EUROPE WITHOUT AMERICA
Five weeks learning how Europeans feel about the US
It’s one thing to read about Europe’s leaders pulling away from Trump and building new alliances and trade deals. It’s a different experience to travel five weeks in the United Kingdom and France and feel the distance growing between us. In short, they’ve given up on us.
A year ago, I made a similar trip to France and Austria, not long after Trump announced his extortionist tariffs, demeaned our European allies, threatened to take over Greenland, turn Canada into the 51st state and embraced fascist political parties in Germany and the UK. On that trip my French friends commiserated with me expressing the same fury I felt. They tried to calm my fears with Old World wisdom that ‘this too will pass.’
Not this time. The implicit understanding that the US and Europe are in the same universe, with the same values and goals has disappeared. The Trump regime has stabbed Europe in the back and we Americans haven’t stopped him.
Furious arguments are over. Among the people I have known for decades and newer friends there was a quiet sense of moving on. The America they once loved with all its faults is disappearing. In its place is a rogue state led by Trump who behaves like a cruel, impetuous Mafia boss, ruining the country and threatening the world with wars and disruption. Europeans have accepted they need to protect themselves from Trump’s America. They don’t trust us anymore.
“I respect America too much to even visit it now,” said a Frenchman who has turned down lucrative business opportunities that required traveling to the US.
( I promised not to quote friends by name.)
This is not the same as the Canadian boycott of the US begun last in protest of Trump’s threats to make it the 51ststate. Their unofficial national boycott has meant a significant drop in tourism to the US and refusal to buy American products. (See my earlier substack “Au Dieu Canada”)
Europeans aren’t boycotting. They are giving up on us. They see no end to what Trump has wrought. An American expatriate who hasn’t lived in the U.S. for decades broke it down for me. I pointed out that less than 40% support of Americans support Trump and with greater resistance and elections we can turn the tide. He said: “Listen to yourself. What has the 60 percent done to stop Trump?” He has had no problem taking away basic freedoms, destroying institutions and government agencies. He applauds his own brazen corruption, making billions while in office in pay to play deals.
None of these friends had plans to travel to the US. They said it wasn’t worth the risk of being turned away at US borders by agents who seem to rule on whims, rejecting visitors based on social media postings or the color of their skin. They don’t want to visit an America where masked ICE agents kidnap people on city streets, then throw them in concentration camps for deportation. Too much like Europe’s descent into fascism in the last century. It also triggers Europe’s long time fear America’s dangerous gun cult. “Please come visit us. We don’t know what to expect if we visit you,” said one of my closest friends.
The mood in London, my first stop, was decidedly away from the US, no longer Britain’s special friend, and towards Europe. There is even a word for it: Breturn, (Britain returns to Europe) the opposite of Brexit, its exit that had proved disastrous.
These were difficult conversations to have and I wondered if my friends reflected a general mood in Europe. I have written extensively on tourism so I checked the numbers. My friends aren’t alone. Last year tourism to the US fell by nearly six percent while it boomed in the rest the world. Excluding Canada’s boycott, more than half the decline came from Western Europe.
If anything, French friends are almost too nice. One apologized as soon as he saw me, saying he had been too quick the year before to dismiss my fears that Trump would scheme to prevent this year’s midterm elections. He added, hopefully, that at some point the U.S. will become a democracy again.
To my surprise, a close friend told me she gave up her U.S. passport. She’s been a dual citizen all her life yet one day she decided an American passport wasn’t worth it any longer.
Expats had a special reason for staying away from the US. Many feared that problems with officials at American airports might prevent them from returning to Europe and the quality of life they enjoy that would be out of reach in the US with its expensive health system, non-existent public transportation and lack of a social safety net. And without the European joie de vivre.
“I’m not even going back to visit my children or my grandchildren while Trump’s there,” said one expat. Giving up her home in France was unthinkable.
Europeans remain hospitable but they are looking at life without the U.S. and that is heart-breaking.
Thank you very much for sharing this, Elisabeth.
A European here, adding a few personal thoughts. When I was younger, I looked up to the US for many years. It seemed to offer so much that I believed was missing in Europe. I was fortunate enough to visit the US on many occasions in the past, and I hold precious memories of every single trip.
But not anymore. I will never set foot in the US again, and that decision is only partly influenced by the current US administration. Here’s why.
I am now 67 years old, and with age has come understanding. With the exception of Jimmy Carter, every other president has attacked other countries during their time in office. The US alone is responsible for unspeakable suffering around the world—always seeking conflict to keep the war machine going. And I have simply had enough.
The sad thing is that, in terms of foreign policy, it has rarely mattered whether the administration was Democratic or Republican, and the future looks bleak. As long as corporate or ultra-rich donors can effectively buy senators or political parties, the next president will simply continue where Trump leaves off in the not-so-distant future. Money and politics simply do not mix well.
When I read the heartbreaking stories of ordinary Americans and see the state in which the US finds itself today, my heart bleeds. The level of internal deterioration in the US is on par with the suffering its current administration causes abroad.
I think you have captured European sentiment well, judging by what you wrote. A kind of divorce is taking place, and it hurts everyone involved. It’s that simple.
I very much hope that Americans find a way forward—to build a new future, rather than simply electing a new administration in 2028.
Well, one of the most appalling things is the continuous support of the Republicans for Trump in both the House and the Senate; and the continuing support of millions of Americans for him