Gli Stati Uniti ora sono il nemico dell’Occidente

Today, not only are autocracies increasingly confident. The US is moving to their side. That is the lesson of the last two weeks. Freedom is not in as much danger as it was in 1942. Yet the dangers are very real.

Three events stand out. The first was a speech on February 12 by Donald Trump’s secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Nato in which he told the Europeans that they were now on their own. America was now principally concerned with its own borders and China. In sum: “Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of Nato. As part of this Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.”

The second was a speech by JD Vance, vice-president of the US, at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 in which he declared that “what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America”. An example he gave of such a threat was that “the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election”. To this one might respond that Europeans know better than Americans what happens when the enemies of freedom come to power through elections. But they also know that his boss, Trump himself, sought to annul the outcome of the presidential election four years ago. “Pots”, “kettles” and “black” come to mind.

The third and most revealing event is the negotiation over the future of Ukraine. Hegseth had of course already accepted Putin’s most important conditions by declaring that Ukraine’s borders would not be re-established and it could not join Nato. But this was just the beginning. The negotiations have been conducted between the US and Russia over the heads of the Europeans, even though the latter have been ordered to make any deal secure, and, outrageously, of Ukraine itself, whose people have borne the brunt of Vladimir Putin’s three years of aggression. Yet now, insists the US, Russia was not the aggressor. On the contrary, Ukraine started the war. To underline the split from Europe, the US voted for a resolution in the UN Security Council alongside Russia and China, while France, the UK and other Europeans abstained. The “west” is dead.

Trump also declared that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a “dictator”, a term he does not use for Putin, who is one. His justification for this abuse is that Ukraine’s president had not held elections. How, one wonders, were elections to be held in the middle of a war, with substantial parts of the country under a brutal occupation?

All too characteristically, Trump has also proposed a property deal. According to Zelenskyy, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s original proposal demanded 50 per cent of the rights to the country’s rare earth and critical minerals in exchange for past military assistance, and did not contain any offers of future assistance.

Arguably, for Trump, “dictator” may be a term of commendation, not condemnation. Again, for him, owning a valuable asset in another country might be the only reason to protect it. Even so, demanding a vast sum from a poor country that has been the victim of an unprovoked aggression is outrageous, particularly when Ukraine must rebuild. It is worse that the value of US demands was some four times its assistance. Moreover, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker, Europeans provided more assistance than the US, which made just 31 per cent of total bilateral commitments and 41 per cent of military commitments to Ukraine between January 2022 and December 2024. Yet where are they in these negotiations? Nowhere. Trump is deciding for Ukraine and Europe, on his own. (See charts.)

In all, the US has spent just 0.19 per cent of GDP on military assistance for Ukraine. This is trivial, particularly in comparison with the cost of its previous wars. In return, it has gained the humiliation of what was once thought to be a powerful enemy and the vindication of the ideals of liberal democracy, for which Ukrainians are fighting and the US once fought.

These past two weeks then have made two things clear. The first is that the US has decided to abandon the role in the world it assumed during the second world war. With Trump back in the White House, it has decided instead to become just another great power, indifferent to anything but its short-term interests, especially its material interests. This leaves the causes it upheld in limbo, including the rights of small countries and democracy itself. This also fits with what is happening inside the US, where the state created by the New Deal and the law-governed society created by the constitution are both in danger of destruction.

In response, Europe will either rise to the occasion or disintegrate. Europeans will need to create far stronger co-operation embedded in a robust framework of liberal and democratic norms. If they do not, they will be picked to pieces by the world’s great powers. They must start by saving Ukraine from Putin’s malevolence.

It’s not the US, it’s the trump administration.

It’s another schism. MAGAs think they are making Caesar, but they have instead became Byzantine, turning their focus from the west to the east, just as their ideology aligned more with the eastern empire now. Geography is destiny. Europe especially English nations like Canada better watch out for another Justinian’s terrible conquest, which completely shattered the Roman identity, just as Hitler’s extreme nationalism had doomed Germanic race for centuries to come. How could any proper nationalist support annexing killing their own people is always beyond me.

