Trump’s return to the White House has unsettled America’s European allies.

Following one of the toughest periods in US–Europe relations since the end of World War II, President Donald Trump has insisted that “the people of Europe like me.” Yet over the past year, there has been little to support that assertion.

The administration’s renewed transatlantic engagement began in February 2025 with Vice President JD Vance addressing the Munich Security Conference and declaring that Europe’s greatest danger was not Russia, but a supposed “threat from within.”

Vance went further, sharply criticizing several major NATO partners — including Britain, Washington’s closest ally — over cultural and political issues. He argued that liberal democracies across Europe were facing “civilizational erasure” as a result of immigration policies.

If that opening chapter of Trump’s second term was poorly received, his repeated suggestions that the US could seize Greenland — through military action or economic pressure — sent shockwaves through the postwar international order. The remarks prompted many EU nations to reconsider their reliance on American security guarantees.

Trump has not overlooked this realignment.

By openly questioning America’s commitment to NATO, he has repeatedly pressured European members to boost their defense spending within the alliance.

Most recently, at a White House event on Wednesday (February 11), the president signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to prioritize buying electricity generated by coal-fired power plants.

In a show of deference and fealty now a regular feature of Oval Office events, Trump was awarded the title of ‘Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal’ at the meeting, where he also blasted his European allies for investing in renewable energy.

Ridiculing the use of wind turbines across Europe, where each 300ft turbine is capable of powering up to 1,500 homes and wind power accounts for up to one-third of total energy production, the president claimed ‘every time [a wind turbine] goes around it loses a fortune’.

Unlike the architectural magnificence of a coal-fired power plant, or the tranquil beauty of an area where surface mined coal has stripped huge areas of the landscape, Trump claimed that wind turbines had ruined the ancient beauty of Europe.

He said: “And you know, I was recently there and it’s not recognizable what they’ve done to their beautiful fields and those beautiful, beautiful scenic areas and they put those wind turbines all over the place and they’re chugging, chugging, chugging, not doing a damn thing.”

While he slammed decades of European policy making in the face of climate change, Trump claimed the continent’s people agree with him.

“But you know who likes me over there? The people like me over there. I can tell you because they know I’m right,” he added.

Yet someone should have told the people of Europe that, as a January YouGov poll showed fewer than 19 percent of people in UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, sharing favorable views of the American president.

For the people of Denmark, this number was even lower. Just four percent expressed support for Trump, which is unsurprising after he threatened to take the country’s Greenland territory by force.