With Donald Trump effectively abandoning America's 80-year-old commitment to the transatlantic relationship and the broader international order, the future of European peace and prosperity is now wholly in Europeans’ hands. The task now is to unlock the continent's full technological, economic, and military potential.
BERLIN – President Donald Trump’s radical changes to US foreign policy have led many to suspect that he wants to align America more with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the long term. The expectation now is that the United States, China, and Russia will carve up the world among themselves, as the victors of World War II did at the 1945 Yalta Conference. As Trump abandons America’s 80-year-old commitment to preserving a rules- and law-based international order, the world is heading back to the age of “might makes right.” Yet because Trump sees all diplomacy as transactional, he is surrendering America’s main power multiplier: its ability to form and lead alliances.
BERLIN – President Donald Trump’s radical changes to US foreign policy have led many to suspect that he wants to align America more with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the long term. The expectation now is that the United States, China, and Russia will carve up the world among themselves, as the victors of World War II did at the 1945 Yalta Conference. As Trump abandons America’s 80-year-old commitment to preserving a rules- and law-based international order, the world is heading back to the age of “might makes right.” Yet because Trump sees all diplomacy as transactional, he is surrendering America’s main power multiplier: its ability to form and lead alliances.