Within the mid-Eighties, my great-great-grandfather on my mom’s facet, August Langholf, left the tiny village of Deschel in Prussia – at this time a part of Poland – in quest of a brand new life. Collectively along with his spouse, Elisabeth, and their two youngsters, he travelled by prepare to Hamburg, the place they boarded the Polaria, certain for America. After passing by means of Ellis Island, they settled in Wisconsin, becoming a member of 1000’s of German-speaking immigrants looking for alternative, land and a future in the USA. He couldn’t have imagined the place that call would lead.
His son, August Jr, who was born in the USA, would later struggle within the American Military throughout the First World Struggle. A part of his service was in Europe. And his son, Allen – my grandfather – would fly bombing missions over Europe throughout the Second World Struggle, over lands that had as soon as been part of his household’s homeland.
4 generations later, I might cross the Atlantic as soon as once more, this time completely, to construct a life in Europe close to the locations my household had left greater than a century earlier. Being right here, in these troublesome occasions, I usually take into consideration that journey as I watch the transatlantic relationship enter maybe its most unsure interval since 1945. My household’s story shouldn’t be distinctive. Tens of millions of Individuals hint their roots to Europe, simply as tens of millions of Europeans have household connections throughout the Atlantic. But it illustrates one thing vital in regards to the relationship between Europe and the USA: it was by no means merely an alliance between states. It was constructed by individuals, households, and generations of motion between two continents.
Right this moment, as a brand new geopolitical order is taking form, I discover myself suspended between identities: American by start, European by alternative, and more and more Polish in each outlook and belonging. This twin perspective shouldn’t be distinctive, nor does it grant me any particular authority. But, it has formed how I see the rising distance and enduring ties between the USA and Europe and permits me to contemplate each views. Regardless of the tensions that now outline the transatlantic relationship, thanks largely partially Donald Trump’s insurance policies, I nonetheless consider that the 2 sides want each other. That bond could also be strained, maybe greater than at any time in current a long time, however it’s not damaged.
Restaurant in Seattle, Washington, circa 1980. Supply: Seattle Municipal Archives / Wikimedia Commons
Roots
I grew up in a small city, dwelling to round 3,000 individuals, within the Midwest state of Wisconsin. Based by German immigrants within the nineteenth century, it mirrored a broader sample throughout the area, the place European settlers sought land, alternative, and distance from the conflicts of the Outdated Continent. My family adopted that path, constructing a life round farming and business that prolonged throughout generations.
But, by the point I used to be rising up, a lot of that heritage had pale. My grandparents on my father’s facet nonetheless spoke German amongst themselves, however my mum or dad’s technology had largely shifted to English, and mine had little connection to the language, tradition or to farming as a lifestyle. What remained was subtler: a way of neighborhood and a perception in arduous work and self-reliance. Like most households at the moment, my household had turn out to be merely ‘American’. The language disappeared. The Outdated Nation turned an abstraction. For many, the German heritage was particularly deserted not simply because of assimilation, but in addition as a rejection throughout the two world wars. It was solely after transferring to Europe myself that I started to know how a lot had been misplaced, and the way a lot remained hidden beneath the floor.
But the subtler influences of that German heritage unconsciously remained. My hometown was, in some ways, a really perfect place to develop up. The colleges have been small however forward-looking, and the rhythms of life have been predictable and worry-free. Conversations on the native diner revolved round sports activities, climate, church information, and the harvest, not nationwide politics. Partisan identification felt distant from on a regular basis life.
That has modified. Like a lot of the USA, my hometown has turn out to be polarized, extra outlined by politics than by neighborhood. Throughout a current go to, I handed homes flying American flags – solely now many have been emblazoned with political slogans. One displayed a banner studying ‘Make America Nice Once more’; one other, extra starkly, ‘Fuck Joe Biden’. The picture left an enduring impression. A neighborhood that was as soon as certain collectively by church picnics and faculty sporting occasions is now more and more divided by political identification and allegiance.
What I used to be witnessing again dwelling was not only a native shift in tone, however a part of a broader transformation in American political tradition, one which has had direct penalties for the way the USA engages with the world. For many years, the transatlantic relationship rested on a comparatively steady basis. And this basis was fashioned largely throughout the Second World Struggle. Individuals helped to free components of Europe from tyranny.
