The first year of Trump's second term has shown - if any further proof were needed - that the days when allies could count on the US to maintain world order are over. In the 1980s since the end of World War II, every American president, with the partial exception of Donald Trump during his first term, has been at least somewhat committed to protecting a group of close allies, deterring aggression, supporting freedom of navigation and trade, and upholding international institutions, rules, and laws.
American presidents have been far from consistent in pursuing these goals, but all have accepted the basic premise that the world is a safer and better place, including for Americans, if the United States devotes significant resources to achieving these goals. In Trump’s second term, that is no longer the case.
Trump’s rejection of traditional American foreign policy has profound implications for the evolving world order and for all countries that have relied so heavily on the United States for decades. Because the reality is that they have no clear Plan B. Many of Washington’s closest friends are unprepared to deal with a world in which they can no longer count on the United States to protect them, let alone a world in which it becomes an adversary.
They are grudgingly beginning to acknowledge the extent to which the world is changing, and they know they must prepare. But years of dependency, deep internal and regional divisions, and a preference for spending money on social needs rather than defense have left them with no realistic short-term options.
For now, most of the US’s allies are simply buying time, trying to retain as much support from Washington as possible while they consider what to do next. They flatter Trump with flattering praise, give him gifts, throw lavish events in his honor, promise to spend more on defense, accept unbalanced trade deals, promise (but do not necessarily make) massive investments in the United States, and insist that their alliances with the United States remain viable. And they do so in the hope that after Trump’s first term, he can once again be replaced by a president more committed to maintaining Washington’s traditional global role.
However, their thinking is wishful thinking. Trump will remain in office for another three years, which is more than enough time for the alliance system to deteriorate further or for adversaries to take advantage of the vacuum the United States has left. Those who believe in alliances, global rules, norms, and institutions, and in the American interest in maintaining partnerships, can hope that Trump’s approach will not be long-lasting and act accordingly. But that may be unwise.
Trump represents and shapes the American attitude to foreign policy. A generation of failed interventions abroad, rising budget deficits, mounting debt, and a desire to focus on domestic affairs have made Americans across the political spectrum more reluctant to shoulder the burden of global leadership than they have been since before World War II. America’s allies may not have a Plan B right now, but they had better start developing one quickly.
Buying Time
During Trump’s first term, the United States’ commitment to supporting its network of global alliances has bent but not broken. This was partly because Trump was new to the job, more cautious (at least in his actions), and not quite ready to revolutionize U.S. foreign policy, but also because he had appointed mostly traditional foreign and defense policy advocates to his administration. All of his top foreign policy advisers shared the belief that the United States should be active on the global stage and that the country was benefiting significantly from the political, security, and economic system that had been in place since the 1940s.
Despite his “America First” platform and his own more radical instincts, Trump spent much of his first term hesitant to take steps that would threaten U.S. global leadership. For example, he considered withdrawing U.S. troops from Germany, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, and Syria, but never did so—often over the resistance of his top advisers.
The second Trump administration is different. This time, the so-called globalists are out of the game, and the president is surrounded by people who see most of America’s foreign engagements as a burden. Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard all served in the U.S. military in Iraq and emerged from those experiences with a deep dislike for American foreign policy elites and America’s foreign engagements. When he was in the Senate, Marco Rubio, now national security adviser and secretary of state, was a strong advocate of confronting Russia, protecting human rights, and providing foreign aid.
Today, however, he seems to have suppressed those beliefs in order to remain relevant and to retain the trust of Trump and his MAGA supporters. Simply put, the current administration’s worldview seems to be much more heavily influenced by Trump’s long-held beliefs: alliances are an unnecessary burden, autocracies are easier to work with than democracies, the open trade system is unfair, the United States can defend itself well enough without the help of other countries, and great powers should have the right to dominate their smaller neighbors—and even to acquire new territories when it’s in their interest. The postwar world, built largely around democratic allies who rely on the United States for security and defense, no longer exists.
