Western Europe Is Joining the United States on Its Election Rollercoaster Ride

Overseas audiences greeted Biden’s presidency with relief in 2021

Global public opinion of the United States at the tail end of the Trump administration was quite negative among international audiences. Many of America’s overseas partners heralded Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 as a return to normal, both in terms of bilateral cooperation and U.S. support for a rules-based, rather than a deal-based, international order. 

The possibility of Trump redux is now causing anxiety in many quarters. In Europe in particular, Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO and his administration’s 2018 tariffs on steel and aluminum were very unpopular on the continent. With NATO now viewed as even more essential to European security in light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, anxiety over a second Trump administration is running high. 

Western Europeans are manifestly concerned about a second Trump presidency

Adults in the largest five Western European NATO-allied countries — the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain — are very much along for the ride, carefully watching Trump’s fortunes ebb and flow and shifting their views accordingly. Events in the course of 2024 which have made a second Trump administration appear more likely, such as his decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses, President Biden’s poor debate performance in June 2024, and the subsequent assassination attempt on Trump coincided with sharp drops in net favorability of the United States in five of the largest Western European NATO allies. In contrast, Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race preceded a sharp uptick in views of the United States coinciding with Vice President Harris’ ascendancy to the top of the Democratic ticket. 

Exceptions prove the rule 

Some European allies diverge from this pattern. Poland’s sky-high positive public opinion of the United States is unfazed by the latter’s election turmoil. Poland was the rare European country with a strong political alignment with the Trump administration, and as such Poles may be confident in their government’s ability to work constructively with Trump 2.0. Poland also exceeds its NATO funding commitments, and in the past has shared U.S. frustrations with Western European allies’ failure to meet them.

For another, Turkish adults — who exhibit much more ambivalence in their views of NATO — see their favorability of the United States dip slightly after all major events that reveal electoral instability, including both Biden’s withdrawal from the race and the Trump assassination attempt, regardless of partisan considerations. 

But the overall fact remains: The responsiveness of European sentiment to recent U.S. electoral developments suggests they are paying a striking amount of attention to the presidential race.

Trans-Atlantic trepidation on deck

Shifts in European public opinion throughout the 2024 presidential election season suggest the high degree to which Western European populations are paying attention to the U.S. presidential contest as a bellwether of how the trans-Atlantic relationship will play out come January 2025. Allied governments will do everything in their power to play nice with a second Trump administration with an eye toward furthering their own interests, as evidenced by back-pedaling from new U.K. cabinet members on negative comments about Trump. But the former president shows no such desire to mend fences, instead signaling a willingness to impose tariffs on European allies once again, doubling down on his NATO skepticism and vowing to rapidly end the war in Ukraine by cutting a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will also use European anxiety to push NATO allies to meet the 2% GDP target for collective defense spending. 

Holding allies accountable for doing their share on defense is all well and good, but it’s only part of the security relationship. As the U.S. government increasingly uses tools like export controls and investment screening to try to reign in China, it will need to work with allies and partners to both make its measures effective, and to prevent those measures from disproportionately hurting U.S. businesses. European partners are likely to drag their heels on helping to constrain China, especially if they seek to tie their cooperation to concessions on U.S. tariffs or subsidies. Some U.S. market players, like domestic industries competing with imports, might glean some benefits from a return to quid pro quo foreign policy. Others, like multinationals doing business in Europe and China, would suffer more. On balance, the shakiness in the trans-Atlantic relationship should Trump 2.0 materialize in November will be bad for U.S. interests, both political and economic.