In short
- US foreign policy towards Europe can be described as a form of ‘coercive extractivism’.
- In coercive extractivism, Washington leverages European security and economic dependencies to win regulatory, economic, diplomatic or even territorial concessions from the EU and its member states.
- This erodes the basis of the transatlantic relationship, weakens NATO deterrence and injects uncertainty in trade ties.
- Europe remains highly vulnerable until EU and European governments balance against US transactional policies by diversifying trade with others, developing ‘strategic autonomy’ in critical sectors, and identifying ways to deter US coercion.
- A common European approach is essential, as is intensified diplomacy with like-minded countries and US Congress, while continuing to highlight to the US administration that the damage to the transatlantic relationship is in no one’s interest
This publication is part of the three part series ‘Everything on the Table’ on US security and trade policy under Trump 2.0.
The episode with Greenland was telling. US foreign policy under the Trump administration has become increasingly transactional, raising serious doubts about the transatlantic relationship across Europe.
On 17 January 2026, the US president threatened European NATO allies with ten percent tariff walls “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” Earlier, eight NATO allies had sent a very limited number of military personnel to Greenland for a reconnaissance mission, in response to the US president’s claims that Greenland was undefended and should therefore become part of the United States. Since coming to office in early 2025, the president had repeatedly made his ambition to annex Greenland clear. It was not the first time the US administration used European dependence on US economic or security ties to twist arms. This Clingendael Report examines the mechanics of Trump’s transactional approach to Europe, where security, economic and regulatory interests are fused in the pursuit of an ‘America First’ agenda.
Based on a series of interviews conducted in Washington DC in late 2025, two papers drafted by US experts Max Bergmann and Peter Harrell, and an expert workshop in December 2025, eight key dynamics emerge that define contemporary US transactional policies. This, in turn, leads to a set of recommendations for how the EU and European countries, including the Netherlands, can respond. Europeans should expect President Trump’s transactional approach to continue as his administration aims to extract economic and political concessions from EU capitals. In the short-term, as European governments increasingly express concern about their dependence on the United States and seek to cushion themselves from US coercion, the extractive nature of US transactionalism could in fact intensify. Europe’s vulnerability will only diminish once steps to reduce lop-sided dependencies have materially delivered results. The report concludes with a set of options for how the relationship between Europe and the US could then evolve.
About the author:
Rem Korteweg leads the Geopolitics of Trade Programme and Clingendael United States Programme within the EU & Global Affairs Unit at the Clingendael Institute.
Diederick van Wijk is an EU expert at the Clingendael Institute, where he has been engaged in strategic thinking on the European Union since February 2022.