This mindset is most clearly expressed in the administration’s approach to Europe and NATO. While previous presidents have expressed strong support for NATO’s Article 5, which states that an armed attack on one member will be considered an attack on all, Trump has implied that the guarantee only applies if allies “pay their bills.” - that is, they contribute more to collective defense.
Early in his second term, Trump expressed his intention to take control of Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark. He even hinted that the United States could do so by force, raising the prospect of the United States using its military not to defend a NATO member but to attack one.
Vance is even more skeptical about the traditional role of the United States in European security. In 2022, he said that he "really doesn't care what happens to Ukraine." In February 2025, Vance told an audience at the Munich Security Conference that he was more worried about threats "from within" Europe than those posed by China or Russia. Later that month, he said that Denmark "is not a good ally." and suggested that Trump might "take a greater territorial interest in Greenland" because "he doesn't care what the Europeans are screaming at us". And in a Signal chat with senior administration officials in March, Vance complained that "we're saving Europe again".
US policy in the administration's first year in office reflects these views. Trump has accepted Russian accounts of the war in Ukraine, provided no direct military aid to Kiev beyond what was already planned, and refused to offer Ukraine meaningful security guarantees. When Russia launched drones into Poland in September 2025, Trump downplayed it as a possible mistake, and when Russia violated the airspace of Romania and Estonia that same month, the US largely refrained from a military response to NATO. The Trump administration has also announced that it will stop providing military aid to countries bordering Russia. In October, it began withdrawing some of the additional troops the Biden administration sent to help defend Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
America’s Asian partners also have plenty to worry about. For more than a decade, Washington has touted its intention to “pivot to Asia,” but now the United States’ priority appears to be its homeland and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s first national defense strategy, released in 2018, focused on countering Russia and China. The Biden administration’s strategy saw China as the “primary challenge” to the United States—the primary threat against which the U.S. military must adapt and shape itself. But officials in the second Trump administration appear to be questioning that priority and are instead focusing on border security, counternarcotics, and national missile defense, as well as greater burden-sharing among U.S. allies.
Trump has largely maintained the US’s web of military partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, but allies there worry that he could subordinate support for their security interests to his desire to improve relations – and, possibly, strike a major trade deal – with China. During his first term, Trump made US security commitments to Japan and South Korea conditional on them being willing to pay more for their own defence, even though the US maintained defence treaties with both countries. Trump has also halted US arms sales to Taiwan and restricted diplomatic contacts with the country, denied the Taiwanese president permission to transit through the US on his way to Latin America and has begun allowing China to buy more advanced semiconductors, apparently to forge a successful partnership with Xi Jinping.
While US President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that the US would help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, Trump has remained neutral. And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick went so far as to suggest that the United States would defend Taiwan only if Taipei agreed to move half of its advanced chip manufacturing facilities to the United States. It is not hard to imagine that Trump would refuse to defend U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific in the event of a conflict.
Trump also seems reluctant to spend American resources on maintaining order in the U.S.-led Middle East. Of course, he is a staunch supporter of Israel, and in September issued an executive order granting Qatar a formal defense obligation. But Trump is more concerned with not getting drawn into war than with protecting U.S. partners, fighting terrorism, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, and protecting national security interests. He clearly values his relationships with Gulf leaders, but that doesn’t mean he will defend them any more than he did in 2019, when he did nothing after Iran attacked a major Saudi oil refinery and tankers off the coast of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump has historically been inclined to support his allies with military force only when the risk of escalation, especially with great powers, was low. During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, for example, Trump launched strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites only after Israel had destroyed Iran’s air defenses and its ability to retaliate.
He also authorized airstrikes in Yemen, but then backed down when costs began to mount and it became clear that the Europeans were the primary beneficiaries of the operation. In September, the US military began destroying boats it says are transporting drugs from Venezuela, a country that has no way of meaningfully retaliating against the US. And Trump’s willingness to risk confrontation with a larger power is extremely limited, as demonstrated by his reluctance to confront Russia over Ukraine.
