Behind Trump’s talk of “love and unity” in Ankara lies a deeper story — an America that treats its allies as debtors, and a Europe too afraid of responsibility to walk away
Some political scenes don’t call for analysis, but for diagnosis. The NATO summit in Ankara, at least based on what we’ve been able to read so far, was precisely such a scene. US President Donald Trump first publicly humiliates allies, threatens Spain with a trade cutoff, once again talks about Greenland as a piece of real estate he likes, declares Iran a group of “sick people,” and then walks out of a closed room and says there was “a lot of love” and “a lot of unity” in there.
That’s no longer diplomacy. That’s marriage counseling after which the therapist secretly calls the police. Except not in this case, because, to make the tragedy greater, the abuser is the chief of police.
The relationship between the United States and Europe has long had the elements of a bad marriage, but now it has turned into something darker: a violent, manipulative, and sad marriage in which the husband first smashes the table, then says he did it all out of love, while the wife explains to the neighbors that he’s actually under stress and “works a lot.” Europe, that great civilizational widow of its own history, has for decades accepted the role of a partner who knows she’s being humiliated but hopes the abuser will cool off by morning.
The problem is that the abuser isn’t cooling off. He’s only learning how far he can go.
Trump’s attack on Spain isn’t an isolated incident, but a symptom. Madrid is, to him, a “terrible partner” because it doesn’t want to take part in a war with Iran. Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, can talk about sovereignty as much as he wants, but in Trump’s geopolitical grammar, the sovereignty of small and medium powers exists only as long as it doesn’t bother Washington. Spanish Health Minister Mónica García called this confusing diplomacy with bullying. That might be the most accurate sentence of the entire summit. The Spanish are among the few who will call things by their real name — in Europe at this moment, perhaps even the only ones.
And then comes Greenland, the icy litmus test of the American imperial imagination. Trump talks about it as if it were a parcel of land he simply must have. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, just keeps repeating that “Greenland is not for sale,” and can only hope that statement means anything to Trump.
But Trump didn’t invent American arrogance. He merely stripped it bare. The United States has known before how to treat allies as younger relatives who should be grateful just to be allowed to sit at the table. The difference is that earlier American presidents mostly understood the value of form. They knew an empire lasts longer when community is performed. Trump has declared that performance unnecessary. He doesn’t imagine the alliance as an alliance, but as a debt. And debt, of course, gets collected.
The European tragedy is that Europe knows this. Europe isn’t some naive girl from the provinces arriving in the big city for the first time. It’s the old continent, a museum of its own catastrophes and wars that taught humanity how thin civilization is. And yet, faced with American humiliations, it often acts as if it has no alternative. Mark Rutte, the Dutch politician and NATO Secretary General, praises the very president who is smashing the alliance’s stage set. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, says he “didn’t hear” the objections behind closed doors. Everyone behaves as if the most important thing is that lunch continues, even if the guest has meanwhile set the kitchen on fire.
This brings us to the most uncomfortable question. Why does Europe put up with it?
One answer is: because it’s weak. Another: because it’s used to it. A third, perhaps the worst: because in that weakness it still finds some benefit. A victim of abuse sometimes has nowhere to go. Sometimes it also delays leaving for too long, because freedom would mean taking on responsibility, and responsibility is sometimes more costly than humiliation. Europe would, in theory, like strategic autonomy. In practice it often wants the American umbrella without the American rain.
NATO, of course, is a more serious matter than a metaphor. Its Article 5, collective defense of one ally as the defense of all, has been activated only once, after the attack on the US on September 11, 2001. Europe didn’t ask back then whether America was being polite — it stood by its side. Today Europe is expected to be grateful even while being insulted. That’s the phase of a bad marriage in which shared history is used as blackmail.
But there’s an even darker scenario. Perhaps the American husband doesn’t just plan to humiliate his wife, but to sacrifice her. Because Europe is useful as long as it can buy American weapons, keep Russian pressure far from American shores, absorb the consequences of Middle Eastern crises, and pretend that China’s rise is a problem that can be solved with a press statement. If the continent exhausts itself with wars, energy crises, migration, and industrial decline, Washington won’t necessarily shed a tear. Great powers rarely mourn their allies. They only mourn them if they turned out to be a bad investment.
And what will Europe do with its “children,” its unruly and dependent periphery? Will it one day lead them into adulthood, teach them that security isn’t the same thing as obedience, or will it hand them over to a strict father to discipline them summarily? That question isn’t poetic. It’s deeply political. A continent that doesn’t know what to do with its edges doesn’t know where its center is either.
That’s why the story from Ankara isn’t comic, even though it has grotesque elements. It’s tragic because everyone sees what’s happening, and everyone pretends it’s just passing nervousness. Trump says there was love. Europe smiles. NATO announces unity. And somewhere under the table are broken glasses, and no one wants to sweep them up.
We can’t, unfortunately, choose our parents. Not our geopolitical fathers, not our imperial guardians, not the history that assigned us awkward family ties. But we can choose the moment we stop believing their explanations. Until then, Europe may not have much left. It can stay silent. It can pay. It can hope the abuser will change his nature. As for us, unable to distance ourselves from either side, and not yet independent enough to change them, all we can do is feel ashamed.
About the Author
Mario Hoffmann is an independent analyst and writer covering global economics, geopolitics, and international affairs. With a background in history and politics, he writes for EconoPuls to provide in-depth context on the stories shaping our world.
