Compounding the alarm triggered by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the erratic unpredictability of the second Trump administration has made the need for European security autonomy obvious. On a number of occasions over the past year, Donald Trump has loosely intimated that he might leave the Nato defence alliance. Washington’s recent move to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, plus unease over the US’s actions in Iran, have reinforced the imperative of European strategic independe