Published February 17, 2025
Statements and speeches last week from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth have been treated as the end of the world by the transatlantic politico-military establishment. That is not quite right, but it’s fair to say that it is a clear statement that the United States-Europe relationship must fundamentally change if it is to endure.
The proper way to think about the words is to analogize them to a marriage. One partner, after years of growing frustration, finally tells the other that things must change or they’re out.
That puts the onus on the other partner to decide: do they want a renewed relationship that changes to meet the other partner’s needs?
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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
