For forty years, until the Brexit referendum of 2016, UK foreign policy rested mainly on three pillars: membership of the EU and NATO and the ‘Special Relationship’ Britain believed it had with the US. One pillar fell with our exit from Europe. We thought the remaining architecture of our foreign policy was on the firmest possible foundations. We were surely safe in the world because of NATO and the bonds that held Britain and the US in the Atlantic Alliance.
The realpolitik is that the US under Donald Trump is no longer the granite-hard, reliable friend it was only a year ago.
The US is now determined to have the Western Hemisphere as its primary sphere of influence. That includes Western Europe. The collectivism, co-operation and consensus that characterised America’s relationships with its allies has been replaced with a rigidly America-first approach. It is ideological imperialism carrying a big stick.
Tying NATO to commercial deals
The US seeks fundamentally to change Western defence policy. In its new National Security Strategy published in November, the Trump administration says: “The United States will chart our own course in the world and determine our own destiny, free of outside interference.”
The document proposes changes to the way NATO works. Rather than the US being first among equals, President Trump asks allies, “to assume primary responsibility for their regions.” It says, “the United States stands ready to help.” But that is tied to allies doing commercial deals which defer to the US, buying US oil and aligning their export controls with those of America.”
A military industrial marketplace
The defence of the West is to change from NATO being a mutually supportive military alliance committed to defending democracy to becoming a military industrial marketplace in which America makes the rules.
The implications of this are many and potentially grave. NATO, led by the US, has since its inception provided the West with its nuclear shield. Can we depend now on America in the event of nuclear conflict? Can we be sure the US will continue to supply us with the weapons technology and software for the UK’s Trident missiles? Will the deployment of our military in future need approval from the US?
‘Five eyes’ alliance in doubt
There must now be a question mark over the survival of the ‘Five Eyes’ the intelligence sharing arrangement between the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Intelligence sharing depends on mutual trust and shared political values. In adopting its ‘might is right’ and ‘America first’ philosophy, the US has become a less dependable partner.
Four out if the ‘Five Eyes’ will, in the light of Trump’s approach to the Greenland issue, now be more cautious in their evaluation of intelligence that comes from US sources. Our enemies and potential enemies – including nation states, terrorists, drug and people smugglers, financial criminals and other forms of organised crime will feel more confident because of Trump’s straining of this long-established intelligence alliance.
Staggering distortion of truth
Trump’s strategy document goes on to attack contemporary Europe, including the EU and the UK. It says:
“The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”
This is not only a staggering distortion of the truth; it also reeks of racial superiority. It’s a call too for unfettered capitalism. It is a recipe for political and social alienation that most assuredly would lead to unrest, civil strife and perhaps war between nations.
Uncorked nationalism
Though many Americans disagree with his policies we should not assume that when Trump leaves the political stage his country will revert to behaving as it once did. That would be both naïve and potentially dangerous for the UK and Europe. Future administrations will have to manage an America in which Trump has uncorked base populist nationalism in the way that Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Georgia Meloni seek to do in Europe. That will not easily go away.
Trump has already applied America’s military might in its action in Venezuela and in the seizing of ships on the high seas. He threatens Greenland and has provoked the possibly of a trade war with the UK and Europe.
Washington has been sabre rattling about Cuba. It may be next for America’s attention. Mexico is on its radar. Trump has made no secret of his designs on Canada and Panama.
Meaningless sovereignty
There is no predictability and little consistency now in our dealings with Washington DC.
The UK and Europe find it hard to understand the consequences of the new world Trump is creating. Raw use of American power may render the sovereignty of the UK and EU states fundamentally meaningless. So, the UK must decide what it wants the future to look like. It has three obvious options. Accept American authority over the UK; try to make its post-Brexit isolation work, a policy that has so far failed; or commit to Europe and the EU economically, militarily and politically.
Writing in The Scotsman in December, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said.
“Europe today is a haven for free men and women, for decent values and the politics of partnership and cooperation. All that must be made secure, so Europe is safe from the modern jackboot.”
The modern Western world was built on partnership and cooperation. The lead actor in that was the US. We all must hope America steps back from its current course.
A version of this article was first published in The Scotsman on 20 January 2026
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