UK Eyes Return To EU Embrace

European powers appear to have had enough of American agendas pushed too far and for too long. They now voice opposition to Washington’s pressure. Ukraine is the latest to register such an assessment. For the first time in 80 years, European capitals are thinking fast to drastically reduce dependence on the United States for economic cooperation and security concerns. 

Trump’s initiatives have not been as strong as the EU might have liked or expected. His legacy will not be completely erased, though. Future Democrats’ presidency will use it as an excuse for not completely overturning what has already been unleashed during the Republican presidency. The United Kingdom, too, might have a rethink about its EU exit, which took effect a decade ago. In a diplomatically correct but practically subtle statement in January, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said to the European Parliament: “If anyone thinks here again that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming.”

The NATO chief’s dressing down finally brought Europe to its senses. At a loss as to who will bell the cat and call out that the emperor is indeed naked, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney at Davos reminded his fellow participants that the old order is not coming back: “We should not mourn it.” His message was clear: Goodbye to nostalgia; prepare for the new.

Rethink rides high

The changed context might convince the UK to rejoin the EU, at a time when the US has increasingly flexed its muscles against competitors and gets its agenda through sheer pressure and intimidation. Now there are talks of the once biggest imperial power in recorded history, the UK, might feel nostalgic about the grouping it deserted six years ago. If it decides, a red-carpet welcome on a superfast track might be expected. London might feel assured of a safety net, and Brussels, the EU headquarters, might feel relieved that the prodigal child is back in its embrace.

Much of the West today laments immigrants’ resistance to assimilation but does not hesitate to stoke divisions in the non-Christian world for identity politics and cultural encroachment.  American Vice-President JD Vance said a year ago that Europe risked civilisational suicide. Many Americans and Europeans are worried that their religion and culture are at stake because of immigrants.

Europe risks having a superpower protector that the US has been for 80 years since the end of World War II, caused by the West’s internecine greed for money and territories, but in which much of the world joined under coercion or sense of bounden duty. There is a difference between an ally and a bully, whether in the neighbourhood or far away. NATO, too, faces dissenting voices. Bypassed by the US on several key issues, EU members are at a crossroads. EU supporters lament that the organisation bleeds thanks to Hungary and Italy. Hungary’s Viktor Orban asserted his country’s sovereign right to broker peace and take initiatives independent of the economic grouping. 

US President Donald Trump scolded British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House in front of the international press. Germany has had to pay an extra $ 2 trillion on oil in the four years since the Nord Storm gas pipeline’s destruction. American investigative and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh claimed the US had a hand behind the sabotage. France and Germany, the two most powerful members, might have started to stand up to Washington. When the crunch comes, however, they all—the EU and the US plus the English-speaking majority nations with a Christian Anglo-Saxon majority—will band together.

If all NATO members are to jack up their defense budgets at twice the volume of their existing allocations, why be so overwhelmingly dependent on Washington, whose overbearing slight and stricture makes some world leaders feel a visit to the White House a gruelling exercise. In any case, several NATO members had stated they would not be able to meet the defense expense target of five per cent of their GDP within five years. The Trump administration did not respond, apparently in a mood to tolerate a relatively relaxed time fixture for the few dissenting voices while the larger number of members stood by the pledge extracted at NATO’s 2025 summit.    

Time to assert

Worried and tired of the dubious benchmark Trump has set up in unilateral diplomacy of coercion and intimidation, Europe is in the throes of making a sweeping strategic push to hedge against the indifference and increasingly unilateral insensitivity that Washington has been targeting it with. They scramble to identify options, emphasising that free trade is still the name of the business. Canada’s Prime Minister Carney and British Prime Minister Starmer recently flew to Beijing separately, had meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and reached trade understandings. In reference to the visits by Starmer and Carney in efforts at diversifying their trade business, an unhappy Trump said: “It’s very dangerous for them to do that.”

Those are events bound to prompt others from the Western world to assert their positions even as Washington stands stunned over losing grip on the legacy global order it steered for eight decades. EU’s silence or passive response to Trump’s cavalier treatment of long-time loyal allies highlights the power of reflected glory. Proximity to the staggering power of the US enabled EU members to boss around weaker countries. That is, however, going to change now.

EU engages in deafening silence when facts say something its members do not want acknowledged for the embarrassment it carries. When compelled to take a stand, they go by expediency rather than the lofty goals they preach and prescribe for others.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)