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News Analysis
President Trump is already showing signs of concern that his targets may team up against him.
David E. Sanger, who has covered six presidencies, writes often on the revival of superpower conflict, the subject of his latest book.
April 1, 2025Updated 1:43 p.m. ET
The incoming German chancellor, more convinced than ever that the defense and trade relationship with Washington is crumbling, has made plans to execute on his goal of “independence from the U.S.A.”
He’s not the only one.
The new Canadian prime minister said last week that “the old relationship we had with the United States” — the tightest of military and economic partnerships — is now “over.” Poland’s president is musing publicly about getting nuclear weapons. And the new leader of Greenland, host to American air bases since World War II, reacted to the uninvited visit of a high-level American delegation with indignation.
“President Trump says that the United States ‘will get Greenland,’” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on social media. “Let me be clear: The United States will not get it. We do not belong to anyone else. We decide our own future.”
These are the results so far of President Trump’s threats to abandon NATO allies whose contributions he judges insufficient, his declaration that the European Union was designed “to screw” the United States and his efforts to expand the United States’ land mass. The main reaction is resistance all around. Now, into this maelstrom of threats, alienation and recriminations, President Trump is expected to announce his “Liberation Day” tariffs on Wednesday.
The details of the tariffs are still unclear, which is one reason the markets are so on edge. Political leaders are on edge as well, because Mr. Trump has made clear that the tariffs will fall on adversaries like China as well as nations that, until recently, were considered America’s closest defense and intelligence allies.
Trump administration officials do not dwell on the price that will be paid by consumers, nor on the effects that the inevitable retaliation will have on American farmers. But just as curiously, the administration has not described any cost-benefit analysis of the president’s actions, such as whether the revenue gained is worth the damage done to America’s central alliances.
