The F-35, a fifth generation fighter, was developed in partnership with eight countries, which A model of international cooperation. When President Trump presented his successor, the F -47, he praised his forces – and said that the version sold to the allies would be deliberately demoted.
It made sense, Trump said last week, “because one day, it may not be our allies.”
For many countries married in the United States, his remark has confirmed a related conclusion: that America can no longer trust. Even nations that are not yet directly affected can see where things are heading, because Trump threatens the economies of the Allies, their defense partnerships and even their sovereignty.
For the moment, they are negotiating to minimize the pain of Blow After Blow, including a large series of prices expected in April. But at the same time, they retreat. Preparing intimidation to be a lasting characteristic of American relationships, they try to follow their own path.
Some examples:
Canada has entered into an agreement of $ 4.2 billion with Australia this month to develop a advanced radar and announced that it was in talks to participate in the European Union military accumulation.
Portugal and other NATO nations are Reconsider the plans To buy F-35, fearing American control over parts and software.
Negotiations on a free trade and technology agreement between the European Union and India accelerated After years of delays.
Brazil does not only increase trade with China, but it does it in China currencyDollar crushing.
Several allies, including Poland, South Korea and Australia, even discuss the opportunity Build or secure access to nuclear weapons for their own protection.
A certain degree of distancing from the United States was already in motion when other countries became richer, more capable and less convinced that American centrality would be permanent. But the last months of Trump 2.0 have superinated the process.
History and psychology help to explain why. Few forces have such a powerful and lasting impact on geopolitics that distrust, according to specialists in the social sciences who study international relations. He has repeatedly poisoned negotiations in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He maintained the tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union burning for decades.
The so -called realistic – who see international relations as an amoral competition between interested states – argue that confidence should always be evaluated with skepticism, because believing in good intentions is risky.
But Trump sparked more than cautious suspicions. His own distrust of the Allies, obvious in his null sum belief that gains for others are losses for America, has been reciprocal. What is created is familiar – a suspicious spiral. If you think that the other person (or country) is not trustworthy, you are more likely to break rules and contracts without shame, Studies showReinforcing the distrust of a partner, leading to greater assault or reduced interaction.
“Confidence is fragile,” wrote Paul Slovic, psychologist at the University of Oregon 1993 study on risk, confidence and democracy. “It is generally created quite slowly, but it can be destroyed in an instant – by a single incident or an error.”
In the case of Mr. Trump, the Allies underline a sustained assault.
His prices on imports from Mexico and Canada, which ignored the North American free trade agreement he signed during his first mandate, stunned the American neighbors.
His threats to make Canada an American state and send the American soldiers to Mexico to go after the drug cartels were impetuous intrusions on sovereignty, much like his requests for Greenland and the Panama Canal. His blame of Ukraine for war that Russia began to alienate the allies more, forcing them to ask: are the United States a defender of dictators or democracy?
Relatively quickly, they determined that even if Mr. Trump’s most daring proposals – like transforming Gaza into a riviera of the Middle East – are fantasies, trend lines point in the same direction: to a world order less like the Olympic Games and more like the ultimate fights.
Perhaps no country is more shocked than Canada. He shares the world’s largest uninformed border with the United States, despite their broad disparity in military force. For what? Because Canadians trusted America. Now, in large part, this is not the case.
Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, said on Thursday that his country’s traditional relations with the United States were “finished”.
“Trump has violated the profound hypothesis of Canadian foreign policy that the United States is an intrinsically trustworthy nation,” said Brian Rathbun, world affairs professor at Toronto University. “It is very threatening for basic Canadian interests in trade and security, which led it to alternatives.”
Economic patriotism is somewhat new for Canada, but it has given birth to a Canadian purchasing movement that urges consumers to flee American products and stocks. Canadians also cancel American holidays in large numbers.
More significant in the longer term, Mr. Trump’s threats have forged a surprising consensus around a policy that had been controversial or ignored: that Canada should build pipelines, ports and other infrastructure to the west, not from North to South, to reduce its dependence in the United States and push its resources to Asia and Europe.
Europe is more in advance in this process. After the American elections, the European Union concluded a trade agreement with the countries of South America to create one of the largest commercial areas in the world, and it worked towards closer trade links India,, South Africa,, South Korea And Mexico.
Japan, the largest ally in America in Asia, has also prioritized new markets in the world, where fast growing savings like Vietnam offer new customers.
“There was the emerging perception in Japan that we must certainly change the portfolio of our investments,” Ken Jimbo, professor of international policy and security at Keio University in Tokyo, told. For the current administration and those who follow, he added: “We must adjust our expectations to the American alliance”.
On the Defense Front, what some call “Dismerican” is more difficult. This is particularly true in Asia, where there is no equivalent of NATO, and dependence on American support somewhat slowed down the military of the countries that the United States has promised to defend (Japan, South Korea and Philippines).
Friday, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was in Manila, promising to “really realize the priority and move to this region”. But many American partners are now working together without the United States, signing reciprocal access agreements for the troops from each other and the construction of new coalitions to dissuade China as much as they can.
Europe is also in years of being able to defend itself fully without the help of American weapons and technologies. However, in response to the Trump administration prices, threats and general disdain – as in the disclosed signal cat in which Hegseth qualified Europe as “pathetic” – the European Union recently announced its intention to strengthen military spending. This includes a loan program of 150 billion euros to finance defense investment.
The European Union of 27 countries is also increasingly collaborating with two non-members, Great Britain and Norway, on the defense of Ukraine and other strategic defense priorities.
For some countries, none of this is enough. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Parliament in early March that Poland would explore access to nuclear weapons, fearing that Trump could fully defend another NATO nation.
“It’s a safety race”, Mr. Tusk said.
In February, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, Cho Tae-Yul, told the National Assembly that the construction of nuclear weapons was “not on the table, but that does not necessarily mean that it is out of the table either”. According to some estimates, South Korea and Japan have technical know-how to develop nuclear weapons in less than two months.
Bilihari Kausikan, a former Singaporean diplomat, said that a little distrust can lead to healthy caution, noting that Asia was skeptical of America since the Vietnam War. He said that the final result of the Trump era could be “a more diverse world, with more maneuvering space” and a less dominant United States.
But for the moment, mistrust is spreading. Experts said it would take years and a series of expensive confidence construction efforts to bring America together with new or old, long -term allies.
“Confidence is difficult to create and lose easy to lose,” said Deborah Welch Larson, political scientist at the University of California in Los Angeles who wrote a book on the role of the cold war. She added: “The distrust of the United States’s intentions and motivations increases day by day”.
The reports were brought by Matina Stevis-Gridneff de Toronto, Jeanna Smilek from Brussels, Sang-Hun Choe of Seoul and Martin Fackler from Tokyo.
