Trump’s chaotic, spite-filled policies on trade and aid have led traditional allies to look elsewhere and form stronger ties among themselves.
The New York Times reports that traditional allies like Japan, Britain, Canada, France, and others are working more closely together as they look to build an alliance system without the United States. These new alliances are already yielding results. Canada, Britain, and the EU just made a $170 billion defense deal. Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Norway just placed significant sanctions on two far-right Israeli Cabinet members. The deals made in recent weeks demonstrate the erosion of U.S. diplomatic legitimacy that Trump’s shirking of traditional Western order has caused—a troubling message, as the G7 summit is just days away.
“These are countries that share the broad policy goal of predictable, rules-based international affairs—obviously a goal that is no longer shared by the Trump administration,” Peterson Institute for International Economics senior fellow Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, told the Times. “America first means America first,” he added, “even if it means America more alone.”
G7 organizers have planned various meetings without the United States, as Trump will arrive at the summit at odds on trade and tariffs with essentially every other leader there. “Should we, in some ways, talk about a G6-plus-one?” Kirkegaard said.
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