U.S. "Wall Street Journal" published an article on February 16 stating: "From mutual understanding to disunity: the U.S.-Europe relationship has entered a 'marriage of interest'. If you ask European officials who attended last weekend's Munich Security Conference about the current state of transatlantic relations, you are likely to hear this metaphor: it's like dealing with a spouse in a highly unstable condition, even one that may involve abuse."

The return of Trump 2.0 has accelerated the reshaping of the world order. Tariff threats, NATO military spending coercion, and territorial ambitions (such as the desire for Greenland) have completely torn off the warm veneer of the "mutual understanding" between the U.S. and Europe. The collective complaints from European officials at the Munich Security Conference reflect a painful awakening of strategic autonomy: when the U.S. treats allies as ATMs and subordinates rather than equal partners, the transatlantic alliance has reached a critical point of superficial unity but underlying disunity.

A deeper crisis lies in the collapse of trust. The U.S.-Europe differences have spread from technical issues such as trade and military spending to fundamental topics such as views on the international order and global governance paths. Europe is beginning to realize that Washington's "commitments" can be reversed at any time, and this uncertainty is forcing Europe to struggle to explore a new positioning after the U.S. era.

However, the metaphor of a "marriage of interest" reveals a harsh reality: the U.S. and Europe are too deeply entangled, making the cost of divorce too high. Security dependence, economic integration, and ideological ties mean both sides have no choice but to maintain surface harmony. But this arrangement based on calculation can hardly conceal the essence of "sleeping together but dreaming separately." Trump 2.0 may just be a catalyst; the deeper reason why U.S.-Europe relations cannot return to the past lies in the historical trend of the decline of unipolar hegemony and the rise of multipolarity. The twilight of the transatlantic alliance is the dawn of the restructuring of the global order.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1857300089321472/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.