukraine.
Although the figures are secret, the most common estimates indicate that the United Kingdom has delivered between 200 and 300 missiles of this type to Ukraine, while France has transferred more than 100. However, according to the same sources, only the latter have been able to launch attacks deep inside Russian territory.
The case of the missiles calls into question the decision announced with great fanfare by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to purchase 12 US-made F-35As to equip them with atomic bombs. It will be the first time the UK has had nuclear bombs launched from aircraft since it reduced its atomic deterrent to submarine-launched missiles in 1998.
The great paradox, however, is that the F-35 in its three versions—A, B, C, and I, of which only the first has nuclear capability—is a US aircraft and, therefore, subject to the limitations that Washington imposes on its use. Given the enormous sophistication of this aircraft, which is more like a flying computer, there are also doubts as to whether the US can 'disconnect' it remotely, even if it is in service in third countries. The manufacturer Lockheed Martin has denied that this is possible, but doubts remain in many US ally countries that have purchased the aircraft. In addition, the British nuclear defense system is currently designed and manufactured in the US and one of its key elements—the missiles—is leased from Washington. According to the AFP news agency, this formula will be repeated with the British F-35As, which will probably carry B-61 atomic bombs, not only manufactured but also owned by the US.
Finally, as pointed out by the British think tank Chatham House, the F-35As will be based in the British Isles, too far from the Eastern Front that they are supposed to defend.