On Jan. 29, Bryan Lanza, a longtime adviser to President Trump, issued a stark warning to a group of German manufacturers. He told them that the president is a “sledgehammer.” You either work with him, or you get hit, according to Karl Haeusgen, president of V.D.M.A, Germany’s Mechanical Engineering Industry Association, who was there.
Mr. Lanza was warning the Germans not to sell hydraulics, which can be used for hospital beds as well as missile launchers, to China. It was no small ask. Germany’s economy, already shaky without Russian gas, could suffer further if Beijing stops buying its stuff.
But it was the aggressive tone of Mr. Lanza’s remarks that stunned many in the room that day. Was this just tough love from the United States, they wondered, to prod Europeans to do more against a common threat? Or had the Americans become the threat?
It was one of a number of meetings with American officials in recent weeks that have had Europeans re-evaluating their relationship with their most important ally. Indeed, Europeans are waking up to the fact that they are entirely dependent on a foreign power that is no longer acting like itself. America, which once championed the liberal democratic world order, is now turning against it in ways that are shocking to its allies.
The Trump administration isn’t just demanding that allies pay more for their own military defense. It is threatening to incite a trade war that could make raising money for that purpose more difficult. The administration is championing illiberal, pro-Russian political parties across Europe that could undermine the European project from within. And it’s striking a conciliatory tone toward Russia and setting up meetings about Ukraine’s fate without including Washington’s closest European allies.
It reminds me of the 1993 horror film “Body Snatchers,” when the protagonists slowly realize that the people they love have been replaced by monstrous doubles. Part of the panic comes from not knowing who can be trusted, and realizing how exposed you can be when an ally becomes an aggressor.
Consider how Ukraine, the strongest voice in Europe for fighting for its democratic way of life, must feel. It depends on American weapons and Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite network, for survival.
Even before Mr. Trump was re-elected, about a third of the people in Germany, Italy and Britain already considered the United States a “threat to peace and security in Europe,” according to a survey released last week by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is affiliated with Germany’s Social Democratic Party.
Those numbers are bound to rise as the Trump administration’s open contempt for longtime allies comes more fully into view. Many Americans want to retreat from the world, but their leaders still feel entitled to be the boss of it. More than half of Republicans and nearly half of Democrats said they either didn’t know which part of the world the United States should focus on — or they wanted no focus at all on anything outside their own borders, according to the survey. Conditions are ripe for Europe to be abandoned or shaken down for protection payments.
It must be surreal to imagine betrayal by a longtime ally that has been the foundation for one’s entire security infrastructure. Peter Boehm, a Canadian senator, told me he was struck by the shock expressed by Europeans as they were hit with what Canadians have been dealing with for two months.
At the Munich Security Conference, one of the world’s most prominent annual meetings of elected officials and military brass, some searched for signs of a grand strategy at work. They told themselves that Americans were focused on China, so Europe must play a bigger role in defending itself, which is true. Others surmised that Mr. Trump was trying to peel Vladimir Putin away from China, like Richard Nixon peeled China away from Russia in the 1970s. But as the conference went on, it looked more as if Russia was peeling Americans away from their allies.
As the full force of what is happening in Washington seeped in, questions began piling up: If Mr. Trump is really gearing up to compete with China, why would he eviscerate the U.S. Agency for International Development, an essential tool of American soft power influence around the world? Or fire thousands of the scientists needed keep the United States competitive? Or attack the institutions of higher education that Americans need to stay ahead? Or refer to half of his own population as the enemy within? Or threaten good neighbors while making nice with China’s no-limits friend? Or hand over so much power to Mr. Musk, who has deep business interests in China?
Could it be that this American president had decided not to bother battling autocracies, opting to cut deals with them instead — if you can’t beat them, join them?
A clarifying moment came when Vice President JD Vance’s much-anticipated speech at the conference focused not on how the alliance can push back against Chinese and Russian aggression, but on the way that European governments like Sweden and Britain were making life too difficult for Christian conservatives and the far right.
It’s true that voters across Europe are increasingly casting ballots for far-right, pro-Russian, authoritarian-leaning parties, and that mainstream politicians have yet to come up with a good response. In an era of TikTok, Russia doesn’t have to go to war to take over Europe. Mr. Putin can simply fund far-right politicians and promote social media accounts, and seek to topple governments without firing a shot. It’s as if the Trojan horse has arrived and Mr. Vance is commanding Europe’s liberal democracies to open the gate.
The fragility of democratic decision-making has never been more clear. No matter how forcefully Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany pushed back against Mr. Vance’s speech — insisting that Germany will support Ukraine until the end — German voters could make a liar out of him in Sunday’s elections for his office, just like American voters made a liar out of former President Joe Biden, who vowed Americans would back Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
At a dinner packed with foreign ministers and a table full of Ukrainian soldiers in uniform, Kellyanne Conway, a senior counselor to Mr. Trump during his first term, said the president sincerely wants to end the war and understands that Ukraine needs real security. In meetings, Mr. Vance and other American officials reportedly sought to convey the message that Americans were still a safe pair of hands.
But the truth is that nobody really knows what American and Russian officials discussed behind closed doors this week. It has been generations since Europe felt so naked and exposed. It was President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — a leader who says he can’t hold an election because his country is in the middle of an existential war — who spoke with clarity in Munich last week about what Europe’s democracies need: an army of their own. Europeans must be strong, because the man who is threatening them respects only strength.
That’s how people used to talk about Mr. Putin. This time, they’re saying it about Mr. Trump.
