The Accidental Trumpification of NATO
If Donald Trump returns to power in 2025, he will find a world starkly different from the one he tried to construct while president. All hopes of normalizing relations with Russia have been obliterated in the slaughter of Ukraine. China is more powerful than ever. Iran is closer to acquiring nuclear weapons. And Kim Jong Un is still behaving like Kim Jong Un.
But, in a narrow yet important sense, the world has become more Trumpian since he left office. The NATO that met in Madrid this past week to agree on a new strategy to defend the West has started to resemble the kind of organization Trump and his wing of the Republican Party said they always wanted.
NATO’s European members are paying more for their own European in its outlook and positioning, and, for the first time, it is explicitly focused on America’s great-power rivalry with China. Trump is not primarily responsible for these changes—for that he can thank Vladimir Putin—but they nevertheless signal an important moment for the West, as Europe moves to more closely align itself with American domestic political concerns. Europe’s shift is part of a bid to protect the status quo that has existed since NATO’s founding, but which is now threatened both by Russia’s aggression and by the U.S.’s growing focus on its great-power rival in the 21st century: China.
