Since Donald Trump returned to power, they have been parading in the Oval Office to plead, reassure, and flatter. Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, whose courtship earned him the nickname “Trump’s whisperer.” And yet, nothing works. The sudden announcement on May 1 of the withdrawal of 5,000 American soldiers within a year out of the 40,000 stationed in Germany dealt a new blow to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A mocking comment from a European diplomat in Washington: “Flattery doesn’t always solve the problems.” Ambassadors stationed in the United States have long felt that their chancelleries struggled to understand what was really happening in the Trump administration. At each setback, they had a Pavlovian reflex to believe that everything would return to normal. “This time, we don’t need to explain to them anymore,” hopes the diplomat.
Moreover, one of the few constants with Trump is his persistent grudge against Europeans accused of “abusing” the American umbrella within NATO. His frustration dates back to at least the 1980s when he took out advertisements in several newspapers criticizing the aid.
