Trump's second term reshapes transatlantic ties as allies brace for G7 and NATO tests

The transatlantic relationship is undergoing its most fundamental rupture since the Second World War. Five months into Donald Trump's second presidency, the United States has abandoned the principle that its security and that of its allies is indivisible, imposed tariffs of up to 50 per cent on its closest partners, and launched a sustained political attack on European democratic institutions. As leaders gather for the G7 in Canada and the NATO summit in the Netherlands, the question is no longer whether the alliance can survive a disruptive president but what remains of the partnership when he leaves.

The security compact has been rewritten

For eight decades, the premise of the North Atlantic Treaty was that an attack on one member was an attack on all. That principle, enshrined in Article 5, has guided every US administration from Truman to Biden. Trump has now made clear he does not believe it. In private conversations and public statements, he has signalled that European security is a European problem. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth put it bluntly: NATO's European members must "take ownership of conventional security in Europe." The implication is unmistakable. The American security guarantee, the bedrock of European defence planning since 1949, is now conditional.

The shift extends to Ukraine. Trump promised to end the war in a day. When that failed, he reframed the conflict as a European affair. "This was a European situation, and should have remained a European situation," he said after another inconclusive call with Vladimir Putin. The remark was not merely rhetorical. It signalled to Moscow that Washington would not treat Ukrainian territory as a vital interest. It also told European capitals that they must finance and supply the war effort largely alone. The contrast with the Biden administration's "as long as it takes" commitment could not be starker.

Even Canada, the United States' northern neighbour and a NATO founding member, has not been spared. Trump suggested he would honour defence commitments only if Canada became the 51st state. The geography makes the threat absurd: any attack on Canada would immediately threaten the United States. But the signal was deliberate. No ally, however integrated or proximate, can assume the old guarantees hold.

Tariffs as the primary instrument of statecraft

If the security shift is structural, the economic assault is immediate. Trump has long viewed trade deficits as evidence of exploitation. He believes German and Japanese carmakers succeed because of unfair barriers to US exports. He argues Canada undermines American steel, dairy and lumber. He has claimed the European Union "was formed to screw the United States." His answer to all of it is tariffs, which he has called "the most beautiful word in the world."

The administration has invoked national security to justify 50 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium from Canada, the EU and others; 25 per cent on autos and auto parts; and has threatened similar levies on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. A baseline 10 per cent tariff applies to all imports, with a threat to raise it to 20 per cent or more unless new bilateral deals are struck by 9 July. The deadline is not arbitrary. It falls weeks after the NATO summit, giving allies a narrow window to negotiate while the president's attention is fixed on the alliance.

The selectivity is revealing. China faces tariffs. So do other non-allied economies. Russia, by contrast, has been spared. Trump has explicitly offered Putin a "tremendous" opportunity for massive trade growth if the war in Ukraine ends. A country that the US national security establishment designates as the primary threat to European security is being offered commercial preferential treatment over allies that host US troops, share intelligence and vote with Washington at the UN.

A political offensive without modern precedent

The most lasting damage may be political. At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President JD Vance told a stunned audience that "the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China," but "the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values." The language was deliberate. German listeners recognised the phrasing: the Nazis used similar rhetoric in the 1930s to accuse Jews and political opponents of treachery. Vance was not improvising. He was articulating a worldview shared by the administration's intellectual core.

Since Munich, the offensive has escalated. Senior officials have openly backed far-right forces in Germany, Romania and Poland ahead of national elections. When Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, classified the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a confirmed right-wing extremist organisation in May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to X to declare: "This is not democracy, it's tyranny in disguise." The intervention was extraordinary. The top US diplomat publicly sided with a party under surveillance for extremism against the constitutional apparatus of a NATO ally.

Late last month, the State Department published an essay accusing Europeans of waging "an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself." It cited suppression of speech, mass migration, targeting of religious expression and undermining of electoral choice as threats to "the very foundation of the transatlantic partnership." The charge carried a particular irony. The administration making it has overseen mass deportations, cut funding for global hunger and disease programmes, used antisemitism allegations to pressure universities, ignored judicial rulings, imposed loyalty tests for government jobs and pressured media organisations. The projection was unmistakable.

European responses remain fragmented

European leaders have not been idle. The European Council has accelerated work on strategic autonomy, a concept that once lived in French presidential speeches but now appears in German coalition agreements and Polish defence white papers. The EU has launched a defence industrial strategy, proposed a €1.5 billion defence innovation fund and agreed to loosen fiscal rules for military spending. Germany has committed to a €100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr and pledged to meet the 2 per cent GDP defence target permanently. Poland already spends more than 4 per cent.

But fragmentation persists. France pushes for European nuclear deterrence; Germany resists. Eastern members want permanent US bases; Western members fear provoking Russia. The EU's trade response has been cautious. The European Commission has prepared countermeasures against US tariffs but delayed implementation, hoping negotiation works. The 9 July deadline will test that patience. If Trump raises baseline tariffs to 20 per cent, the EU faces a choice: retaliate and risk a full trade war, or absorb the hit and signal weakness.

The political offensive complicates coordination. The AfD's classification by the BfV was a domestic legal decision, but Rubio's intervention turned it into a transatlantic dispute. The German government cannot appear to yield to US pressure without damaging its own credibility. Other capitals watch closely. If Washington can successfully frame a member state's constitutional protections as tyranny, the same tactic can be applied anywhere. The far-right parties in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria are taking notes.

The summits as staging posts, not solutions

Allies approach the G7 and NATO summit with lowered expectations. The goal is not progress but damage limitation. Officials speak of "placating" Trump, of avoiding "mishaps," of getting through the communiqués without a blow-up. That is a measure of how far the relationship has deteriorated. In previous eras, these meetings set the agenda for the free world. Now they are exercises in managing a superpower that views its partners as adversaries.

There is a quiet confidence in some European chancelleries that they have learned to handle Trump. They flatter his ego, offer deliverables he can claim as wins, and avoid public confrontation. But as Daalder argues, surviving the summits without incident is not the same as preserving the alliance. The structural shifts, security conditional, trade weaponised, values attacked, will outlast the photo opportunities.