As geopolitical tensions rise and the American commitment to European security wavers, the EU is taking new steps to bolster European defense. The most recent initiatives — aimed at strengthening cooperation, building the European defense industry, and eventually reducing reliance on the United States — are ambitious and face many barriers. Nonetheless, many of these new defense proposals have exceeded expectations given European states’ recent lackluster defense funding and the EU’s historical reluctance to becoming a defense actor. Whether these initiatives succeed hinges in part on the United States’ response and Washington’s willingness to support its European allies in their pursuit of self-reliance.

Two political leaders could not be more different than EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former U.S. President Donald Trump. The two have publicly clashed, and von der Leyen often finds herself at odds with Trump’s closest European supporters — Hungarian President Viktor Orban and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. Nonetheless, the two have much in common when it comes to the transatlantic security relationship. Both agree: Europeans need to be able to defend themselves. They just disagree on how to get there.