> True, but why did they trust the US so much in the first place? It is not as though no-one has ever warned of the dangers before this year! Similar backgroun

> True, but why did they trust the US so much in the first place? It is not as though no-one has ever warned of the dangers before this year! Similar background, a long history of standing together (e.g. the war, marshall plans, NATO etc) Trump is pretty unprecedented, even though some previous presidents weren't very friendly with the EU (like the "Freedom Fries" issue under George W Bush, when France opposed the invasion of Iraq - which eventually ended up based on complete lies so the French were totally right). > Given that one of the EU's aims is to be a peer to the US and China (the term I recall them using is a "multi-polar world") they should not be reliant on anyone to this extent. True. Europe has been too comfortable with the situation. It's also because it's hard to get everyone aligned. Politics is very nation-aligned, not EU-aligned.