With Donald Trump now in the White House for just over a year, the EU as a bloc has struggled to balance safeguarding its own economic and social interests with maintaining the transatlantic relationship with Washington on which it relies for its security.
Trump loves uncertainty, and he often changes policies and positions in a disruptive and unpredictable way — something EU leaders dislike and are uncomfortable with.
Earlier this month, the Dutch foreign affairs minister said nobody in Europe has a “golden formula” to deal with Trump. David van Weel made his remark in the context of fresh Trump tariff threats over the Greenland crisis — only to be proven wrong a day later by his Dutch former colleague, Nato chief Mark Rutte, who seems to have adopted an approach which includes calling Trump “Daddy” at Davos.
Outside that approach by the Dutch former PM, the EU is finding its own way to charm and manage relations with Washington — but whether this will benefit Brussels’ geopolitical credibility or signals simple cautious appeasement remains a question.
Here are five ways the EU is adjusting to Trump’s agenda:
1. Migration myths and ICE coming to Europe
Domestic migration and illegal immigrants are high on Trump’s hit list.
He enshrined his immigration fight with billions more for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a paramilitary force that has terrified residents in Minnesota. He also increased ICE’s manpower by 12,000 in less than a year, but has since toned down the Minnesota crackdown, following a spate of deadly shootings.
An ICE paramilitary unit is now being sent along with the US delegation to the Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, sparking outrage from the city’s mayor.
The US president believes the EU’s handling of its own immigration as an existential crisis for European civilisation. “I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction,” Trump said in Davos, explicitly mentioning “unchecked mass migration” as one of Europe’s main problems.
And the US president has explicitly praised, in his national security strategy, the increased influence of anti-migrant European parties on the far-right of the political spectrum.
Senior policy communications officer Gianluca Cesaro at human rights NGO Picum told EUobserver: “far-right politicians across Europe have echoed similar comments in relation to ‘great replacement theories’.”
“While EU leaders may not embrace — at least publicly — Trump’s narrative around civilisational erasure, EU migration policies increasingly treat migration and migrants as a threat,” he added.
The European Commission has announced a new five-year vision on migration that takes a sharp pivot towards Trump’s rhetoric. People hoping to seek asylum in Europe will find themselves faced with even more obstacles as the EU attempts to further offshore its responsibilities onto other countries through any means possible.
When asked at a Brussels press conference whether the new EU strategy should calm US nerves, Magnus Brunner, EU migration commissioner, said the bloc wants migration, but did mention how the recent influx has caused a strain.
“In the last 10 years, we took a lot of responsibility… But we didn’t have control. We didn’t have rules,” said Brunner. “Getting control back, I think, is really important, and that’s what we’re doing with our reforms”.
2. Minnesota Pretti killing
On 24 January, US citizen Alex Pretti was shot multiple times and killed by federal ICE agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota — sparking mass protests against Trump’s immigration enforcement measures.
The European Commission did not condemn the killing and regarded it as a domestic issue — a sharp contrast with its approach in 2020, when the rhetoric from diplomats in response to George Floyd’s killing took a stronger stance against violence perpetrated by US authorities.
When questioned about the Pretti killing on Monday (26 January), a commission spokesperson gave a non-committal response: “No comments to be made on this US internal matter, but of course we deplore any loss of innocent lives.”
And when pushed by reporters about their use of the term “innocent,” the commission backtracked from the word.
“It’s not for us to judge innocent or not innocent. Any life lost, we deplore it in general, and it is, of course, for the justice system in the US to establish the facts,” the spokesperson said.
After the killing of Renee Good on 7 January, Pretti is the second shooting in the city, which saw 3,000 ICE agents deployed. The Associated Press report Pretti was the sixth person to die during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.
Good was killed just 1.6km away from where, in 2020, Floyd was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin — sparking mass protests under the “Black Lives Matter” movement across the world.
3. Greenland and Rutte
At the epicentre of the Greenland conflict is ex-Dutch prime minister and current Nato chief Mark Rutte, the only person seemingly able to sway Trump away from his all-or-nothing demands for Greenland and trade retaliation against Europe.
Just before an emergency summit of EU leaders in January, Rutte and the US president worked out a still-mysterious verbal deal on advancing talks between the US and Denmark over Greenland and Arctic security.
“Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region,” wrote Trump on Truth Social platform back then.
But when Rutte came to explain it himself to MEPs, Italian Left MEP Danilo Della Valle called his deal a “strategy of appeasement and submissiveness.”
While few if any real details are publicly available, the president did go on Fox News and say: “We’re getting everything we want, at no cost.”
Rutte did not criticise Trump or his threats, instead saying the US president “was right” to push the issue of Arctic security and had done “a lot of good stuff” for Nato.
Responding to Rutte’s posture, former EU council president Charles Michel wrote in a social media post: “Nato needs unity, not alignment to some capital. I expect Rutte to work for the alliance, not as an American agent. Appeasement doesn’t work. Flattering diplomacy leads to total failure.”
Meanwhile, the European Commission has itself struggled to come forward with a clear position on Greenland, at least during the first weeks of 2026.
When pressed by the reporters in Brussels, the commission initially refused to confirm whether the mutual defence provisions under EU treaties would apply to Greenland, although it later confirmed that, in principle, it would.
4. The ‘Board of Peace’
Also at Davos, Trump officially announced the formation of his “Board of Peace,” which attempts to bring together nations to fulfil the current Gaza peace agreement and work for continued peace in the region (and beyond) — an initiative bombarded with criticism.
Many invitees, especially from the EU – such as France and Germany – have declined the invitation to join, citing major legal concerns with the current framework. However, the EU institutions remain open to the body.
The idea of the board was approved by the United Nations Security Council but was limited to the Gaza conflict and set to expire in 2027.
The initiative, however, has drawn stinging criticism from governments and NGOs, due to Trump himself being the inaugural chairman with immense institutional power, invitees such as Vladimir Putin, and its charter not mentioning the devastation in Palestine.
EU institutions, however, are seemingly open to participating, as long as it aligns with the UN’s requirements.
After the emergency summit of EU leaders on transatlantic relations last week, president of the EU Council, António Costa, affirmed many of the concerns around the board, but said the institution is willing to work with the initiative.
“We are ready to work together with the US on the implementation of the comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, with a Board of Peace carrying out its mission as a transitional administration, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution,” he said.
5. US Big Tech and EU rules
The EU has the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the AI Act as tools for regulating US tech, and is also building its own technological capabilities.
The US has become extremely hostile to the EU rules, calling them censorship, banning the former EU commissioner who was architect of the DSA from the US, and throwing the administration’s weight behind its Big Tech giants (many of whose bosses also, of course, personally attended Trump’s inauguration).
There remains unease over the EU response to the visa ban on former commissioner Thierry Breton, which did not go beyond condemnation.
But at the same time as the Washington pushback, the EU proposed changing its digital rules through its Data and AI omnibus proposals.
Announced in November 2025, the proposals adjust data privacy and AI rules, with the whole initiative pitched as helping the competitiveness of small companies building tech in the bloc.
However, the Financial Times reported that the commission had been previously engaging with the Trump administration to adjust the AI Act and other digital regulations.
NGOs Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl also found many of the proposals’ major changes had been explicitly requested and lobbied for by US tech companies and their associations.