By Elena de Mitri - UK & European Affairs Team

Intelligence cooperation has always been fundamental for allied countries that share similar interests, values, and objectives in order to rationalise resources and expertise. Cooperation is particularly developed among transatlantic allies, including the US and many European countries. 

While it tends to be relatively stable, even in the face of disagreements with a partner’s actions and policies, concerns have recently been raised in many European countries regarding the current Trump administration and the stability of such cooperation, due to the fear that the US government could weaponise and politicise intelligence flows and information shared by the partners in order to achieve political objectives. Among confrontational behaviour by the US administration, European partners are learning how to deal with an increasingly risky relationship.

An increasingly shaky relationship?

Soon after the start of the second Trump presidency in January 2025, European intelligence agencies started voicing concerns about the risk of over-relying on US intelligence. Tariffs and frequent political quarrels haven’t helped either as disagreements with the current administration could endanger transatlantic relationships in an unprecedented way. Transatlantic relations have been under strain since then. The changing tide was particularly represented by the March 2025 suspension of intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Lasted only for a few days, the suspension was enacted to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in diplomatic talks with Russia to reach a peace deal. However, such a move also sent a clear message to US allies: lack of cooperation towards US objectives could have grave consequences, including the weaponisation of intelligence. 

Other developments have strengthened this view. This year’s Annual Threat Assessment and its dismissal of transatlantic security cooperation, coupled with the unusual appointments of politically aligned individuals as directors of US intelligence agencies, usually reserved for established non-partisan practitioners, has marked a significant change in the country’s policy towards the war in Ukraine, as both moves were partially reflecting Russian positions on the conflict. More recently, the appointment of General Joshua Rudd, who previously served in the Indo-Pacific Command, as head of the National Security Agency, one of the main intelligence agencies in the US, strengthened this shift towards a stronger focus on China. Finally, purges of established US intelligence officers, due to their involvement in cases perceived as anti-Trump, might ultimately undermine established relations among practitioners from allied countries, as trust heavily relies on personal relationships. 

Intelligence cooperation has always been upheld through subsequent administrations. However, the instability and opaqueness brought about by the second Trump administration has left allies wondering whether they should become more self-sufficient. After the Signal scandal in March 2025, the denial of any wrongdoing by involved US officials and the grave breach of operations security rules left allied intelligence services wondering whether sharing sensitive information with US government officials remains feasible as its disclosure could compromise sources and operations. Perceptions of unreliability might threaten trust among national intelligence services, which is fundamental to maintaining the current high-level cooperation. As a consequence, many European intelligence agencies showed increased worries that the intelligence they were sharing with the US would either be leaked or, even worse, be shared to non-allied countries without their permission, thus breaking a long-established rule. Some of them, including the Dutch intelligence agencies, have scaled down intelligence sharing with the US due to concerns that the current administration may politicise intelligence and possibly share sensitive information with Russia, in line with the country’s repositioning along Russian narratives of the conflict in Ukraine. 

Finally, US increasingly assertive and coercive behaviour towards traditionally allied countries has made European intelligence services even more worried about sharing information with the US. As president Trump was publicly talking about annexing Canada, one of his closest advisers was pushing to remove Canada from the Five Eyes, the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world, in order to pressure the country into becoming the 51st state. While this remained a suggestion, it was reported that US government officials were actively discussing it. On the other hand, after the US government declared its intention to take control of Greenland, which is part of the Danish Kingdom, due to security concerns in the Arctic, the Danish Defence Intelligence Services categorised the US as a threat to the country, amid alleged demands from the US government to gather intelligence on Greenland.

The importance of transatlantic intelligence cooperation

Intelligence cooperation has long been fundamental to achieve security objectives, especially as the nature of the current threats has become increasingly transnational. Intelligence agencies face numerous, complex threats and resources are usually too scarce to effectively deal with threats by themselves. As a consequence, cooperation among intelligence agencies of countries with similar objectives and values has greatly increased since the Cold War, in order to combine resources and fill expertise gaps. This is especially important nowadays, as current threats are increasingly ambiguous, murky and well-concealed. Cooperation is quite consistent in areas such as terrorism and transnational crime, in which reaching shared goals is relatively easier. 

