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EU Observer (3 April 2026)

Kristina Kausch

Dealing with a patron on whose protection you depend is, by definition, a tightrope walk. 

Since the beginning of US president Donald Trump’s second term in January 2025, the guardrail of European leaders’ engagement with the president has broadly been to contain escalation in order to preserve the US security umbrella while Europe builds up its own defence capabilities.

The widely-cited timeline for that build-up ranges between five and 10 years, under optimistic assumptions.

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