My grandfather performed a task in that as properly. He served as a bomber pilot throughout the Second World Struggle. But, what was much more ironic is that he flew a number of missions over the lands from which his family had come simply a long time earlier. I usually wonder if he considered that contradiction. Did he see Europe as only a battlefield, or as a spot that related him to his household’s previous? Did he perceive how Europe and America have been so carefully related? By household histories, migrations, and shared experiences? What did the struggle imply to him personally, as a grandson of a German migrant?
Rising up he by no means talked about his struggle experiences, so I by no means had an opportunity to ask any of those questions. A lot of the tales about his youth and his household I found in analysis lengthy after his loss of life in 2002. He was nonetheless alive once I went to check in Poland, and he had normal questions on my experiences and motivations, however little did I ever suspect he himself noticed a few of these identical locations, from a distinct angle.
Views
I first got here to Poland as a pupil in 1998. I spent two years right here as a pupil, met my future spouse, and have now been residing in Europe completely since 2009. I’ve Polish (and European) citizenship since 2023. After researching my household’s nineteenth century migration journey, I began reflecting by myself experiences as a migrant. Although coming from the US, one shouldn’t be a migrant – for some unexplainable motive we’re referred to as ‘expats’, placing us in a distinct class than different migrants from international locations like Ukraine, Belarus or India. But, it doesn’t take away from the truth that I’ve undergone related experiences as many migrants in Poland, and Europe. I struggled with language, overcame cultural variations, and after a while, I began figuring out extra with the native inhabitants, calling Poland dwelling.
Throughout these final 16 years, I not solely really feel comfy in Poland, but in addition really feel that I developed a novel sense of understanding of either side of the Atlantic. I usually discovered myself representing a duo-voice, offering interpretations of developments with this particular lens. But, since 2025, I’ve began experiencing a robust sense of confusion about what is going on again within the US. How may a rustic, my nation (is it nonetheless my nation?), so central in constructing the post-war worldwide order start to query its personal commitments? Why would the USA, which as soon as championed alliances, now seem ambivalent about them?
A part of the reply lies not solely in notion but in addition in distance – geographical, historic, and psychological. The connection Individuals should the Outdated World appears much less related lately. And many of the newer migrants to the US come from different components of the world; Latin America, South East Asia, the Center East. The European heritage has largely disappeared.
On the identical time, the accountability that America had taken on on the earth because the finish of the Second World Struggle and the Chilly Struggle was additionally much less related. That is even supposing Europe is now experiencing the worst battle on the continent since 1945. Being in Poland I perceive how tangible and instant the threats are, in mild of Russia’s struggle towards Ukraine. But, for a lot of Individuals those self same threats are summary, filtered by means of home politics and this misplaced connection to Europe.
A extra nuanced a part of the reply, nonetheless, lies in the truth that this fragmentation had truly been constructing for a while. The Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an essay in Overseas Affairs from 2024, addressed the shifting world circumstances affecting the US. Studying between the traces, the challenges recognized as threats to US safety additionally reveal the underlying sources of fragmentation between the US and its European allies. Before everything, the period of nice energy battle and competitors has returned.
Russia, China, and center powers like Iran are engaged in territorial disputes or armed battle inside their respective areas, advancing revisionist agendas that problem the foundations of the earlier order.
The US operation in Venezuela, which basically noticed a sovereign state kidnap the chief of one other sovereign state, supplied no illusions that nineteenth century-style geopolitical competitors is as soon as once more en vogue. Certainly, the invocation of the Monroe Doctrine – which was a declaration by US President James Monroe in 1823 stating the Western Hemisphere was closed to European colonization and interference – despatched a robust sign of how far this US administration was prepared to go.
4 horsemen
One other supply of the rising rift between the US and Europe lies in what Secretary Rice referred to as ‘the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse’: populism, nativism, isolationism and protectionism. That is the place the core problem truly resides – corrosive forces that actively check and dismantle democracies from inside. Nobody is immune, and the domino impact has already been seen throughout international locations like Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, and Czechia. France faces the chance, as does Germany. The US is at the moment embodying it.