Continued cooperation relies on and reinforces a shared worldview and perception of current threats. It is no surprise then that US and European intelligence agencies have developed a strong relationship in this field. The US has currently various levels of partnerships with European countries, dating back to the Second World War. While some countries are considered privileged partners, other are "less important" so information sharing with them is more limited. However, they remain critical partners for the US due to their easier access and specific expertise, including linguistic expertise. Moreover, multilateral forms of cooperation with other European partners happen in the context of specific alliances, such as NATO, or informal organizations. 

Even when transatlantic allies were involved in disputes and fights about each others’ foreign policy and trade policies, intelligence sharing was upheld. As a matter of fact, when European countries disagreed with US military actions during the War on Terror, they would still provide important intelligence to help the US government achieve its objectives. This continued cooperation has highlighted how strong relations and shared interests, including especially the fight against terrorism, allowed intelligence agencies to overcome political disagreements. However, the behaviour of the current US administration has been threatening these relationships in an unprecedented way. This has brought European countries to discuss the possibility of reducing their cooperation with the US, in order to protect their national interests.

Prospects for a more independent Europe

Replacing the US intelligence contribution is not an easy task. While European countries have advanced tools and capabilities, they lack the scale and coordination role that the US possesses. Such scale allows US intelligence agencies to provide more timely and higher quality assessments, as they can benefit from the use of big data techniques and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, if the US was to stop or greatly limit intelligence sharing, European countries, along with Ukraine, would have to rely on a lower quantity and quality of information. Indeed, replacing US capabilities would require long term investments in human capabilities and advanced tools. 

However, it is not an impossible task. In January 2026, it was reported that France was providing a growing amount of technical intelligence to Ukraine, likely referring primarily to satellite imagery. Such intelligence was previously mostly provided by the US, but the March 2025 suspension of intelligence sharing and the subsequent pause in some weapon shipments to Ukraine prompted European countries to take a more prominent role. While intelligence sharing was quickly restored, this suspension amplified already existing worries about the politicisation of intelligence by the US government. Amongst calls to replace resources and capabilities offered by the US and work towards European independence in the security sector, progress tends to be quite slow. A key factor in this struggle is the size and structure of actors in the field. No actor, including the European Union, possesses the same financial resources and in-house capabilities as the US, the latter requiring a long time to be developed. 

At the same time, the Trump administration is also seeking to reduce its involvement in the continent and has openly taken a more hostile approach to its European allies. As a consequence, European intelligence services are expanding cooperation among them, with important steps taken at the EU level. As prominent officials from European intelligence agencies have started giving more importance to EU-wide agencies and the number of intelligence officials embedded in representation offices in Brussels has grown, internal pushes to develop autonomous capabilities have been growing, although emphasising the importance of maintaining cooperation with the US. Some are instead calling for the creation of an intelligence cooperation agency dedicated to the European Union to make better use of intelligence provided by member states. However, such an agency would have to overcome numerous challenges, including the voluntary nature of intelligence sharing in the European block, which leaves critical information in the hands of member states that have repeatedly been wary of sharing too much. Moreover, some European countries are widely considered untrustworthy due to their ties to third party countries such as Russia and China. As a consequence, cooperation will likely include a limited group of countries that share generally stronger ties, including in security. This is already happening inside NATO, as more and more intelligence is now being shared on a smaller scale rather than with all the member states. Bilaterally, cooperation among key countries, including the UK, France and Germany, has already been strengthened in order to deal with the instability caused by the current US administration. This strengthened cooperation will likely mark an important, and possibly permanent, shift from the critical role that the US attained until now.

Conclusion

Relations among European and US intelligence services have been described recently as generally good, as high ranking officers of European intelligence services have stressed the importance to keep up cooperation with the US. However, evolving and multifaceted tensions between the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean are increasingly affecting transatlantic relations, especially in regard to security. The shift towards the Russian narrative of the conflict in Ukraine and frequent disagreements between European countries and the US have positioned the latter as a riskier alliance for European countries. Such repositioning might impact intelligence sharing, which is considered fundamental in many fields. While some countries are reconsidering their intelligence ties to the US, others have already started scaling down sharing, especially in areas of particular concerns. European intelligence officials have openly stated that cooperation in this field hasn’t stopped and that the US remains an ally, as US intelligence agencies are trying to ease European worries. However, further transatlantic tensions might have an unprecedented impact on security relations.