• North America
• Europe
• Howard W. French

March 13, 2025, 11:21 AM View Comments ()

After less than two months in power, U.S. President Donald Trump has delivered a shock to the United States and the world so profound that even calling it that risks feeling trite.

This is not the place to compile a litany of examples of the previously unthinkable or long-feared moves that Trump has attempted. Almost every day brings new examples, from his unprovoked and senseless trade war with Canada, with its hints of old-world imperialist expansionism, to his murky but long-anticipated rapprochement with Russia.

As a long-standing provider and enforcer of a certain world order, Washington has grown accustomed to seeing whatever it does as a norm that others, like it or not, will have to adjust to—and will probably even appreciate one day. But as Americans struggle to come to terms with the seismic changes underway in their country, recent days have produced scenes abroad that show that, absent a major course correction, this time will be different.

I’m not talking about the plucky and admirable pushback of Canada and Mexico or of aggrieved smaller places such as Panama and Greenland. What I have in mind is the mounting response from some of Washington’s most important allies and partners further afield. One stunning example was the speech that Claude Malhuret gave to the French Senate last week. Precisely because of the United States’ insularity, it is worth quoting from at length:

Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.

Washington has become the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service.

This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose higher tariffs on you than his enemies, and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.

Never in history has a U.S. president capitulated to the enemy. Never has any one of them supported an aggressor against an ally. Never trampled on the U.S. Constitution, issued so many executive orders, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military senior staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.

This is not an illiberal drift—it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its constitution.

You may say that hot air comes cheaply in deliberative bodies. But the best evidence that this was much more than that came shortly after Malhuret’s speech. On March 11, more than 30 army chiefs from some of Washington’s steadiest and most durable partners, including NATO and European Union members, met behind closed doors to begin thinking about how to ensure security in a world where the United States is no longer in the business of providing it. No one from the United States was invited. The gathering suggested that many Europeans worry that Washington, if not quite an enemy yet, could become one.

At the center of these global shocks lies the Trump administration’s apparent calculation that the financial support Washington has provided Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022—and the security assurance that this has given Europe—is simply not worth the more than $120 billion it has cost the United States.

But this is about as narrow a bookkeeper’s view of geopolitics as one can imagine. I write not as a Europeanist, or even as someone especially attuned to that continent’s interests, given the wealth it has accumulated over the centuries from the slave trade, colonization, and its domination of much of the global south. Even so, all but the most ignorant must recognize that Washington’s total spending in Ukraine dramatically pales in comparison with the benefits that have accrued to the United States, Europe, and much of the world from the postwar rules-based international order.

Imperfect as these norms are, a world that runs on rules and values is incomparably preferable to one that’s governed nakedly by raw power, fiat, and whim.

It would be a gross miscalculation, however, to focus only on how the wrenching changes underway will affect Europe or that once widely beloved but now endangered thing called “the West.” As Europeans struggle to adjust to Trump’s authoritarian inclinations and fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin, they are coming to terms with the necessity to rearm, and this will have wide-reaching consequences.

Amid the reordering of recent months, liberal democracies’ first reflex has been to sacrifice the interests of the poorest and weakest. This was evidenced in Trump’s theatrical war on supposed government waste, which made the United States Agency for International Development one of its first targets. As he giddily proceeded with the agency’s dismantlement, mega-billionaire Elon Musk, entrusted by Trump to trim federal spending, called Washington’s principal vehicle for assisting poor countries “evil.” Many analysts now expect that spending on social insurance for the country’s poor, retired, and infirm through programs such as Medicaid and Medicare—and perhaps even Social Security, which Musk has called a scam—will be his next target.

What does this have to do with Europe and the so-called developing world? By heightening European fears around security, Trump has all but ensured that Washington’s longtime Western partners will follow in his wake in abandoning other countries—not in disdain or out of spite, but in the interest of self-preservation. Regardless of whether one sees this as necessary, by cutting the strings of support to low-income countries, a state is behaving selfishly by definition.

The United Kingdom has already embarked on this road. In February, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to cut overseas aid at virtually the same time he sought to impress Trump by committing to spending more for security at home and in Europe. Others in the rich world will surely follow.

One of the most grievous consequences of the new U.S. administration’s behavior is perhaps the one least talked about. In narrowly prioritizing their own military security, members of the erstwhile West are acting out a delusion based on the notion that Europe can thrive behind high walls. As the poor of the world fall further behind—and are devastated by population growth, the inability to industrialize or produce jobs quickly enough, and the spread of disease—they will not stand pat. Their conflicts, growth, and, ultimately, migration will rock the rich world to a degree too few today can imagine.