Since the end of World War II, the United States has spent trillions of dollars defending Europe. After defeating the Nazis, America rebuilt the European continent with the Marshall Plan and shielded it from Soviet aggression while propping up European economies through subsidies and investments.
We bailed out failing governments. We airlifted food into Berlin when it was being choked off by the Soviet Union. We sent military aid. We ultimately saved Europe from communism.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has tried to reassure allies over US decisions on troop deployments in Europe.
Rubio’s intervention at the end of a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in Sweden came after President Donald Trump said the US would send an extra 5,000 troops to Poland.
That decision was a week after a planned deployment of 4,000 troops to the country was cancelled and days after an announcement that US troops would be pulled out of Germany.
European leaders are attempting to downplay concerns after the United States announced plans to reduce its military presence on the continent, amid growing questions about Europe’s ability to defend itself without American support.
The Pentagon announced late on Tuesday that it was pausing the deployment of any additional troops to Poland. Vice President JD Vance described this as part of America’s demand for “more of Europe standing on its own two feet.”
Josep Borrell is a Spanish socialist who held several high-ranking positions in the European Union. Until 2024, he was a vice-president of the European Commission and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy. In that capacity, he ran Europe’s External Action Service, which is the diplomatic body that executes Europe’s foreign policy decisions around the world. He remains a man with a great deal of influence over European perspectives.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said that it was reducing the number of US Army Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) in Europe from three to four.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement that the US was reducing the number of its soldiers on the continent as a result of a “comprehensive, multilayered process” focused on US posture in Europe.
A BCT comprises 4,000 to 4,700 personnel, according to a congressional report.
As prime minister, Mark Carney claims to be guided by pragmatism, albeit “principled pragmatism.” But his enthusiastic pursuit of deeper alignment with the European Union risks selling out Canadian sovereignty for romantic symbolism and a mountain of red tape.
In his now-famous speech in Davos, Carney said that “nostalgia isn’t a strategy.” Yet his approach to the EU reveals a deeply nostalgic view of Europe as a vibrant counterweight to North American realities. But the numbers say Europe’s economy, far from being vibrant, is in decline. Forecasts for this year project growth of one per cent or less. The EU is beset by stagnation, demographic decline, high energy costs and chronically poor competitiveness. Why would Canada seek even tighter alignment with a bloc that’s in decline when it already enjoys comprehensive trade access through the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and other multilateral channels?
No sooner were the words out of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mouth than one French news magazine dubbed them “a breath of fresh air from Canada.”
“It is my strong personal view,” the Canadian leader said, “that as the international order (is) rebuilt … it will be rebuilt out of Europe.”
Carney was speaking in Armenia earlier this month at a meeting of the European Political Community. A leader who has dubbed his country “the most European of non-European nations” flubbed his lines slightly but got his point across, enchanting his all-European audience.
Carney smells profit from a decaying corrupt continent. There’s a reason his kind likes “Free Trade” and hates tariffs.
A debate is emerging over the economic difference between Europe and America. It seems to be driven primarily by the American side, where it has ostensibly been inspired by the spotlight that President Trump has shone upon Europe in general. He has drawn American eyes to Europe both through tariff negotiations and his administration’s highlighting of the decline of freedom of speech in the European Union.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal made a notable contribution to the transatlantic comparison. In an editorial video, Mark Kelly, senior producer of the Journal’s editorial page, brought together viewpoints from a variety of contributors to try to determine what keeps America ahead and why the gap has increased in recent years.
I spent last weekend crossing half the globe with Prime Minister Mark Carney, to spend a few hours with European leaders in Yerevan, the stunning Armenian capital, before crossing all the way back to Ottawa.
Mr. Carney was the first non-European leader to be invited to a meeting of the European Political Community, a grouping that brings together the 27 European Union member states with allies and neighbors, including Britain and Turkey, as well as aspiring members such as Ukraine and Albania.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has demanded that Iran return to the negotiating table, stop playing for time, stop holding the region and the world hostage, permanently end its military nuclear program, and refrain from any attack against Israel and the West’s regional partners.
On the surface, none of this sounds especially controversial. The Islamic Republic has long used negotiations to buy time, threatened Middle East stability, and exploited tensions with the West as a tool for survival and leverage.
But the real issue in Merz’s remarks is not merely Iran.
Europe has betrayed President Trump. For years, EU leaders and key national governments have undermined the White House’s agenda quietly, working to remove pro-Washington figures from power. We recently witnessed this in Romania, where Cătălin Georgescu — a clear frontrunner who favored closer ties with the U.S. — was effectively sidelined in the presidential race. In Hungary, there was a concerted effort to defeat Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in April. Now, anti-Trump Europe has stepped out of the shadows and is openly distancing itself from the administration, leaving it to face its challenges in Iran alone.
The Trump administration has accused Europe of being an “incubator” for terrorism fuelled by mass migration, in a new counter-terrorism strategy unveiled on Wednesday.
The strategy also focuses on rooting out “violent left-wing extremists” including “radically pro-transgender” groups, as Trump’s conservative administration steps up its political attacks on opponents.
It also further places drug cartels in the Americas at the centre of counter-terrorism efforts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s vow to shrink America’s military deployment in Germany has put a new spotlight on the U.S. role in Europe.
There are usually 80,000 to 100,000 troops on the continent, with more than 36,000 in Germany. The Pentagon announced Friday that it would remove 5,000 troops from Germany, and Trump said the next day that he would go “a lot further” than that.
The U.S. military presence is a legacy of World War II, when Americans helped stabilize and rebuild Europe, and the Cold War, when the troops served as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. More recently, the deployment has played a key role supporting operations in the Arctic, Africa and the Middle East including the current conflict with Iran.
Officials in Brussels often joke about Canada joining the EU.
Some European leaders, including Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, have even started to entertain the idea.
It remains a pipe dream for now – but Mark Carney will at least get to play the part of a European leader in Yerevan on Monday.
The Canadian prime minister will become the first leader of a non-European state to join a summit of the European Political Community.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s assertion that the US is being “humiliated” in its war against Iran has triggered a new confrontation between Europe and President Trump. Four days after the comments were made, the Pentagon announced plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from its bases in Germany.
Many experts see it as a waypoint in the American military’s continuing uncoupling from the Continent. There are more than 38,000 active US troops in the Federal Republic and on Saturday the defence minister, Boris Pistorius, implied the move was expected, saying: “We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our own security.”
🚨 JUST IN: President Trump says the US will be withdrawing "A LOT" more troops from Germany than the 5,000 announced yesterday
FINALLY.
Bring our troops home! We don't need NATO — NATO needs US!
"We're going to cut WAY down and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000" 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/I4RBJnb3qL
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 2, 2026
Payback to the base for the Iran conflict?
