If the Trump administration gets its way and the European Union fractures, American interests would suffer first. The end of the EU would mean the end of the single market, from which US businesses have benefited spectacularly, and the end of the euro that has reduced cross-border transaction costs for decades.
Anthony Luzzatto Gardner, who served as US ambassador to the EU from 2014 to 2017, made the case in Foreign Affairs, "Hvylya" reports. A leaked draft of an earlier version of the 2025 National Security Strategy included the explicit objective of "pulling" certain countries "away" from the bloc.
Washington would also lose a critical partner in implementing sanctions, as well as in law enforcement, counterterrorism, and combating climate change. Eight decades of bipartisan US foreign policy promoted European integration - not out of idealism but from the clear-eyed recognition that a closely knit, prosperous, and stable Europe would be an effective partner in tackling international challenges.
Gardner acknowledged the EU's real flaws. The bloc is fragmented, bureaucratic, and often incapable of making decisions at the speed a rapidly changing world demands. But he argued that overregulation is not the main culprit behind Europe's economic underperformance. Member states bear the real responsibility - they apply EU law ineffectively and refuse to complete the single market, particularly by building a capital markets union and an energy union.
A fractured Europe would usher in the return of the instability and volatility that have scarred the continent's history. Trump's antagonism has already caused damage - Gardner described the EU as being in "shell shock" from Washington's unprecedented hostility, especially following the threat of the invasion of Greenland.
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