Standing with the US
Although the risk of US withdrawal – heralded by the first Trump administration – has been growing for years, most US allies have never really prepared for it. European defence spending has increased modestly since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, but progress in developing a "European pillar" within NATO that would allow European armed forces to act more independently of the US has been minimal. While France has long called for "strategic autonomy" In Europe, other countries on the continent have dismissed the idea as unnecessary or too costly.
US partners in Asia and the Middle East have also spent the past decade focusing much more on maintaining their alliances with the US than on supplementing or replacing them - a sensible decision, given the considerable resources and political will needed to develop alternatives to US leadership. But now, faced with the risk of the US abandoning its leadership role or refusing to protect its partners, they have no good options.
So far, during Trump's second term, most US allies and partners have continued to cling to US support, sometimes desperately.
NATO members, for example, did their best to appease Trump by agreeing to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035—a significant achievement, even if it was achieved through financial trickery. (Infrastructure spending is included in that 5%). Many leaders have tried to flatter Trump to keep him on board. The best example of this approach is NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who in June sent Trump a flattering letter praising his diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and praising him for getting European countries to increase their defense spending.
"Europe will pay a lot, as it should, and that will be your victory," Rutte wrote. Similarly, during their first meetings with Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said he would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung told Trump that he was "the only person who can make progress" toward peace between North and South Korea.
Allies have also used economic agreements to try to keep the United States committed to their security. Japan, South Korea, and the European Union have agreed to unfavorable trade agreements with Washington in which they accepted significant increases in U.S. tariffs and committed to massive investments in the U.S. economy and purchases of U.S. energy exports or military goods. These agreements were drawn up partly to avoid a trade war, but they were also motivated by concerns that a serious trade dispute with the United States could undermine the close security partnership with Washington on which all these allies depend.
As EU Council President Antonio Costa acknowledged in September, "escalating tensions with a key ally over tariffs while our eastern border is under threat would be unwisely risky". Any prospect of the EU opposing US tariffs - as China has done - has been undermined by "fears that Trump will cut off arms supplies to Ukraine, withdraw troops from Europe or even leave NATO", as the Financial Times wrote.
Similarly, in the Middle East, Gulf states have sought to maintain Trump's interest in their security with flattery and promises to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US. Qatar even gifted Trump a plane for personal use, signed a vague $1.2 trillion “economic exchange” agreement, and helped Trump in his efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, for which he was rewarded in September 2025 with a promise from the United States to treat an attack on Qatar as a threat.
Flattery won’t get you anywhere
U.S. allies cannot be blamed for trying to appease Trump. They have few good alternatives to relying on the United States for their security and prosperity. But they should have no illusions: Trump is transactional, defines national interests narrowly, and is loyal only to himself. Flattering speeches and eye-catching promises of investment may help to secure positive meetings or theoretical agreements, but they are unlikely to guarantee lasting support.
Indeed, it is no longer difficult to imagine a world in which former allies see the United States not only as unreliable but also as unpopular and even hostile. Trust in the United States has collapsed. According to a survey of people in 24 countries published by the Pew Research Center in June last year, large majorities in most of the countries surveyed said they "do not trust" Trump to "do the right thing in world affairs." At the start of Trump's second term, the new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said it was clear that Washington was "largely indifferent to the fate of Europe." It is not hard to imagine other world leaders reaching similar conclusions about how the United States perceives their regions.
For now, many of the United States’ allies feel threatened by China and Russia, making it unlikely that they will go so far as to align with Beijing or Moscow to balance U.S. influence. And most Asian and European partners are unlikely to join alternative geopolitical groupings like the BRICS—a ten-nation bloc named after the first five of its members, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—because of their differences with those countries and their desire to avoid a major crisis with Washington. But the “America First” strategy, taken to its logical extreme, could force U.S. allies to distance themselves from the country to a degree that would have been virtually unthinkable in the past 80 years.
