Having been shocked by Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s negotiations with Russia, the great and the good in Europe are descending on Washington to understand what the Trump administration is up to. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, are merely the most well-known figures to cross the pond in the past few days.

Yesterday’s tumultuous Oval Office meeting between presidents Trump and Zelensky revealed the confusion and emotion of the moment. Vance grew incandescent when Zelensky, responding to the vice president’s call for “diplomacy,” rattled off examples of Vladimir Putin’s habit of breaking agreements. Zelensky publicly debated the merits of Trump’s preferred negotiating strategy. And Trump alternated between condemning Zelensky for “gambling with World War III,” Obama for insufficiently standing up to Putin, and the Democrats and media for accusing him of colluding with Russia. Shortly thereafter, Zelensky left the White House without signing the agreed-upon minerals deal.

Many of Trump’s comments to Zelensky apply, in his mind, to all of Europe. “You don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards.” And despite Ukraine’s bravery, “I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.” Trump clearly wants a deal, and told Zelensky to return when he is “ready for peace.” Vance, for his part, is eager to talk tough to Europeans. Zelensky lost his composure.

As a result, the transatlantic partnership is more unsettled now than it has been in decades. As one prominent European conservative told me, Europe is facing a major dilemma: It wants to maintain its generous welfare state, transition its energy supply to renewables, and rearm quickly. But it cannot afford to do all three.

Like most of the Western world, Europe dramatically decreased its military spending after the Cold War. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Britain, France, and Germany spent more than 2.5 percent of GDP on defense. By 2014, Britain and Germany had roughly halved their spending as a share of their economy, and the French had cut theirs by a third.

For the West Europeans, this seemed like common sense. Their neighborhood was calm, particularly once the Balkan wars of the 1990s stopped, and many on both sides of the Atlantic hoped that trade and investment would gradually pull Russia into the Western camp. To mainstream Europeans and the American left, this freed up resources for social programs and more ambitious projects, like reversing the rise of the ocean’s tides and healing the planet.

Unfortunately, Russia refused to be wooed and the climate continued to change. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, NATO’s members agreed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. That number became a major point of contention during Trump’s first term: He insisted that the Europeans honor their agreement and stop enriching Russia through projects like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and German chancellor Angela Merkel said no. When Russia attacked Ukraine again in 2022, the Europeans woke up to the threat and their defense spending surged by over 30 percent.

Europe’s NATO members should hit their promised spending target in 2025—a year behind schedule—but the Trump team has clearly run out of patience. After decades of mooching off American defense spending, in their view, it is past time for the Europeans to pay for their security. This is not a fringe position in American politics. John F. Kennedy said, “we shall pay any price, bear any burden … to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” but even he pressured the Europeans to spend more on defense.

The tragedy is that the Trump team’s actions may do the most damage to the most responsible Europeans. The Central and Eastern Europeans are much closer to Russia than the Western Europeans, so their security environment has never seemed nearly as warm and cozy. Unsurprisingly, they are also much more willing to invest in defense. Poland’s defense burden is heavier than America’s, which is why Trump said yesterday, “I am very committed to Poland.”

The European Union is notoriously slow and ponderous, so many European states have gotten ahead of it. Britain is boosting its military spending by cutting foreign aid, following close behind Denmark, Latvia, and Lithuania. Macron is contemplating more than doubling the French defense budget, despite France’s huge debt.

That is not enough. Two researchers at the Bruegel think tank estimate that Europe would need to spend about 250 million euros to replace American capabilities. “This is more combat power than currently exists in the French, German, Italian and British land forces combined,” they note. It’s about half the cost of the decarbonizing European Green Deal.

The major laggard is, as usual, Germany. Presumptive chancellor Friedrich Merz is clear about the need. But he cannot form a government without partners, and none of his partners are likely to be of much help on defense issues.

Trump’s public downgrading of Europe—and his Oval Office spat with Zelensky—may have injected some realism into European politics. In January, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte told the European Parliament, “European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health and social security systems, and we need only a small fraction of that money to make defense much stronger.” Several high-ranking Europeans essentially announced they were abandoning the Green Deal this week.

One of the ironies of Europe’s dilemma is that if Europe acts responsibly, the Trump team will be more willing to chip in on Europe’s defense. But to do that, they’ll have to choose which other goals to abandon, fast.

Another is that the Trump team is gambling that Europe is too inconsequential to fear offending. But that may not be the case if they succeed. And America will have fewer friends there, no matter what.