Transatlantic relations are facing an unprecedented crisis of confidence, according to a new cross-European public opinion survey that finds a growing share of European citizens now view the United States as a threat rather than a trusted ally, as Washington’s unilateral policy agenda increasingly clashes with European strategic and economic interests.
Conducted between March 13 and 21 by independent polling firm Cluster17 for the news outlet Politico, the survey gathered responses from 6,698 adults across six key European nations: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland. The results paint a stark picture of eroding trust: just 12% of respondents currently identify the U.S. as a close ally, while more than three times that share — 36% — now classify the U.S. as an active threat to European stability. That marked a dramatic hardening of anti-U.S. sentiment compared to previous polling, experts note.
Politico traced the shift in public opinion to a series of controversial actions taken by the second Trump administration after it returned to office in January 2025. These include repeated public questioning of the U.S.’s long-standing mutual defense commitment to NATO, open threats to annex Greenland and Canada, sweeping new tariffs imposed on European exports, and the launch of a new war with Iran that all major European governments refused to join.
The poll also exposes a critical contradiction at the heart of modern European security politics. As trust in Washington declines, a majority of voters now back calls for a stronger, more strategically autonomous Europe. But that support evaporates when proposals require higher defense spending or long-term security commitments to Ukraine, the survey found.
On collective defense, the survey found broad top-level political support for mutual protection: 76% of respondents backed sending troops to defend an allied nation that came under attack, a figure that rose to 81% when the question specifically referenced defending a fellow European Union member state. However, when asked if they would personally take up arms to fight if their own country was attacked, just 19% of respondents said they would agree. Politico noted this gap exposes a major structural challenge for European governments: high public support for stronger defense institutions on paper, paired with low individual willingness to serve, which will exacerbate existing European troop shortages.
Chinese foreign policy analysts say the poll results reflect a growing and deepening sense of disappointment among ordinary European citizens toward the current U.S. administration. Liu Le, an associate researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained that repeated unilateral actions by the U.S. on issues ranging from Greenland’s status to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the new Iran war have directly conflicted with core European interests, while also eroding the shared ideological foundations that long sustained the transatlantic alliance.
Liu noted that the current U.S. administration has shifted beyond the long-standing ‘America First’ doctrine to a far more extreme ‘America Only’ strategic orientation. This shift has severely damaged European confidence in the U.S.’s strategic credibility and long-term policy consistency, he added. The escalating conflict with Iran has also forced the U.S. to draw down its security engagement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, effectively stepping back from its core security commitments to Europe — a shift that has prompted the European Union to launch a full reassessment of its relationship with Washington.
Chen Hong, director of the Asia Pacific Studies Centre at East China Normal University in Shanghai, added that the current U.S. administration has increasingly treated long-standing security commitments to allies as a bargaining chip, repeatedly threatening European governments to advance U.S. interests. This behavior has laid bare the fundamentally hegemonic nature of U.S. strategy for many European observers, he said.
In addition to security frictions, Chen noted that economic policy has become a major source of resentment in Europe in recent years. The U.S. has repeatedly threatened European allies with tariffs, pursued exclusionary trade and supply chain policies, and forced European nations to align with its great-power economic competition agenda, often against their own economic interests. ‘By turning economic relationships that were once built on shared rules and mutual benefit into tools to advance U.S. national interests, the United States has directly undermined the core interests of European partners,’ Chen explained.
Chen added that the U.S. has sought to shift the costs of manufacturing overseas while retaining tight control over critical technologies and key resources, a dynamic that has made clear to European governments and publics alike that the U.S. does not see Europe as an equal partner. Instead, Europe is increasingly viewed by Washington as a strategic asset to be mobilized, leveraged, and even sacrificed when it serves U.S. goals, he said.
Notably, the survey found that the share of Europeans who view the U.S. as a threat now exceeds the share who hold the same view of China by 7 percentage points (36% vs 29%). In four of the six surveyed nations, more respondents named the U.S. as a greater threat than China, with Spain recording the widest gap at 51% of respondents identifying the U.S. as a threat.
Despite the sharp decline in trust, experts agree that a full breakdown of transatlantic ties and a complete end to Europe’s reliance on the U.S. is unlikely in the near term. Instead, Chen noted, Europe is increasingly pursuing a realistic, balanced approach that prioritizes greater strategic autonomy. ‘It is precisely the U.S.’s erosion of allies’ interests and the institutional foundations of the transatlantic order that has forced Europe to pursue more independent strategic decision-making,’ Chen explained. This shift does not mean Europe plans to abandon the transatlantic alliance entirely; rather, it is a structural adjustment and defensive response to repeated U.S. unilateralism and violation of established international rules.
For European policymakers, deeper cooperation with China has become a strategic necessity rather than a discretionary choice, Liu noted. Despite ongoing differences between Brussels and Beijing, the two sides share broad overlapping interests on issues ranging from trade to climate change to multilateral governance. Europe’s push to deepen ties and expand cooperation with China reflects its core strategic need to pursue more independent, self-reliant development, he added.