But international law needs Trump. His approach poses an existential threat not just to global agreements such as the Paris climate accord but to the European Union, the world’s biggest factory for international legislation. Every year the EU produces more than 2,000 directives, acts, regulations and other legal documents guiding the economic and societal lives of its 27 member countries.
In an American-dominated world where the rule of law doesn’t matter, the EU’s legislative machine could quickly become a quaint anachronism. The first week of 2026 has once again exposed the paralysis and powerlessness of Europe’s leadership to respond to an American president who proudly boasts the only thing that can stop him is his own sense of “morality.”
“It’s a very important moment,” said one diplomat from a European country, granted anonymity, like others, to speak freely. “There had been a tendency in European media to make fun of Trump and his people and present them as stupid and sometimes even as madmen. I think that’s wrong. They’re highly capable.”
But their mission, this diplomat said, is clear: to do whatever is necessary to advance the interests of the U.S. and the Trump administration. The White House doesn’t care about being a good ally to Europe, and is more than prepared to criticize, threaten, bully and perhaps attack the old continent. “This cannot be a surprise,” the diplomat said.
The Ukraine of it all
But nearly a year into Trump’s second term, European leaders and officials have never formally debated America’s new distance from its previously close allies at a strategic level. “That has to be discussed,” the same diplomat said. “The reason why we have not had a full-blown discussion on it is because of Ukraine.”
And here is the core of the tension paralyzing Europe’s response. Just as Europe still depends on NATO for its security, despite pledging repeatedly to stand on its own feet, it desperately needs American support to deliver an acceptable truce in Ukraine.