"EU welfare state" is a meme that doesn't survive looking closely at the actual figures. Especially if you compare things like state pensions properly; the US moves these into a different column labelled "social security", but that doesn't mean they're not part of the state!

Note that the alternative is sending money overseas to rent US infrastructure. It may make a lot of sense to deploy spending locally where it stays in the economy rather than overseas, a standard "import substitution" play.