Finally, both Trump and his officials argue, he has remade the global trading order to the benefit of the U.S. He has used tariffs and threats to force open markets long closed to American goods, to reap revenues by charging for the privilege of access to the world’s greatest consumer market, and to strong-arm other countries into paying for America’s reindustrialization.
Taken at face value, all of this adds up to quite a record — but an incomplete one, to say the least. Looking at the specifics, the picture becomes much more complicated, uneven and often quite different.
Take alliances, for example. It’s true, of course, that many NATO allies have now committed to spending much more on defense. It’s even true that Trump “will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done” — as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte texted Trump shortly before the NATO summit last June where that commitment was agreed.
Many NATO allies have now committed to spending much more on defense. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
But what Rutte didn’t say is that this is because no other U.S. president has ever threatened to walk away from the alliance, or to abandon the solemn commitment to collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO charter. Led by Germany, NATO allies are boosting their defense spending, but the main reason is because they no longer believe they can rely on the U.S. ( Another one is that they fear Russia — an anxiety Trump doesn’t share.)
Trump’s approach to Ukraine clearly underscores this change. He ended all military and economic assistance to the country, forcing it into an agreement to share its natural resources in return for U.S. aid that was previously provided cost-free. He then sought to force Ukraine’s president to sign a deal that would effectively mean Kyiv’s capitulation to Russian aggression, and only agreed to ship weapons if Europe paid for them.
None of this is the behavior of an ally who believes their mutual alliance reflects shared interests or common threat perceptions. It’s the behavior of someone who has turned security alliances into a protection racket.