Donald Trump is junking the transatlantic alliance

Europe has been left scrambling after an attack on the partnership that kept the peace for nearly 80 years

BUILDING THE transatlantic partnership centred on NATO took decades of troop deployments, joint exercises and steadfast signalling of an unbreakable commitment to its central tenet: that an attack on one would be an attack on all. Yet a weeklong whirlwind left that trust in tatters, as President Donald Trump’s administration overturned almost 80 years of American policy towards Europe. It culminated in the president repeating Kremlin propaganda points as he falsely blamed Ukraine for starting its war with Russia and called Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, a “dictator”.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Present at the destruction”

From the February 22nd 2025 edition

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