Trump administration sends warning to Europe while revealing US concerns about future

A member of Donald Trump's administration has said that a message to Europe was intended as a 'warning'.

The US National Security Strategy was published last month, and heavily criticized what it claimed were 'weak' partners in Europe, as well as publicly supporting far-right parties in the continent.

Trump's administration has also claimed that Europe is facing 'civilisational erasure' because of policies on migration and censorship.

On Monday (January 5), US under secretary of state for economic affairs Jacob Helberg said that this document was not intended as 'insult' but as a 'warning' to US allies in Europe.

Speaking on what this means for Europe, Helberg made it clear that the US wants to pursue increased deregulation within it.

Trump has been putting increased pressure on Denmark, claiming that the US should have possession of Danish autonomous territory Greenland for 'national security' reasons.

Jacob Helberg made the remarks (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg)

"We want Europe to be strong," said Helberg. "In order to - a condition for European strength is for Europe to really accelerate the need to deregulate and reduce its reliance on powers that are outwardly adversarial to Europe.

"Whether Europe chooses to partner with the US to deepen supply chains or other powers, we want to make sure that Europe doesn’t partner with countries that will coerce it and blackmail Europe every single day of that partnership."

He added: "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."

Speaking about how the message was intended as a 'warning', Helberg continued: "I know that the national security strategy, the language around Europe and around civilisational erasure drew a lot of attention in Europe.

Donald Trump has been putting increased pressure on Europe (Nicole Combeau/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"What I’d like to highlight is that that language is a warning. It’s not an insult."

He continued: "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."

The message has come just days after Trump ordered strikes on Venezuela, as well as the US special forces detaining Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the president escalating his rhetoric around Greenland.

Meanwhile, Europe continues to face the military threat from Vladimir Putin's Russia, with the country's invasion of Ukraine continuing to grind on into 2026.