When a brand new US president takes workplace, his first order of enterprise is normally to reassure America’s allies and warn its enemies. Nevertheless, Donald Trump is doing issues in a different way. It appears his purpose is to strike concern into the center not of America’s foes, however somewhat its buddies.
American presidents have historically seen the nation’s community of allies as a “force multiplier” – one thing that magnifies American energy and applies it extra successfully. A broad vary of allies means buying and selling companions, navy bases and diplomatic assist in worldwide establishments. Based on this line of reasoning, it’s in America’s personal pursuits to defend and assist its allies – the advantages outweigh the associated fee.
Trump, against this, views allies each as opponents and burdens. He thinks they’re too reliant on American navy energy to defend themselves, and that their financial relationship with the US makes them wealthy on the expense of American employees. He desires US allies, notably in Europe, to spend extra of their very own cash on defence and to purchase extra items from the US.
He additionally appears much more keen than in his first time period to deploy America’s formidable instruments of coercion to make this occur. His widespread threats of tariffs, for example, are designed to power nations to go together with his needs, together with in non-economic points of the connection. He’s additionally threatening to make use of financial and navy power in alarming methods, similar to to grab management of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.
The result’s a world by which American allies can not depend on the US to be a dependable associate. They could more and more should fend for themselves towards not simply their conventional foes, but additionally a predatory Washington.
An plane carrying Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr, arrives at an airport in Nuuk, Greenland, on January 7.
Emil Stach / EPA
Though all US allies are involved about this flip of occasions, some are extra stunned than others. The most important shock has are available Europe, which has lengthy occupied a privileged place in America’s strategic considering.
Europeans knew {that a} second Trump time period was going to be tough. On the marketing campaign path, for instance, he vowed across-the-board tariffs of as much as 20%. However they didn’t anticipate Trump to threaten the territory of Nato members Canada and Denmark, which owns Greenland.
Because of this, Europeans’ view of the US has shifted since Trump returned to the White Home. Based on the outcomes of a latest survey by the European Council on Overseas Relations, nearly all of folks in Europe not see the US as an ally that shares the identical pursuits and values, as a substitute agreeing that it’s only a “necessary partner”.
For different US allies and companions, notably within the international south, this shift is much less shocking. Panama owes its existence to an act of US imperialism. The US despatched navy forces to help the nation in seceding from Colombia in 1903, with the final word purpose of working with the nation’s new authorities to construct the canal.
However Panama has since witnessed quite a few American navy interventions. Most not too long ago, in December 1989, the then US president, George H.W. Bush, ordered 20,000 US troops to Panama the place they toppled the federal government and arrested the nation’s president, Manuel Noriega, on expenses of drug trafficking, racketeering and cash laundering.
Non-western nations have lengthy been used to the concept that the US will disregard their pursuits and reap the benefits of their weak spot if policymakers in Washington deem it crucial. What we’re witnessing now’s the extension of this precariousness to all.
Weak spot for flattery
For world leaders seeking to navigate this turbulent time, there may be an extra downside. Trump has a behavior of personalising diplomacy, deciding whom he likes and whom he doesn’t like primarily based on their perceived friendliness to him somewhat than a extra indifferent calculation of their pursuits.
He’s additionally a sucker for large, splashy acts of diplomacy. He usually gives the look that his predominant purpose is to have the ability to signal a deal – any deal – which he can declare to be a victory, somewhat than giving an excessive amount of thought to the underlying pursuits at stake.
Which means sensible leaders can flatter and deceive him. In early February, Trump postponed tariffs on Mexico after the nation’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, promised to ship troops to the US-Mexico border to sort out the cartels trafficking the drug fentanyl within the US.
The one downside is that the majority fentanyl is trafficked by US residents at authorized border crossings, who usher in very small portions of the drug of their automobiles. Based on Raúl Benítez, a navy knowledgeable at Mexico’s Nationwide Autonomous College, the “ant-like traffic of fentanyl” makes management of the commerce “almost impossible”.
So, sending further troops to the border will in all probability do little or no to stem the movement of fentanyl. Trump declared victory anyway – and now different world leaders are learning Sheinbaum’s method.
A member of Mexico’s state police patrolling the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on February 7 2025.
Luis Torres / EPA
However the occasional weak spot for flattery hardly makes Trump dependable.
As an alternative, Trump presents US allies with a harmful and unpredictable power. Just like the leaders of Russia and China, Trump appears to view the world as break up into spheres of affect by which highly effective nations are free to bully their neighbours.
Many nations will conclude that America is simply one other aggressive nice energy to be managed, somewhat than a rustic that at the very least pays lip service to worldwide legislation. Some may even resolve they haven’t any alternative apart from to develop nearer relations with Russia and China, and drift out of the US orbit.
One factor is evident: US allies should do extra to make sure they will defend their pursuits independently. Not like a rustic similar to Panama, European nations have the assets to do that, if solely they will summon the need. They need to rely themselves fortunate – and get to work.
