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What happens when allies don’t trust America to keep a secret?

6 0
13.11.2025
A general view of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross in London, United Kingdom on January 21, 2016. | Tolga Akmen/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Can allies still trust the United States with sensitive intelligence in the Trump era? Two stories this week suggest even the closest partners are starting to have doubts.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that the United Kingdom is no longer sharing information with the United States about suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, because it does not want to be complicit in military strikes it considers to be illegal. Several islands in the Caribbean are British territories, and the two governments have traditionally cooperated on drug interdiction.

According to CNN, Canadian officials have also made clear they don’t want their intelligence being used in the deadly strikes. Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, a longtime US counternarcotics partner but, lately, a Trump antagonist, announced on Wednesday that he too had put a halt on intelligence sharing with Washington.

Two days earlier, the New York Times reported that FBI Director Kash Patel had let go of an FBI agent based in London due to budget cuts, after personally promising the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, that he would protect the agent. The agent was responsible for high-tech surveillance tools, described by the New York Times as “the kind [MI5] might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London.”

These aren’t isolated examples. Last month, the heads of the two main spy agencies in the Netherlands, a NATO ally, said in........

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