But international law needs Trump. His approach poses an existential threat not just to global agreements such as the Paris climate accord but to the European Union, the world\u2019s biggest factory for international legislation. Every year the EU produces more than 2,000 directives, acts, regulations and other legal documents guiding the economic and societal lives of its 27 member countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an American-dominated world where the rule of law doesn\u2019t matter, the EU\u2019s legislative machine could quickly become a quaint anachronism. The first week of 2026 has once again exposed the paralysis and powerlessness of Europe\u2019s leadership to respond to an American president who proudly boasts the only thing that can stop him is his own sense of \u201cmorality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very important moment,\u201d said one diplomat from a European country, granted anonymity, like others, to speak freely. \u201cThere had been a tendency in European media to make fun of Trump and his people and present them as stupid and sometimes even as madmen. I think that\u2019s wrong. They\u2019re highly capable.\u201d<\/p>\n
But their mission, this diplomat said, is clear: to do whatever is necessary to advance the interests of the U.S. and the Trump administration.\u00a0The White House doesn\u2019t care about being a good ally to Europe, and is more than prepared to criticize, threaten, bully and perhaps attack the old continent. \u201cThis cannot be a surprise,\u201d the diplomat said.<\/p>\n
The Ukraine of it all\u00a0<\/p>\n
But nearly a year into Trump\u2019s second term,\u00a0European leaders and officials have never formally debated America\u2019s new distance from its previously close allies at a strategic level.\u00a0\u201cThat has to be discussed,\u201d the same diplomat said. \u201cThe reason why we have not had a full-blown discussion on it is because of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
And here is the core of the tension paralyzing Europe\u2019s response. Just as Europe still depends on NATO for its security, despite pledging repeatedly to stand on its own feet, it desperately needs American support to deliver an acceptable truce in Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But international law needs Trump. His approach poses an existential threat not just to global agreements such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-230009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}