European foreign policy often mirrors Washington’s global ambitions. As China’s economic influence strengthens, the Biden administration must consider a new foreign policy to unite the United States and its European partners.

China’s history with Europe stretches back centuries to the age of the Silk Road. Today’s landscape sees China as a global superpower often at odds with Europe’s traditional ally, the U.S. With their own agendas to carry out, each EU-member state sees opportunity, threat, and everything in between when it comes to China.

Who will win the ‘hearts and minds’ of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europeans with well-spent investment – Beijing with the Belt and Road, or Washington with the Three Seas Initiative?

The nations of the ‘European Rim’ face a tough decision in the midst of a post-COVID US-China decoupling – to look east or west for investment and development opportunities? Regardless of the investment sources, the European Rim must prioritize middle class-oriented growth to pursue full employment and economic stability.

It’s too much to expect that Europe will wean itself from America’s security blanket anytime soon. But Trump has provided a wake-up call. European leaders seek strategic autonomy to escape the quagmire of great power competition.

The latest escalation in US-China economic frictions points at worrisome trends. In the short run, US allies may benefit from US-China economic tensions, but serious dangers lie ahead.

The European Council has issued a new definition of China: from the EU perspective, China is simultaneously a political and economic challenger and a partner in multilateral global governance. Through established forums like the G20 and UN, along with new iniatitives like the Belt and Road or the “16+1” format, China and Europe can build on their trade partnership to face common challenges like climate change.

As EU dependency relationships adjust to changes occurring in geopolitics and world commerce, member states will explore deals with China and Russia at the expense of Washington’s preferred global order.

Germany will be at the strategic forefront as Europe’s economy and political weight continue to grow. Yet any decision made in Berlin about the future of the union will loudly reverberate in Washington and Beijing.

As a strategic partner of both the United States and China, the European Union is in a position to turn the tenuous relationship between the two into an opportunity for the Union.