*Originally published in 2025 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

The most enduring consequence of Donald Trump’s second coming could be the end of the idea of the West, at least in its contemporary, geopolitical and geo-economic sense, caused by an irrevocable fracture of the relationship of mutual trust and benefit between the US and its closest allies, Canada and the NATO/EU members. From the outset, America’s European allies saw Trump’s return to office with trepidation.

A poll conducted by the European Council for Foreign Relations, asking “Do you think the election of Donald Trump as US president is a good or a bad thing for your country?” showed that of all parts of the world, the EU members that were part of the poll (Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain) dominated the “bad thing” response, with 38 per cent replying bad, 22 per cent good, and 40 per cent “neither” or “don’t know.” Among respondents in the UK, which remains America’s closest ally, the “bad” response was more than 3 and half times the “good.” Only South Koreans were more negative about Trump’s return, with six times more saying Trump is bad for them than good. These responses among America’s friends is in contrast to Russia and China, where “good” outnumbered “bad” by substantial margins; 49 to 8 per cent for Russia and 46 to 18 per cent for China.  

Since then, transatlantic relations have worsened considerably. The divide within the West is no longer over defense spending only – or the demand that European do more for their own security rather than rely on the US – or over trade issues, such as Europe’s subsidies, but much broader: it extends clashes over values and institutions. As Vance’s fiery rhetoric insults and half-truths at Munich made clear, the Trump and his lieutenants see European culture as having gone astray, degraded by tolerance for immigration, departure from religious orthodoxy, and seeking to do good for the whole world instead of focusing on family and country. 

In his crosshairs is a key pillar of transatlantic solidarity – NATO. For Trump, America’s European allies are national-security free riders  and abusers of trade privileges given to them by the US. Before his re-election, Trump threatened to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want to” to NATO members who don’t meet the defense spending targets set by NATO. But the animosity is broader than an argument about defense spending. In a video to promote his campaign’s “Agenda 47” platform in March 2024 Trump also pledged: “We have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission.” 

On the crucial issue of the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump administration does not want to give Europe a seat at the table in negotiations to settle Ukraine’s future, and that insists that Ukraine can hope neither to regain its lands seized by Russia nor expect NATO membership. Then there is Trump’s suggestion that Russia should be invited back to the G7 from which it had been ousted since 2014 over its takeover of Crimea. In short, it looks like the West will not survive Trump 2.

Add to these the Trump administration’s tariff aggression against Canada and the EU, and his threat to take Greenland from Denmark (which, like Canada, is a founding member of NATO) in “one way or the other.” Wither, then, goes the West? Over the ages, the West has been a Christian notion, an imperial notion, and a white racial notion, but it really became a “thing” during the Cold........

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