Including to this fragility is the specter of intolerant elected leaders who hijack democratic establishments, thereby weakening them general. These actors reject governance tied to electoral cycles in favour of long-term authoritarian ambitions, executed by means of top-down methods that bypass the necessity for consensus or bureaucratic checks. This logic of management is central not solely within the Kremlin but in addition in Beijing and, at this time, Washington.
Right this moment’s world, formed by speedy technological change and synthetic intelligence competitors, is more and more tied to questions of energy, safety and affect, with an absence of better imaginative and prescient of a affluent future for all. The rise of China as a technological and financial actor has solely intensified this dynamic, providing an alternate mannequin that doesn’t align with democratic norms. On the identical time, the American expertise billionaires don’t transfer in keeping with broader strategic or democratic issues. As an alternative, the main target is constructing a brand new oligarchy of capital and energy, which for the time being appears to suit the tone in Washington.
Elementary questions
In opposition to this backdrop, elementary questions emerge: how far have the USA and Europe drifted aside? Is that this a brief rupture that may nonetheless be repaired? There are apparent indicators of significant divergence. Trump’s current announcement that the USA plans to attract down not less than 5,000 US troops from bases in Germany is one current notable improvement. On the identical time, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has acknowledged that transatlantic relations are altering, and that the US and Europe are drifting aside. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk additionally just lately warned that the ‘best risk to the transatlantic neighborhood shouldn’t be its exterior enemies, however the ongoing disintegration of our alliance’.
Trump has even referred to as NATO a ‘paper tiger’, which not solely additional undermines the connection however invitations adversaries, like Russia, to brazenly problem the collective defence of the Alliance. Certainly, many European intelligence companies consider the window for Vladimir Putin to place NATO unity to the check is huge open.
Nonetheless, there’s one unresolved concern that has the biggest potential of driving the wedge of transatlantic relations past restore indefinitely – Greenland. Since coming again to the White Home, Trump has been insistent that the USA ‘has to have’ Greenland. The specter of taking the Danish territory dates to statements made by Trump as early as 2019, however most Europeans, together with the Danes, didn’t take it very significantly.
It was solely after the Venezuela operation that Trump introduced Greenland again to his discourse, triggering high-level discussions – and a few panic – between Europe and the USA. The specter of a US annexation nonetheless lingers. Ought to the US Administration determine to make good on its risk and really take Greenland – both by means of navy or different hybrid means – this might essentially change our relationships. It will additionally possible finish NATO, as soon as and for all, handing Putin the victory of his goals.
For somebody whose household historical past spans either side of the Atlantic, the prospect stays troublesome to grasp. My great-grandfather fought for the US in a single world struggle. My grandfather fought in one other. Generations of Individuals have seen the safety of Europe as inseparable from their very own safety.
Even at this time, after all the things that this administration has carried out in overseas coverage – with Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine/Russia, and many others. – most individuals nonetheless can’t fathom the US attacking an ally. Contemplating that 75% of Individuals are towards the annexation of Greenland, maybe there’s some hope that we’ll not should the face that final check. Even in attitudes in direction of Europeans, regardless of the anti-European rhetoric coming from Washington, 93% of Individuals in January 2026, believed that financial and commerce ties with Europe have been crucial or considerably vital; whereas 81% acknowledged shared democratic values have been vital for sturdy relations between the US and Europe.
Ready for Godot?
After attending debates and discussions in lots of European fora over the past yr, I’ve tried my greatest to gauge how Europe is growing an method to repair transatlantic relations, or not less than reduce the harm attributable to the Trump Administration. Undoubtedly, Trump’s insurance policies have brought on anger and confusion throughout the continent and definitely makes an attempt have been made to divide European states. But, for essentially the most half, the unity of Europe in direction of assaults and ailing will coming from Washington offers hope that the bond on this facet of the Atlantic is stronger than we frequently are prepared to provide ourselves credit score for. The most recent instance will be seen in Europe’s refusal to hitch Trump’s pointless struggle towards Iran. Maybe it’s a lesson we’ve already learnt from coping with Putin in Russia; solely energy is revered. Weak spot is an invite for extra assaults.
