For America’s anxious European allies, few questions matter as much as whether Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 marks a permanent shift in the role played by the United States in the world, or whether it is just a passing phase.
On trade, the answer is reasonably clearcut. As US average tariffs congeal somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15%, the highest since the Great Depression, there is essentially a bipartisan consensus in favour of protectionism. Trump is asking trading partners for significant concessions or zero tariffs (as in the case of Vietnam), but is not ready to offer zero-tariff to the US market. The Biden administration too had little interest in negotiating free trade agreements and influential Democratic figures tread carefully around the new tariff, criticising their sweeping and erratic nature but not their substance. ‘Tariffs need to be used like a scalpel, not a hammer,’ said Governor Gretchen Whitmer – a plausible 2028 presidential candidate.
When Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020, there were grounds to believe that, in some broader sense, America was ‘back’. It is not just Trump’s return that makes that prospect distant. The generational shift in the Democratic Party, illustrated by the meteoric rise of Zohran Mamdani, the ‘democratic socialist’ mayoral candidate in New York City, makes it highly unlikely that US alliances with the UK and Europe can be simply reconstituted in their previous forms – even if there is a strong swing away from Trump and Trumpism in 2026 and 2028.
To be fair, Mamdani has not commented much on international affairs beyond sharing his, quite stunning, views on the Middle East. But it seems safe to assume that the rest of his foreign policy outlook will carry a dose of scepticism toward US leadership and its use of hard power. It is equally plausible that, similarly to other members of his generation, America’s ill-fated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occupy a much larger role in Mamdani’s foreign policy imagination that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, or the role played by the United States in Europe after 1945.
In fact, Mamdani’s own Indian heritage highlights another characteristic of America’s younger generation. Young adults are far more ethnically diverse – and thus less connected emotionally to Europe through their family and cultural ties – than older cohorts of Americans. Moreover, the defining experiences driving US foreign policy for decades, namely World War II and the Cold War, are already fading from living memory.
If Mamdani’s foreign policy views – and those of other rising young Democratic lawmakers and candidates – are in sync with what we know about the views prevailing in their age cohort, the coming elections are likely to ratify America’s turn away from Europe, instead of reversing what some may still hope is an aberration originating in the fever swamps of MAGA.
Available polling data should reinforce only reinforce such scepticism. A 2024 Pew poll, for example, found that only 32% of young adults believe that it is extremely or very important for the US to take an active role in the world, compared to 74% of those aged 65 and more.
While a more recent survey conducted by YouGov for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace suggests a less sharp generational divide, it still finds that Gen Z respondents are less preoccupied by US military power and less inclined to value US leadership on a range of policy domains, from promoting democracy to manufacturing and economic strength. Similarly, a 2024 Ipsos poll for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that while there may be broad-based support for Nato even among the youngest generation, doubts remain. Less than half of Millennials and Gen Z respondents believe that cooperation between the United States and Europe within Nato is making America safer.
Unsurprisingly, the Pew poll finds that climate change is a top priority for 59% adults between the ages of 18 and 29 (compared to just 39% among those older than 65). Nato and Ukraine, in contrast, are near the end of the list, with only 17% and 15% of young adults citing them as ‘top priorities’, respectively. For those two issues, those results compare to 33% and 26%, respectively, among respondents aged between 50 and 64, and 37% and 38% among Americans aged 65 years and older.
To be sure, young voters are not a homogenous mass. On issues such as Ukraine, partisanship is a stronger predictor than age. Still, it is no accident that markedly fewer Gen Z Democrats (25%) want increased support to Ukraine (compared to 35% across of Democratic voters), as the YouGov/Carnegie poll finds.
As an international organisation, and perhaps even as a fighting force, Nato may be able to survive a couple more awkward summits like the one held last month in The Hague. And if the midterm election inflicts a major electoral defeat on the MAGA world, there will be countless European Atlanticists arguing that nature is healing and that a restoration of the post-war status quo is nigh. There may even be a number of young, yet reassuring figures to lend credence to such optimism – think Senators Slotkin and Gallego.
However, for Europeans to act on the belief that transatlantic relations will be OK, eventually, would be to ignore the demographic and cultural shift taking place at the same time, albeit at a slower pace, as partisan battles are raging in Washington. If Europe whole, free and at peace was a priority for generations of US policymakers, it no longer is one – and it may never be again.
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