Europe cools towards the US (but not everywhere all of the time): The ‘Trump Effect’

Since Trump’s return to the White House, only six months ago, with his increasingly belligerent attitude towards the old continent, EU leaders now question the role of the US as a trustworthy ally. The shift in European public perception of the US has been equally swift, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey.¹ The sharp decline in favourable opinions about the US² among EU citizens is striking: an average of 47% expressed a positive view about the US in October 2024, whereas only 29% felt that way in March/April 2025, representing an eighteen-point drop.

The most pronounced variation was registered in Denmark, where the share of respondents with a positive perception of the US collapsed to 13% from autumn’s 47%; over a third of respondents felt very differently about their American allies by spring. This is perhaps unsurprising given the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on Greenland and the rhetoric directed at Denmark, a NATO member and ally, which provoked frustration and discontent among the Danish political class and its public.³

However, almost all EU countries experienced a decline in attitudes towards the US with the notable exceptions of Romania (+2%) and Bulgaria (+1%), while views in Greece and Cyprus remained stable (+0%). Romanians are the most ‘pro-American’ EU citizens as of spring 2025, with a solid 65% holding a positive view about the US. Both ideological affinity and pro-Russian stances might play a role in this. As per the same Eurobarometer, pro-Russian attitudes are relatively prevalent in many of these member states compared to the EU average (14%): the share of Cypriots holding a positive stance on Russia is the highest within the EU (49%), followed by Bulgarians (44%), Greeks (38%), Hungarians (26%) and Romanians (23%). President Trump’s recurrent efforts to appease Moscow, while publicly berating Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy for not seeking peace, may well have contributed. Additionally, MAGA Republicans’ explicit support for far-right candidates during the polarized presidential elections in Romania was undoubtedly well received by far-right voters, whose candidate came close to victory.

For other parts of Europe, the reasons behind the change in attitude are likely the consequence of the accumulated effect of the overt US ‘reset’ of relations with Europe. The Biden Administration had crafted a solid basis for Transatlantic cooperation in terms of foreign, economic and security policy. In February, Vice President JD Vance’s provocative speech at the Munich security conference, in which he criticized Europe’s establishment while praising far-right parties and heralded the downsizing of US commitment to European security, NATO and Ukraine, sent waves of panic through Europe’s elites. A public dressing down of President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and the ensuing diplomatic scramble across Europe’s capitals hit headlines and signalled the US administration’s intention to disrupt historical norms. In early April, Trump’s self-proclaimed ‘Liberation Day’ hit the EU with long-threatened punitive tariffs, impacting economic forecasts, investment and stock markets globally.

The timing of the Spring Eurobarometer survey undoubtedly enabled it to capture the European public’s response to all these events, reflecting EU citizens’ perceptions of their one-time closest ally.

A clear example of this is presented by Poland, which in October 2024 had the highest public regard for the US, at 75%, followed by Lithuania at 73%. Since then, Polish citizens’ favourability rate has sunk to 56%, a fall of 19%. A similar pattern is evident from the map across all countries bordering Russia, where the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most pressing issue.

Of course, a degree of caution is required about reading too much into this type of data at the national level, as sub-state dynamics can be a determinant in explaining the public’s responses. For instance, the Eurobarometer continues to report data for East and West Germany, with the national figure being the weighted average of the two. Respondents in former East Germany held a less positive attitude towards the US than their Western counterparts in October 2024 (30% against 40%, respectively). In Spring 2025, their positions had swapped, with the former GDR being the more US-positive (22% against 16%, respectively). The dynamic reflects the well-known East-West German divide⁴, including domestic politics. Rising to become the second most popular party (20.8%) in the German general election held in February 2025, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is now the most successful party in the east of the country.⁵ MAGA Republicans are aligned with the AfD on several core political positions, from anti-immigration and anti-establishment rhetoric to a more pro-Russian stance in foreign policy. It is perhaps unsurprising to find East Germans much more supportive of this US administration and its exponents, such as Elon Musk and JD Vance, who openly and directly endorsed Alice Weidel’s party during the German election campaign earlier in the winter.

Additionally, it is worth noting that EU citizens’ attitudes towards China did not significantly change over this period. The EU27 average favourability rate for China remained stable at 29%, equal to the overall US rate, with relatively low variation at the country level. At least for now, the shift of Europeans’ opinion on the US is not driven by a pivot to an alternative power, but rather by growing disillusionment with American leadership and the ‘Trump effect’.