The first 40 days of the new Donald Trump administration have caused panic across the European Union, leaving EU leaders thinking how to maintain the bloc's relevance and global standing without the support of the United States.

Germany's likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized after his party coalition won the elections on Sunday that his "absolute priority will be to strengthen the EU as quickly as possible", adding that "step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA".

It was a rare public acknowledgement by a European leader that the EU is not independent, at least in defense and security. Germany hosts some 40 US military bases and more than 35,000 US troops, by far the highest in Europe.

Achieving "strategic autonomy" was what some EU politicians were talking about a few years ago. But they stopped doing so after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict three years ago when all signs indicated the EU's extreme dependence on the US for security. That's why some EU leaders who advocate for EU strategic autonomy applauded Trump's tough stance toward the bloc; their contention being it will force the EU to free itself of the US in terms of defense and foreign policy.

Some EU leaders, however, still hope to win back Trump's support, by offering various compromises and flattering the US administration, or even indecent proposals.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and French President Emmanuel Macron have both asked the US to focus on its trade conflict with China, not the EU. It was shocking to see Macron make such an indecent proposal, because he once championed EU strategic autonomy.

There is no doubt the EU's China policy has long been dictated by the US. American and European officials, past and present, have admitted such "coordination", or openly allowed Washington to dictate the EU's policy toward China. This also explains why China-EU relations have become more turbulent over the past years.

That, incidentally, was what prompted Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares to tell the Financial Times early this week that the EU should work out its own China policy and not ape the Trump administration's confrontational stance toward China.

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and a professor at Columbia University, told me after his speech in the European Parliament in Brussels on Feb 19 that Europe needs to wake up, and not have only a US foreign policy but also devise its own foreign policy. Sachs said this means that the EU should have good relations with China in the fields of trade and investment, and establish a partnership between China's Belt and Road Initiative and the EU's Global Gateway, all of which will have win-win outcomes.

The EU learned a hard lesson during the first Trump administration, when the US imposed punitive tariffs on the bloc and threatened to punish EU companies conducting business with Iran following the US' withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018.But the EU forgot that lesson quickly after the Joe Biden administration warmed up to Brussels in its bid to use and abuse the bloc to further its hostile strategy toward China.

So when Merz complained that "the Americans, at least this part of the Americans in this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe", I wondered if the "independence" he referred to will be irrelevant once another Democratic government takes office in the US.

European Commission spokespersons have dismissed my concerns over the past years when I've asked about the consequences of certain policies and actions the EU implemented under US pressure, including the ban on Huawei 5G.

If you have been following the US, the EU, G7 and NATO leaders on X (formerly Twitter) during the past years, you must have noticed that their messages, on many issues, and the timing of those messages, were almost the same.

Indeed, the EU can achieve strategic independence only gradually, as Merz said, but the real question is whether the EU is really determined to wean itself from Washington, and have an independent China policy.

The author is chief of China Daily EU Bureau based in Brussels.

[email protected]