What’s with liberals in Europe having an obsession with turning everyone into enemies?? The fact that Trump is telling Europe to spend more on defense is hardly something you’d hear from an enemy.

From here it looks like the USA is the enemy of the USA.

It’s like they put themselves into “wilderness therapy”.

“Hey, let’s try to empathize with Ruzzians by turning our country into Ruzzia”

Yes they are. How did this happen… never give power to idiots in large numbers. Hope sane people will remember to vote when midterm elections comes up.

There seems to be a bit of an illusion among many Europeans these days that this development started with Trump, it did not. It started much earlier, when the US moved their focus to the Pacific.

In fact, the Biden administration that is always praised for their transatlantic support introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, which was an incredibly hostile act from the European perspective and did a lot of damage to the European economies.

The new quality of Trump 2.0 is not the tilt to the Pacific or even “America first” – Biden continued American protectionism and didn’t reduce any tariffs that Trump 1.0 had introduced – it’s seeking alliances with Europe’s enemies, namely Russia.

Trump-US wants to move Russia away from China’s orbit, especially for all the natural resources that the country offers, and is willing to throw Europe under the bus in the process.

The new quality is the move from rival (“partner” on paper) to adversary. Europe can not and will not leave this unanswered.

It’s a correct assesment, with the emphasis on “the west”. We shouldn’t look at this as Europe vs the USSR, we should look at it as Europe + Canada + S-Korea + Japan vs the USSR, it’s just that the USSR has gotten very big now.

I remember as a kid believing all the movies and history that the US was this country of great people who believed in freedom and the betterment of humanity.

Growing up and seeing the truth has been the greatest hoax. The mass bombings and undermining of other countries causing genocides just to what, get oil at a slightly cheaper price?

Invasion after invasion and not one really justified like wtf were they doing in Vietnam? Preventing Communism from reaching America?

10k dead soldiers for absolutely nothing the Vietnamese weren’t exactly getting on boats to invade the USA.

Prison camps for ALL Japanese people during WW2.

Torturing prisoners in Cuba and elsewhere even though it’s been shown to have little to no effect 🤷🏻‍♂️.

Siding with dictators the last few years.

America has never been a real ally and it’s beginning to show, we were just convenient and now their superiority complex will destroy them but not until they’ve done some serious damage around the world

I hate what became of this sub. Constant propaganda and accusations. Since when are opinion articles major news?

US citizen here. You should not trust us until we’ve killed or imprisoned all the Nazi traitors. It’s going to be awhile. Sorry.

Logically, USA & Russia should ally to dismember Europe.

This fucking thong underwear is in a twist & needs to be pullled out, fucking fast.

This reeks of propaganda. The enemy of the west? Not by a long shot. I’m no Trump fan, but let’s put this into perspective. Comparatively- China could really be considered “the” enemy of the west. China- a dictatorial regime, horrible on human rights, highly manipulates it’s currency to put western manufacturing out of business, sides with Russia, allies with Russia, protects North Korea, causes trouble in Asia and surrounding oceans, is the world’s #1 polluter despite all the talk of going green, supported Russia behind the scenes in the war with Ukraine: “70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics Russia imports come from China. Trade between China and Russia reached a record $240bn (£191bn) in 2023, up more than 64% since 2021.” Also, China is rapidly deforesting vast swathes of hardwood forest in Russia now with Putin’s permission.

What west?

Have to hand it to Trump – if/when he ends the war he will say in a year’s time he played Putin and Putin now owes him (presumably for the negotiated land that will go to Russia) and he will get a mineral deal with Ukraine that enables US companies to extract/drill on a 50/50 basis. Win/win after getting in to government and having to deal with a previous administration that just threw money at Ukraine without any guarantees for payback that Europe had

Any European countries want to adopt some good but scared Canadians?