In a period of all-time high conflict, the West is increasingly at odds with itself. Be it the ideological front, the modus operandi of two-party systems, and the current domestic affairs that drive people apart. As well as an increasingly large agenda of wars, economic parity issues, and the increasing visibility of the Climate crisis, it is harder for concessions to be reached and for members of society to understand one another’s point of view truly.
As the divide only gets larger, amplified through an increase in politically unbalanced social media platforms, that have been fined time after time by the European Commission for not abiding by EU rules that were created to protect European citizens from disinformation and illegal content. (Harwell and Merrill, 2004, Goujard, 2024). Maybe it is finally time to fully embrace the sentiment of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1915) by allowing the EU to gain its much-needed momentum at a crucial time in modern history:
“I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Focusing on the positives, could be a silver lining to this all for the European Union?
Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash
Increasing Division
With polarization and antisemitism (FRA, 2024) as well as an increasing intolerance of ‘the other’ (Verkuyten et al.,2020) on the rise, nationalism lays high on the agenda, politicians eyeing domestic issues above all the rest. It is feared that darker times lie ahead for the global North. With Donald Trump back as president in the White House, all eyes are glued to the US and their plans for the world.
Elon Musk's recent controversial salute, banned due to its Nazi connections in Germany, along with his unexpected speech at a campaign event for Germany's political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), have intensified EU concerns.
This, combined with Musk's decision to reduce the number of moderation teams and the lack of transparency required for reporting to the European Commission (Haeck, 2025), has contributed to growing unrest on the social media platform Twitter, also known as X (Zinoviev, Sarkar and Bicen,2023).
Trump’s Return: Veni, Vidi, Vici?
Trump’s presidency has marked a period of heightened individualism in the United States. This shift involves a retreat from established regulatory standards designed to protect millions of consumers. For instance, the administration withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO) and utilized tariff sanctions as a negotiating tool with other world powers. These actions have contributed to intensified geopolitical competition and a zero-sum mindset.
This change in economic interests and view of international order is driving a larger ideological wedge between the European Union and the United States. The growing focus on domestic US politics will have significant consequences later, which currently seem to be hiding amongst the long grass.
In the long term, far-reaching trade tariffs on China will inevitably lead to retaliation from its trading partners. From an abundance of research and literature on tariffs, it is clear that tariffs have their downsides, such as leading to a productivity decrease as well as a worldwide decrease in growth globally (Furceri et al., 2020) due to the ‘gravitational pull’ that large scale economies have in an only increasing internationalized world (Meinen, 2019). To be able to stand strong and withstand Trump’s likely future tariffs, the EU needs to step up to its role by looking toward a tool that would incorporate a retaliatory and defensive stance that it does not currently possess (Kleiman, 2025).
Room For Discussion?
In the fragmented and conflict-rich world that we live in currently, is there a space for discussions and room for questions concerning the US’ move toward policies and an expansionist agenda that is at odds with the EU agenda on all fronts? While profiting from the United State's multilateral way of operating since the era after World War II, a new dawn has been on the horizon for some time now.
While trying to explain away Trump's verbal assaults as being full of hot air, by looking at previous threats that arose during the US election campaign of 2016, the political and societal international landscape has clearly, vastly changed. Due to ongoing crises such as the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the long ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, and the climate crisis, to mention but a few.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
Many eyes look towards the West in times of crisis, whilst the agenda for the EU grows much longer and more difficult to fulfill, the challenges to the EU begin to multiply. However, conflict with the US might just be what the doctor ordered, with the EU historically rising stronger from crises in the past. The EU needs to learn that to grow with the changing priorities and agenda, it needs to develop a different way of dealing with fallouts by evolving its methods entirely (Consilium, n.d.).
This change in sentiment was also recently reflected in the World Economic keynote address from Chief Executive Ursula von der Leyen, which marked a general change of tune of how business will be conducted in the European Union in the coming years (Stewart, 2025), following the broad lines as set out by Mario Draghi’s 2024 report on EU competitiveness (Altomonte and Zeneli, 2025).
In a roundabout way, Trump’s return to the White House marks a time when trade agreements with the EU that have been stuck in the spokes for years are finally being tackled, as one EU diplomat told POLITICO (Gijs, 2025) for a recent article:
“Trump does -unintentionally- help to facilitate trade agreements between the EU and third parties. You can see there is a change of mind, a certain new dynamic.”
References
1- Altomontte, Carlo and Zeneli, Valbona. (2025, January 6) The Draghi report grabbed Europe’s attention. Now it’s time for the EU to put it into action. Retrieved from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-draghi-report-grabbed-europes-attention-now-its-time-for-the-eu-to-put-it-into-action/
2- Consilium (n.d.) How the EU responds to crises and builds resilience. Retrieved from https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-crisis-response-resilience/
3- FRA survey reveals high levels of antisemitism persist in Europe | Facing Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.facingfacts.eu/blog/fra-survey-reveals-high-levels-of-antisemitism-persist-in-europe/
4- Furceri, D., Hannan, S. A., Ostry, J. D., & Rose, A. K. (2020). Are tariffs bad for growth? Yes, say five decades of data from 150 countries. Journal of policy modeling, 42(4), 850–859. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2020.03.009
5- Gijs, Camille. (2025, January 27) As Trump returns, the EU rediscovers the art of the trade deal. POLITICO. Retrieved from https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-eu-trade-deals-tariffs-ursula-von-der-leyen-maros-sefcovic/
6- Goujard, Clothilde. (2024, July 12) EU charges Elon Musk’s X for letting disinfo run wild. Retrieved from https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-charges-musks-x-for-letting-disinfo-run-wild/
7- Haeck, P. (2025, January 17). EU steps up scrutiny of X as anger grows over Musk’s political meddling. POLITICO. https://www.politico.eu/article/european-commission-steps-up-scrutiny-of-musks-x/
8- Harwell, Drew., Merrill, Jeremy B. (2024, October 29). On Elon Musk’s X, Republicans go viral as Democrats disappear. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/29/elon-musk-x-republican-democrat-twitter-election/
9- Kleiman, David. (2025, January 20). Responding to Trump’s tariffs: the EU needs a new trade weapon to protect its economic security. Retrieved from https://odi.org/en/insights/responding-to-trumps-tariffs-the-eu-needs-a-new-trade-weapon-to-protect-its-economic-security/
10- Stewart, Heather. (2025, January 21) The Guardian. Ursula von der Leyen seeks closer economic ties across EU as new Trump era begins. Retreived from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/21/ursula-von-der-leyen-seeks-closer-economic-ties-across-eu-as-new-trump-era-begins
11- Verkuyten, Maykel, Adelman, Levi, and Yogeeswaran, Kumar. (2020) 467-472. The psychology of intolerance: Unpacking diverse understandings of intolerance. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
13- Zinoviev, D., Sarkar, A., & Bicen, P. (2024). The “Non-Musk” effect at X (Twitter). Social Network Analysis and Mining, 14(1), 131. DOI:10.48550/arXiv.2304.11272
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