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2025 is coming to an end, and among the major developments that made international headlines was the turbulent relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US).
Together with Euronews’ Brussels correspondent and US expert Stefan Grobe, Brussels, My Love? tries to make sense of what happened between the EU and the US in the last year, looking ahead to 2026.
What happened in 2025?
2025 started with Donald Trump entering his second term as US President. His administration brought significant changes to global politics, including gradually cutting funding to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and escalating a trade war with China.
The EU was not exempt from these economic tensions. To prevent further worsening of the transatlantic partnership, in the summer of 2025, Brussels struck a deal with Washington, which many described as an unequal agreement.
According to Grobe, the EU “didn’t have much of a choice” and attempted to negotiate, knowing that this was only the beginning of Trump’s term.
Yet, in the view of Stefan Grobe, not everything that Donald Trump criticised and implemented in the economic sector was wrong: “There were certain things where Trump pointed the finger at the right issues. For example, China’s behaviour in global markets and other countries, and we had to do something.”
What to expect from 2026?
The US-EU relationship further escalated at the beginning of December, following President Trump’s interview with media outlet Politico and the release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy for the US.
“Trump hates us, there’s no other way to describe it, he despises us,” Grobe said.
And this can be an occasion, according to Grobe, for Europe to “figure out what to do next”.
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Additional sources • David Brodheim sound editor and mixer.
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