Can the UK bridge the widening transatlantic gap? Beyond Trump’s intemperance, many American complaints about Europe are real and are driving the old continent adrift.
Can King Charles bring new unity between the two sides of the Atlantic, now drifting apart more than ever? The time is momentous. He goes to the US next week to meet Donald Trump, one of the most controversial presidents in American history, on the eve of the US’s 250th anniversary of independence. The Declaration of Independence of the 13 colonies set both America and England on historical paths that both have shaped the world to this day.
The next few years could take a different turn. Many in China, America’s largest rival, believe the US is on a path of decline.
The task is colossal, but there is hope. Great Britain saved Europe three times in the last century, each time drawing America in — a country that, at least in the first two instances, was very reluctant to intervene.
The first two times were the First and Second World Wars, when the United States had little desire to enter a complicated conflict and, in the first instance, was even unsure whether to side with Great Britain or Germany. The third time was during the Cold War, when Britain ensured a thread of continuity between the United States and Europe against the Soviet Union and its expansionist ambitions on the continent.
Today, the relationship between the United States and the EU is very delicate for many reasons beyond Trump’s more or less ill-mannered behavior.
Deep issues
The deeper issues, perhaps, are:
A certain European apathy regarding strategic matters has been demonstrated so far and has grown progressively over the past 35 years since the end of the Soviet empire. Europe has no long-term plan for what to do in its own backyard. It has had no clear, united political direction toward Russia.
Even after the invasion of Ukraine, there were hesitations about a reaction to Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin — how far to negotiate, how to negotiate, how and to what extent to support Ukraine. The position varied by country. Poland and Finland were wary of Russia, whereas Italy and Spain were more accommodating.
Among the various souls of Europe, there has been no clarity about the Middle East following Hamas’s attack, backed by Iran, against Israel. Nor has there been much clarity about Europe’s position toward Israel.
Then Europe is absent from the strategic territory par excellence — Asia. This is where America has reoriented itself, not least because 60% of the world’s population and perhaps 60% of its growth lie here. What happens to the rest of the world will be decided within this horizon. Not being here, therefore, means becoming marginal. America rightly concluded that this was the true terrain of competition and confrontation. The European continent, by contrast — both as a Union and as individual states — has not had, and still does not have, a clear idea.
On the FT (here https://www.ft.com/content/e2fe4cce-d159-4d47-86c1-bc0bc1cdafbf ), Nadia Schadlow rightly wrote, “The Iran war reveals that the US and Europe operate from fundamentally different assumptions about risk, responsibility and results — about what makes the international system work, or not. Recognizing these differences is the first step towards rebalancing the alliance.”
The rift between Europe and America is perhaps almost philosophical. Faced with problems, Europe seeks not to intervene but to somehow survive them. Faced with great questions, it looks for ways to adapt rather than confront them head-on.
Moreover, on the productive front, the new transformation driven by artificial intelligence will change the entire global production system — and on this, Europe so far seems content mostly to regulate the matter and to seek some technological concessions from the United States.
The Economist (here https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/04/22/how-europe-regulated-itself-into-american-vassalage ) reported: “The commanding heights of the modern European economy have quietly been captured by American firms … Europe’s dependency on America Inc is in no small part Europe’s own fault. Decades of over-regulating the old continent’s economy left businesses there unable to compete with American firms, which went on to trounce European ones even in their own backyards. What Europeans could not build quickly for themselves, due to a thicket of regulations, they often imported just as quickly from abroad.”
In fact, the US worries about Chinese technological competition, not about Europe’s. This is revealing. Europe, in short, appears mentally disarmed. Europe could soon become not only a military burden for the US but also an economic and industrial drag on bilateral relations.
2-pronged attack
Europe is caught in a double bind: that of central bureaucracy and that of the protections maintained by its individual member states. To move forward, Europe would need to simultaneously weaken both the central bureaucracy and the protections of the states.
America had, in theory, similar traps, but they played out differently because of its different origins. It was born with a common army founded on a common war. The effort of that war and its costs then gave rise to a security apparatus and a financial structure that remained common even in peacetime. This structure, through successive upheavals, broadened and liberalized the common American market.
Europe has always refused to fight a common war and has therefore never had to confront the problem of repaying the common debt of such a war. Over the past thirty-plus years — from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s to Ukraine now, passing through the growing commitments and challenges from North Africa and the Middle East — Europe has always stepped back and asked the United States for help.
Europe was not born out of a war. It was born out of wars that ravaged the continent for centuries and eventually required the US to intervene to settle them, as well as the feared conflict against the USSR. United Europe was born for peace and out of the horrors of war, around the spool of a technocracy, intimately devoid of political grand visions (which were destined to the politicians sent to Brussels from each member state).
If this does not change, Europe — both as a union and as individual states — will dissolve. This is a long-term problem that does not address the short- and very short-term emergencies of European politicians and Brussels bureaucrats. They are often mired in their day-to-day business and survival.
This could be the truly great push the United Kingdom could exert on Europe, in agreement with Germany, which appears to have taken a new direction. The old Hanseatic axis, stretching from the Baltic to Britain through Scandinavia, Poland, northern Germany, and the Netherlands, was decisive in Europe for centuries. It’s the wind of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Could it be so again today?
In all of this, there is a paradox. Today, the place of greatest technological innovation in Europe is the one with the largest European army — and it is outside the EU: Ukraine, which the UK has consistently backed since before the war began. Maybe the EU could become more of a union if it fully adopted Ukraine.
New role for the King?
In this structural disarmament, perhaps the United Kingdom can play a historic bridging role, guiding a convergence between Europe and the United States. Perhaps, in this regard, the UK enjoys an advantage over other European countries: a special focus on Asia.
In the early 1980s, almost simultaneously, London recovered the Falkland Islands — which Argentina invaded — and lost Hong Kong. Yet, over forty years later, the question of Britain’s historical presence in Latin America has dissolved and is almost forgotten. At the same time, the loss of Hong Kong remains a torment.
This special British attention could help the continent find a new drive in Asia. The UK needs a grand idea to bring the country together beyond domestic partisanship. Bridging the transatlantic gap, rejoining the European Union, and supporting a new European shift of attention to Asia could make the difference for everyone, but especially for Britain, which in the past decade or so has often seemed to drift aimlessly.
Europe, America, and Asia all need a renewed UK. Can the kingdom rise to the challenge?
(Appia Institute fondly remembers King Charles, who just last year delivered a wonderful speech in Italian to the parliament in Rome and had a historic meeting with the Pope, a harbinger of a possible future reunification between the Anglican and the Catholic Church)
