By Meab McMahon &Alice Carnevalli
Release date
As 2025 draws to a close, one of the big events that has grabbed international headlines is the turbulent relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US).
With Euronews Brussels correspondent and US expert Stephen Grove, Brussels, my dear? looks ahead to 2026 and tries to understand what happened between the EU and the US last year.
What happened in 2025?
The year 2025 began with Donald Trump entering his second term as President of the United States. The administration brought significant changes to global politics, including gradually cutting funding to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and escalating the trade war with China.
The EU was not immune to these economic tensions either. To prevent further deterioration of the transatlantic partnership, Brussels struck a deal with Washington in the summer of 2025, which many described as an unequal deal.
Grove said the EU “didn’t have much of a choice” and tried to negotiate knowing this was only the beginning of Trump’s term.
However, in Stephen Grove’s view, not everything Donald Trump criticized and did in the economic field was wrong: “There were times when he pointed out the right issues, such as China’s behavior in global markets and in other countries, and we had to do something about it.”
What will happen in 2026?
Relations between the US and the EU further escalated in early December following President Trump’s interview with media outlet Politico and the Trump administration’s announcement of the US National Security Strategy.
“Trump hates us. There’s no other explanation. He despises us,” Grove said.
And according to Grove, this could be an opportunity for Europe to “think about what to do next.”
Please send your feedback to [email protected].
Additional sources of information • David Brodheim Sound editor and mixer.
