12. Februar 2026
/
/
Fachtexte
Europe’s Trump Cards
2 min Lesezeit
Philippa Sigl-Glöckner, Mediha Inan, Aurora Li, Maximilian Paleschke, Janek Steitz, Sven von Wangenheim
Conventional wisdom holds that American material superiority leaves Europe with little room for manoeuvre. We dispute this. Raw power is not leverage. Leverage arises from asymmetric dependencies—the capacity to impose costs without incurring proportionate harm. Examining macroeconomic ties, product dependencies, financial markets, digital infrastructure, and energy, we find that Europe holds more cards than assumed: chokepoints in uranium enrichment and turbine supply, a USD 10 trillion consumer market US tech cannot abandon, and a coming LNG buyer’s market.
The US position is fragile too—Treasury demand depends on London’s hedge funds, tech valuations require European consumers, and LNG exporters need Europe’s premium prices. The United States cannot feast on global markets and retreat to its own shores at the same time.
Europe has tools to make this contradiction costly but deploying them requires action: making the Anti-Coercion Instrument credible, expanding priority procurement powers, strengthening its digital position, treating the structure of financial markets and capital flows as geopolitical issues, and building intergovernmental capacity that includes the UK.
Why did we write this paper?
Europe is confronted with an unpredictable US government. It needs to know which cards it holds so it can stand up for itself. And it should also know where it is exposed to bullying by the other side. For if there is a material kill switch the US would not even need to attack militarily. Only if Europe knows its cards does it have a chance to play them effectively.
What did we learn?
Power is not leverage. The US has more chips than Europe by every measure—but you can’t threaten someone with a big GDP. Leverage requires asymmetric dependencies: the ability to hurt someone without hurting yourself proportionately.
Europe has more cards than it thinks. We control 80% of US uranium imports. Siemens dominates the turbines US data centres desperately need. Our USD 10 trillion consumer market is indispensable for US tech valuations. And from 2027, the LNG market flips to a buyer’s market.
The US position is fragile. Treasury demand depends on London hedge funds. Tech stocks—and American retirement savings—depend on access to European consumers. LNG exporters need Europe’s premium prices.
But Europe struggles to play its cards. The tools exist (like the Anti-Coercion Instrument), but using them requires political decisions that create winners and losers. Without pre-negotiated deals on burden-sharing, member states will block action—and adversaries know it.
The fix: Transparent horse trading before crises, not during them. And include the UK—London is too important to leave out over Brexit.
Um über unsere weiteren Veröffentlichungen auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben, abonniert gerne unseren Newsletter.
Hat dir der Artikel gefallen?
Teile unsere Inhalte