Whereas European unity within the face of Washington’s barrages is certainly a energy, there have been loads of indicators of European weak spot as properly. Most seen is the NATO Secretary Normal, Mark Rutte, and his over-the-top method to speaking with Trump, at one level calling him ‘daddy’. There’s unquestionably a high-quality line to stability between exhibiting energy towards Trump and brazenly difficult him and offending him. As a result of his unpredictable nature nobody is aware of how he and his circle may react.
Right this moment, nonetheless, many European leaders have determined to play the ready sport. In casual discussions, many democrats in Washington inform their counterparts in Europe that change is coming, and coming quickly. There appears to be plenty of hope positioned on the mid-term elections, which can happen in November. Early indications present that the Democrats will definitely win the Home of Representatives and will even win a majority within the Senate. This offers Europeans hope that the erratic insurance policies of the administration will lastly be checked, and even slowed down.
But, this technique is flawed. First, the current ruling by the Supreme Court docket to roll-back some provisions of the Voting Rights Act has altered the enjoying area. In brief, states – significantly within the south – have been given extra unrestricted energy to create electoral districts which not want to make sure illustration of minorities. It’s a difficult and authorized matter, however one evaluation believes the Democrats may lose 12 seats within the Home of Representatives, not guaranteeing them victory.
Second, even when Democrats win, there isn’t any assure that Trump and his administration would absolutely adjust to congressional checks on his powers. As an alternative, it might imply the additional deterioration of the rule of regulation on the highest ranges and a furthering political polarization. A totally Democratic-led Congress will surely try huge strikes, together with abolishing ICE, defunding administration initiatives, ending tariffs and even try impeachment. But, the margins of the bulk won’t be sufficient for the Democrats to succeed. The American public will turn out to be much more consumed by the inner political struggle, and worldwide insurance policies will solely mirror that rising chaos.
what is going on in the USA, with this distance, I usually marvel if my migration expertise is turning into full. Since 2025, in contrast to some other time in my life, I’ve discovered myself referring to Europeans as ‘us’ and ‘our’; whereas Individuals, for me, turned ‘them’ and ‘they’. That is carried out principally unconsciously; it took a colleague of mine to level this out to me – asking if my identification has shifted a lot that I not establish primarily as American. Maybe she was proper. I sympathize extra with Europe and typically even really feel hostility in direction of my dwelling nation. Although, the popularity of this inside battle has pressured me to confront myself, and step again to realize a wider perspective.
We nonetheless want one another
America of America is shedding its standing because the main superpower. The society is being torn aside by poisonous politics and the world is struggling to outline the brand new order that we’ll someday discover ourselves in in consequence. No matter Individuals are going by means of will certainly take time. And after it’s all over, and I consider it can finish someday, the main target should flip to therapeutic: each internally and within the relations with Europe (certainly the world).
For the quick time period, nonetheless, I’m much less optimistic. The politics are so divisive, and the human aspect is way faraway from the equation on either side of the political spectrum. The American society is in turmoil. Tens of millions are going through rising disparities in wealth, schooling, well being care, racial inequality, and general high quality of life. For a lot of, the phantasm of what was as soon as the American dream is all however useless.
My great-great-grandfather sought this dream and the promise of a greater future when he and his household crossed the Atlantic. 4 generations later, once I crossed in the wrong way, I by no means anticipated to seek out myself not solely redefining who I used to be, but in addition writing a brand new chapter in my household’s migration story. But this ‘return to Europe’ shouldn’t be distinctive to me and my household. Hundreds of Individuals are rediscovering their household connections, ancestral citizenships, and alternatives throughout the Atlantic. In doing so, they remind us that migration shouldn’t be a closed chapter of historical past however an ongoing course of. The ties created by earlier generations proceed to form lives in ways in which those that first boarded ships for America may by no means have imagined.
If my very own trajectory – from a small city in Wisconsin to a life rooted in Europe – has taught me something, it’s that these two worlds stay way more intertwined than they generally seem. The problem at this time shouldn’t be merely to defend the transatlantic relationship out of behavior or nostalgia. It’s to recollect what created it within the first place.
