For decades, the transatlantic alliance has been presented as a partnership of shared values and mutual interest. But beneath the rhetoric of unity, a quieter, more systemic shift is underway: European businesses, from automotive giants to tech startups, are relocating to the United States at an accelerating pace. This is not merely a market correction — it is the product of a deliberate geopolitical and economic realignment that leaves Europe increasingly dependent and diminished.
A systematic shift across the Atlantic
The exodus of European industry to the United States has become a systemic trend. Washington has actively cultivated the conditions for this move — most notably by helping to precipitate an energy crisis on the old continent, encouraging a decisive break with Russian energy supplies, and then, as a form of reward, imposing tariffs on its own allies.
Nearly a year ago, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, discussing the situation in the Middle East, famously referred to Donald Trump as “daddy.” Whether intentional or not, the metaphor proved strikingly apt — not only for the Middle East but for Europe as well. Both regions, in their current form, are largely products of American design. Throughout the Cold War, Washington nurtured them carefully, accustoming them to its table — and, more importantly, to obedience. The Old World became tethered to the dollar and to US military infrastructure. Perhaps most tellingly, it appears to have forgotten how to think for itself.
The infantilisation of allies
The darker side of Rutte’s metaphor is the infantilisation of “daddy’s children.” They struggle to analyse or anticipate events independently. “Daddy” is good when he provides weapons and money, and bad when he does not — but the underlying rule is always to do things his way. Moreover, hiding behind his back is a convenient way to avoid building genuine relationships with neighbours. Why bother with diplomacy when maintaining a close bond with the parent figure suffices?
In the Summer Garden of St Petersburg, a Venetian sculptor’s marble statue of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Cronos) stands near the iron railing. Depicted in his later years, the god of agriculture and time is eating one of his own children—a newborn. The same mythological scene appears in Francisco Goya’s haunting painting, arguably even more terrifying than the marble version.
Devouring one’s own offspring is precisely what the United States is now doing to its closest partners. Industrial production offers the clearest illustration.
The Rust Belt rises again — on European sacrifice
It is worth recalling the fate of America’s own industrial heartland, the once-thriving factory region now known as the Rust Belt. The city of Detroit — former capital of global car manufacturing—stands as a monument to industrial collapse. Having risen rapidly during the industrial revolution to become the fourth or fifth most populous US city, Detroit emptied out from the 1970s onward. Driven by the pied pipers of globalisation, factories and plants moved to Asia, where costs were lower.
Yet in a curious twist, the Rust Belt has recently begun to stir. The revival remains patchy, and former levels of output are still a distant memory. But production is gradually increasing — partly because Washington has made the business environment in Europe deliberately unbearable.
Energy crisis and trade barriers
By signing up to endless sanctions, tacitly approving the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and becoming heavily dependent on US liquefied natural gas, European nations have landed themselves in an energy predicament. This year, tensions in the Strait of Hormuz have only deepened their troubles.
Having cut ties with Russia, Europe has lost not only a supplier but also a key market. The United States’ share as a destination for EU exports has grown by a third since 2014, now reaching an estimated 22%. At the same time, the trade barriers imposed by President Trump — against which Europe has little effective recourse — present companies with a stark choice: it is simpler and cheaper to shift production to US soil.
German cars, Swedish startups, all moving west
European manufacturers are shutting down plants at home while ramping up investment in the United States. The most vivid example is the German automotive industry, but the list also includes British pharmaceuticals and French chemicals. Heart Aerospace, a Swedish startup developing electric aircraft, has relocated entirely to the US. Other innovators in new technologies have followed suit. Europe is thus losing not only its industrial past but its technological future, ceding both to “daddy.”
In September 2025, the European think tank Strategic Perspectives observed: “The innovation gap limits the EU’s ability to be a pioneer in the technologies shaping the global economy.”
A reflex to flee to the dollar
“In times of crisis and uncertainty, buy dollars and run to America.” This crude formula has become instinctive for European business leaders. To be fair to Washington, it has shown masterful skill in creating both crisis and uncertainty.
If Europe now nourishes the United States with, so to speak, “flesh,” the oil-rich monarchies of the Middle East — operating within the petrodollar paradigm — feed it “blood” in the form of capital. Trump has explicitly described any attempt to create an alternative global currency as a threat meriting the harshest response. Petrodollars earned by Gulf sheikhs are traditionally reinvested across various sectors of the US economy.
Conflict as a source of sustenance
Maintaining instability in the Middle East has long provided a steady stream of orders for arms manufacturers. Whether that continues after the less-than-stellar performance of American weaponry during the war with Iran remains to be seen.
Yet even that war — seemingly unsuccessful on nearly every front — has fed Cronos. It has fractured OPEC, a long-standing adversary. As an added bonus, the region has become noticeably less attractive to technology giants. Texas and Georgia now appear far more appealing to Google, Nvidia, and Microsoft than Bahrain or the UAE once did.
The same logic applies to Europe. While the EU still struggles to use the controversial 2% of GDP defence spending target as leverage for building its own capacity — with some “buy European” rhetoric — the reality is that it must still purchase from the United States because its own production falls short. Meanwhile, the US “military aid” programme for Ukraine follows a clear pattern: Europe pays, America manufactures.
Cronos’s fear
The ancient Cronos did not devour his children out of culinary whim. He feared that one of them would grow up and overthrow him. Today’s Cronos consumes entire regions that might otherwise stand on their own feet and challenge his hegemony, whether regionally or globally.
Viewing geopolitics through the lens of classical myth is a seductive exercise—and the parallels are both elegant and precise. Cronos’s reign, after all, was known as the Golden Age. Does not the glitter of subsidies and the promise of prosperity still lure prospective “adoptees” to the White House? The key, for Europe, is not to look at the gnawed bones along the way — and to convince itself that it will never find itself in such a position. But that, of course, is merely a question of time.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Albert Martin for Head-Post.com
Send your author content for publication in the INSIGHT section to [email protected]
