‘A
warning not an insult’: US doubles down on criticism of Europe
Forecast
of Europe’s ‘civilisational erasure’ was part of call for pro-growth reform,
says Trump official
Lisa
O’Carroll
Mon 5 Jan
2026 19.35 GMT
Donald
Trump’s administration has doubled down on its recent criticism of Europe,
saying last month’s US national security strategy was an attempt to “jolt” an
ally back to economic life.
The
document was widely condemned in Europe as representing a seismic shift in the
70-year transatlantic alliance with its dark references to a purported threat
of “civilisational erasure” with migration and censorship creating “strife”,
“cratering birthrates” and “loss of national identities”.
Its
threat to interfere in European politics and oppose what it termed as
“elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe” was
condemned as unacceptable by the president of the European Council of leaders,
António Costa.
On
Monday, Jacob Helberg, the US under secretary of state for economic affairs,
told reporters the strategy was in fact a response to what Washington saw as an
economic crisis and over-regulation.
“I know
that the national security strategy, the language around Europe and around
civilisational erasure drew a lot of attention in Europe,” he said.
“What I’d
like to highlight is that that language is a warning. It’s not an insult …
because there is a growing sense of concern and alarm in the United States
about the fact that Europe’s economic, relative economic decline as a share of
the global GDP is a crisis.
“There is
a degree of alarm in Washington about the need for serious reforms in order to
jolt the European economy back to life. We think it’s possible with the right
reforms.”
The
changes the US was seeking, Helberg said, centred on the opportunity to
“drastically simplify and reduce the regulatory burden in Europe”, which he
claimed would free up talent and capital on the European continent and attract
US investment.
The US
has repeatedly threatened not to lift 50% steel tariffs on the EU if the bloc
does not roll back on tech legislation hitting its billionaires including Elon
Musk.
Helberg
said the bloc was falling way behind other leading economies such as the US and
Washington desired a strong Europe to maintain the “historic 70-year plus of a
transatlantic alliance”.
Countries
such as Italy and Germany are experiencing modest GDP growth. Germany recorded
no growth in the third quarter of 2025, while it was projected to grow 1.3% in
2026 and 1.4% in 2027.
Overall
the bloc’s own estimates project growth of 1.4% for 2025 and 1.5% in 2027.
By
comparison the US economy rose at an annualised rate of 4.3% in the third
quarter of 2025, rebounding after a contraction in the first three months of
the year amid fears over the impact of Trump’s tariff strategy.
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