Only 11 Percent of Europeans Now See the U.S. as an Ally, ECFR Survey Finds
Only one in 10 Europeans across 15 countries now see the United States as an ally, according to a new survey published Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations. The figure — 11 percent — is a historic low and down from 16 percent half a year ago and 22 percent in 2023.
The poll, conducted across 15 European countries between late April and mid-May, paints a devastating picture of transatlantic relations under the Trump administration. The U.S. president’s Middle East war, his threats against Greenland, his repeated vows to withdraw troops from European bases, and his open skepticism about the future of NATO have driven European public opinion to a breaking point.
“Across the continent, there’s clear support for reducing dependence on Washington,” said Jana Kobzova, a co-author and ECFR senior policy fellow. “Europeans are increasingly open to higher defense spending and, crucially, show a striking degree of confidence that neighboring countries would come to their aid in a crisis.”
The survey also asked respondents whether they believed the U.S. would defend their country if it were attacked. In no country did a majority say yes. Poland was the highest at 37 percent. Britain was at 35 percent. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all registered in the 20-30 percent range. The Estonian result was particularly striking: only 20 percent of Estonians trust the U.S. to defend them, despite the fact that Estonia shares a 294-kilometer (183-mile) border with Russia and hosts NATO troops.
By contrast, majorities in nearly every country surveyed expressed confidence that at least some European neighbors would come to their aid. In the Netherlands, 82 percent said they trusted other European countries to help. In Britain it was 72 percent. Even in countries with lower confidence, the figures were consistently higher than those for the United States.
The survey reveals a deeper structural shift. Europeans are not just angry at Trump. They are rethinking the entire basis of their security. The assumption that the United States is a reliable partner — an assumption that has underpinned European defense policy for seventy years — is no longer widely held.
Paweł Zerka, the report’s co-author, said the data created “a window for Europe’s leaders to go further and faster” on defense integration. The public, he argued, is ahead of the politicians.
The timing matters. The survey was published ahead of back-to-back G7 and NATO summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks. Those meetings were supposed to showcase alliance unity. Instead, they will take place against a backdrop of data showing that the alliance’s European publics no longer trust the alliance’s leading power.
The decline in trust is not evenly distributed. It is steepest in countries that border Russia. Estonia, Latvia, and Poland, which have historically been among the most pro-American publics in Europe, have seen the sharpest drops. The people who most need a reliable American security guarantee are the ones who least believe they have one.
The ECFR report also found that Europeans are increasingly pragmatic about what comes next. While many said they expected relations with Washington to improve after Trump leaves office, they were not waiting for that day. Support for higher defense spending, joint European procurement, and a more autonomous European security structure has risen sharply across all 15 countries surveyed.
The question now is whether European leaders will act on the mandate the public has given them. The numbers are clear. The public is ready. The question is whether Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and the other capitals are ready too.