Europe, fill the vacuum and occupy your place in the world right now! 

By Ricardo Silvestre, associate fellow at ELF and host of the Liberal Europe Podcast

The calls, particularly from liberals, for Europe and the European Union (EU) to achieve a more complete strategic autonomy, are now even more salient with the recent shift in positioning from Washington on international policies. Getting more independent from the United States has many fronts: economic, digital, military, security, and energy, among others. We should be embarking into a new reality of more European solutions to European needs and, with that, less dependence on other adversarial powers. At the same time, there is a golden opportunity for the EU not just to replace America in Europe but also to take the vacant place that (Trump’s) America is leaving around the world. 

The United States (US) has decades of work compared to the EU on international aid. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1918 proposed Fourteen Points to serve as a guideline for the country to export values like self-determination, collective security, open diplomacy and freedom of trade, creating an international liberal democratic order. After World War II, it was the turn of President Truman to sign the Economic Recovery Act, aka the Marshall Plan, an economic assistance package to restore European economic infrastructure. One more example is when President Kennedy established, in 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to increase global health, provide disaster relief, promote socioeconomic development, fight for environmental protection, and help establish democratic governance and education. 

What we are observing with the second Trump Administration is the systematic damage to the reputation of America abroad as an ally and friend. Even before this iteration of Trump’s foreign policy, in his first Administration, the White House decreed the exit of the Paris Agreement, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal). However, the actual zeal for isolationism, or one can argue emulation of authoritarian regimes, caused the US leaving recently the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement (again), or to vote with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and Hungary, opposing a United States Resolution condemning Russia attack on Ukraine.  

What is being observed with USAID is particularly devastating. This is not just a question of promoting American values from the Wilsonian perspective, but to save lives. The suspension of contracts, goods, and human resources will lead to millions of people losing access to medicines, vaccines, basic care and food aid. In this last aspect, the ending of support to farmers and communities in a climate change scenario will also be devastating. In the short term, there is also the lack of support for asylum seekers and people in vulnerable situations, education in refugee camps, and the control of diseases that are oblivious to politics or borders.  

As horrible as this scenario is, it is also an opportunity for the EU to do more, reach wider, and replace the US as a beacon of hope, development, freedom, and liberal values and ideas. The European bloc as its own external aid programs, like Humanitarian aid, the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations and International Partnerships, providing humanitarian help since 1992 in 110 countries, partnering with United Nations agencies, international organisations and NGOs, covering needs like food, nutrition, shelter, healthcare, water and sanitation, and education in emergencies.  

The European Commission and the European External Action Service should map the regions and programs from where the Trump Administration is retreating and creating a vacuum, replacing their aid with ours (whenever possible), and with that taking the mantle of the superpower that helps create value, freedom, progress, peace and rights around the world. We know that China and Russia won’t do it, and the EU has plenty of good examples to show of being a force for good. This is to be, naturally, associated with the promotion of liberal values, in the same vein as another international partnership, although with another objective, that the EU offers to the world, the Global Gateway. This initiative is supported by six core principles that range from democratic values, transparency, catalysing the private sector, and protection of human rights and of the environment. 

Naturally, there are costs associated. In 2022, the EU humanitarian budget reached €2.62 billion, and it is estimated to be €1.9 billion in 2025. This is when there is an urgent need to increase arms production while at the same time, investing in industrial green transformation, sustainability and social programs. As liberals, we believe in the need to manage (financial) resources judiciously, and with sensible priorities. The EU’s strategic independence is paramount, but the same is applied to help our fellow human beings less lucky than we are, which will help prevent more desperate migrants and refugees, costly and deadly diseases, or to intervene to prevent conflicts.  

The challenge is immense but well worth it.