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Despite Europe’s size, economic might and longstanding alliances with Washington, Trump officials have made clear it is not a priority, European officials say.
April 17, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
For European allies of the United States, President Trump’s White House is structured like a court: the gilded Oval Office a place for advisers, pals and courtiers, all awaiting the decrees of the president.
Mr. Trump is the ultimate decision maker, and far from a predictable one. So in the first three months of this Trump presidency, getting through to the president himself is the Europeans’ goal. Some have succeeded, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who is expected to meet him at the White House on Thursday.
What is most confusing, European officials say, is that the most efficient interlocutors are not traditional diplomats working through institutions, but special envoys and advisers like Elon Musk. And it is never quite clear whether the messages get through to Mr. Trump, even if he is more likely to trust an old friend like Steve Witkoff, whom he has installed as a foreign policy negotiator, over the civil servants he disdains.
“Everyone in D.C. says you have to talk to Trump directly,” a senior European official said.
The European officials said they found Trump officials polite but consumed with fulfilling the president’s wishes and said they expressed little interest in their allies.
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For example, American officials gave no head’s up to key European nations about renewed talks last Saturday with Iran over its nuclear program, two European officials said. The European countries — Britain, France and Germany — were signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement that the president later left, had been the instigators and intermediaries for that deal and have been trying themselves to advance negotiations on a new one.
