Stephen M. Walt (a Harvard University international relations professor and a prominent member of the so-called realist school of international relations) argues, in his recent piece for Foreign Policy, that the United States of America is now “Europe’s enemy” – or at least the enemy of today’s Europe and its values. Journalist Gideon Rachman (writing for Financial Times) has described it in lighter terms, by saying that “The Trump administration’s political ambitions for Europe mean that, for now, America is also an adversary”.

Walt acknowledges that realists like himself have been arguing that (even from an American perspective) prolonging the war in Ukraine made no sense, and that NATO expansion was a dangerous path which actually pushed Moscow and Beijing closer together. Thus it would make sense for Washington to “drive a wedge” between these two Eurasian powers and, at the same time, in his words, “fashion a European order that reduces Moscow’s incentives to cause trouble.”

The political scientist however argues that the current US presidency has already gone way beyond transatlantic “disputes about burden-sharing” (within NATO) and that the aim of Trump’s administration is actually to “fundamentally transform relations with long-standing U.S. allies, rewrite the global rulebook, and, if possible, remake Europe along MAGA lines.”

To make this point, Walt mentions the blunt way Trump is weaponizing tariff threats (even against close allies) “either to coerce concessions on other issues or solely because they are running trade surpluses” and the way the concept of sticking to deals negotiated seems “utterly alien” to the new US President. Walt gives other examples: Trump has been openly talking about occupying and conquering territory, which signals something, even........

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