Alternatives to dependence on the United States pose serious challenges, but U.S. partners may have no choice but to pursue them. Many are already developing more independent and capable armed forces, increasing defense spending, and beginning to integrate with other partners. The EU, for example, has a number of initiatives that will increase defense spending and military integration by 2030, and Japan has committed to increasing its defense spending to 2 percent of GDP by March 2026.
If managed well, such efforts could lead to more balanced and equitable partnerships with the United States. But they are unlikely to make Asia and Europe more secure. There is nothing that U.S. allies can realistically do in the short term to compensate for the loss of a credible U.S. defense commitment. And if the United States is less willing to defend its allies, those allies may be less willing to help the United States. Not long ago, numerous partners in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East were willing to send their troops to fight and die alongside U.S. troops out of loyalty to Washington. But those days may be over.
Greater self-reliance is likely to lead allies to develop defense industries that are less dependent on the United States. As they spend their more limited resources on defense, EU members have agreed that key categories of funding can only be spent within the EU (or in certain partner countries, such as Norway, but not in the United States).
Germany plans to spend most of its roughly $95 billion in arms purchases in Europe, with only 8 percent of that going to U.S. suppliers. And it is no coincidence that Denmark, outraged by Trump’s threats against Greenland, decided in September 2025 to make its largest military purchase to date—more than $9 billion for air defense systems—from European rather than American companies.
Some allies may try to develop their own nuclear weapons. More than 70% of South Koreans want their government to acquire a nuclear bomb, according to a survey published in 2024 by Gallup Korea. Although a majority of people in Japan oppose nuclear weapons, more and more of them are becoming open to the idea of their country developing its own.
In Europe, doubts about the expanded US deterrence have prompted Merz to raise the issue of the possibility of France and the UK supplementing the US nuclear shield. In March, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that "Poland should strive for the most advanced capabilities, including nuclear and modern unconventional weapons".
And in September, just after Israel launched airstrikes on Qatar—an attack that the United States failed to prevent—Saudi Arabia signed a defense agreement with Pakistan. Pakistan said that under the agreement, it could provide its nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia if necessary.
Replacing U.S. nuclear defenses would be politically difficult, technologically challenging, and extremely expensive. It might even prove ineffective at deterring adversaries, because small nuclear powers outside the United States would be outmatched by the much larger arsenals of China and Russia, the most likely aggressors. But over time, America’s partners will have to consider the possibility that they will need their own nuclear forces because the United States will refuse to defend them.
The erosion of American leadership and credibility will also have serious consequences for the global economic order. For the most part, America’s allies in Asia and Europe have chosen to accept unilateral trade agreements rather than join forces against the United States, but their calculations may change. When Trump, during his first term, withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a major U.S.-led trade bloc created in part to counter China—Australia, Canada, and Japan remained in the pact. A few years later, many of the same countries joined China in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, now the world’s largest free trade agreement—and in which the United States is not a member. The less America's partners rely on the United States for security, the easier it is for them to work with each other or with other great powers to counterbalance what they see as hostile economic policies coming from Washington.
As the old order crumbles, the world may become a more dangerous place. And even if allies come up with a Plan B, they may not be able to deal with the increased aggression on their own. This is not the first “America First” policy imposed on them. In the early decades of the 20th century, many in Washington adopted a similar approach, based on high tariffs, an aversion to alliance commitments and foreign wars, and a desire to appease rather than confront autocratic powers. The results paved the way for global aggression in the 1930s. Without Washington’s support, America’s allies were powerless to do anything about it.
No one wants to see the end of the US-led alliance system, which, for all its weaknesses, costs, and imbalances, has served Washington and its partners well for generations. But no one should count on it continuing. The second Trump administration is not committed to defending this system, and there is no guarantee that the next president will be.
None of this means that cooperation with Washington will be impossible. The United States will remain an important, if perhaps a much more transactional, partner in the years ahead. But it does mean that allies can no longer count on the United States to devote significant resources to their defense or to the world order. Allies’ Plan A should be to do everything in their power to preserve as much practical cooperation as possible. But it would be dangerous and irresponsible not to have a Plan B.