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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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a certain degree of continuity in terms of coop-
eration within the Atlantic Alliance. The U.S. was
active in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf,
participating as a member of the P5+1 in the ne-
gotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), a historic agreement with Iran
reached in July 2015 concerning the civil use of
nuclear technology in that country, and carrying
out airstrikes on ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq as
the leader of a coalition that included several EU
countries.
The air of expectation surrounding the pos-
sible outcome of the American election cam-
paign, which had been growing tenser and
tenser in the light of Donald Trump’s Eurosceptic
remarks, sharp criticism of NATO, cozy relation-
ship with populist leaders such as UKIP’s Nigel
Farage and professed admiration for the pro-
Brexit movement, finally burst with the republi-
can candidate’s victory and inauguration as the
forty-fifth president of the United States. Fed by
the resentment of the portion of the middle
class in middle-western and southern states
worst hit by the overseas relocation of industry
and immigration brought on by globalisation,
the populist fervour held in check during the
Obama administration had swept a political
outsider into the White House.
Populist and na-
tionalist sentiments had finally percolated their
way into US foreign policy and, by extension,
into relations with Washington’s main partner,
the European Union.
The abrupt transition from Obama to
Trump
TTIP negotiations officially ground to halt during
the lame-duck phase of Obama’s presidency
(November 2016 through 20 January 2017) af-
ter fifteen rounds of negotiation triggered by
the launch of the initiative in 2013 by Obama
and EU Commission President José Manuel
Barroso. Nevertheless, the writing had been on
the wall ever since the July 2016 Democratic
and Republican conventions, at which the ma-
jority of the militants of both parties had come
out strongly against pursuing free trade agree-
ments of any kind. It became obvious in both
Europe and the US that given the prevailing po-
litical climate (clouded by social crisis, high unem-
ployment and the resistance of the governments
and parliaments of France and several other
member states) full ratification would be highly
unlikely. Thus was the end of an ambitious but
controversial economic and geopolitical mega-
project, which in spite of the points that had it
manifestly unpopular on both sides of the
Atlantic, had originally been conceived as a means
of giving the U.S. and Europe the upper hand in
the regulation of twenty-first century internation-
al trade and investment.
However, the greatest change on the US for-
eign affairs agenda, initially articulated during
the US election campaign and now set to take
shape under the Trump administration, con-
cerns strategic rather than economic matters.
Under the Obama Doctrine, Europe was seen as
a fundamental part of a multilateral liberal
world order for which the United States had
provided leadership since the end of the Second
World War. Obama had always tended to view
Europe more as an appendage of NATO whose
members had to be bullied and cajoled into to
meeting their 2 % military defence spending
commitments than as a fledgling political union.
But while communications betweenWashington
and Brussels may have been generally low pro-
file throughout Obama’s two terms in office,
the working relationship between the US and
the EU on NATO issues continued to be fluid.
The two mounted a coordinated response to