BONUS: America's Shifting Alliances

0:01President Trump has shaken up America's global alliances with policy reversals and moves toward realignments that are being felt around the world. I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. So how are other world leaders, as well as thought leaders, making sense of these big changes? I'm Michelle Martin, and this is a special bonus episode of Up First from NPR News. A major shock has been President Trump's tilt toward Russia and its war on Ukraine. First of all, he's not an isolationist. He's an ardent nationalist and much more comfortable with autocratic leaders than with leaders of liberal democracies.

0:40What does that mean for future relations between the U.S. and its Democratic allies? It has so many implications that they're almost hard to think through. Stay with us. We've got news you need to make sense of it in this special bonus episode of Up First from NPR News.

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1:48This message comes from Rince, who knows that greatness takes time. So does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up that Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or the daunting beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to rinse. Rinse. It's time to be great. After years of U.S. policies aimed at isolating Russia, the Trump administration is working with Russia to try to make a deal to end the war.

2:26Critics say Trump is appeasing Putin, even that Trump has forged a new alliance with Putin. During a heated meeting in the White House with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump says that's not true. I'm not aligned with Putin. I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. Europeans and others are worried because what happens in Ukraine could have broader implications. So what do the shifting alliances mean for America and its role in the world? Trump is saying, I don't care anymore about alliances. I'm not interested in your opinions.

2:58I'm going to do a deal with this dictator over your head. That's Anne Applebaum, a staff writer for The Atlantic, talking about Trump's recent posturing towards Russia. She says Russia is a threat not only to Ukraine, but also to Europe. And that's a message that is heard not just in every European capital, but in every allied capital around the planet as a sign that the U.S. is changing. My co-host Leila Faddle spoke with her about the significance of the shift. OK, so if the U.S. says I don't care about alliances anymore, What does that mean for U.S. and global stability? It has so many implications that they're almost hard to think through.

3:32There are economic implications. You know, what happens to our trade relationships with Europe and with Asia? What about the U.S. companies that have enjoyed special favor in those markets? You know, U.S. defense companies, but also U.S. nuclear power companies, other kinds of big utility companies that have been welcomed by those countries. because as a way of expressing their fealty to the United States? What happens to a series of trade agreements that have created easy and regular trade between all around the world? What happens to all kinds of treaties on, not just treaties on commerce, but treaties on the laws of war?

4:10All these things that have governed U.S. behavior and allied behavior all over the world for 80 years now disappear. We also heard from Stephen Walt, a foreign policy expert at Harvard. He's concerned about the kinds of world leaders Trump seems comfortable with. First of all, he's not an isolationist. He's an ardent nationalist and much more comfortable with autocratic leaders than with leaders of liberal democracies. It's, you know, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. And I think in Trump's mind, a perfect world would be one where powerful leaders can get together and cut deals and then impose them on others without paying too much attention to the rule of law.

4:55Like Applebaum, Walt is concerned that this positioning should shake up how Democratic allies view the U.S. If the United States is no longer a reliable ally, if it actually seems to be hostile to liberal democracy in Europe, then I think we're going to find that the countries we've been counting on in the past to support us on many international initiatives are going to be much less willing to do so. But Walt has been critical of U.S. foreign policy and what he views as an overcommitment to allies and the expansion of NATO without clear benefits to the U.S. So how does he think the U.S. should realign with allies?

5:30Well, there's no question Europe should be more responsible for its own defense and the United States should be shifting its attention and resources elsewhere. I think I agree with that. But that should be done in a responsible, cooperative way and it should be done gradually over a period of five to ten years because Europe is going to need some time to develop its own security institutions, build up its forces. We should be moving in that direction, but we should be doing that by treating them as our allies so that 10 years from now, we still have a good relationship with Europe and we can count on their diplomatic support and count on cooperating with them when unexpected events happen.

6:11Trump appears to be burning up the alliance. My co-host Steve Inskeep asked Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security advisor in the first Trump administration, if the president has already upended the world order and switched sides. No, I don't think so, Steve. I think President Trump is doing is acknowledging that 80 years on, the reason that some of the structures were put in place after World War II, which was actually largely to prevent another inter-Europe war, that those circumstances are no longer in place. You know, a war between Germany and France is not our number one national security problem.

6:45Neither is Europe. So what does she make of the president's approach to Russia's war in Ukraine? There's been no diplomacy to proceed to a conclusion of the war. We've had a lot of maximalist rhetoric. We've had a lot of displays of support for Ukraine and declarations that Ukraine is a democracy and this is an existential threat to the West. But we've also had hundreds of thousands dead and a lot of destruction. And as I said, no progress. So I think he is trying to change that paradigm. And in terms of how allies might be interpreting shifts in approach, Coates says visits to Washington from several European leaders, Prime Minister Keir Starmer from the U.K., President Emmanuel Macron of France, and President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine tell a different story.

7:30So that hardly looks to me like, you know, a Washington that is rejecting Europe. Another European leader who came to Washington is EU foreign policy chief Kaya Kalas. My colleague A. Martinez spoke with her and started by asking about what President Trump said at his first cabinet meeting as he threatens 25 percent tariffs against the EU. The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That's the purpose of it. And they've done a good job of it, but now I'm president. European Union was formed so that there wouldn't be any wars in Europe anymore. And we have been succeeding with the members of European Union that we don't have wars between ourselves.

8:08But the United States has always been our ally and friend. So I don't know where this talk comes from. A.S. Kallis about her hopes for Ukraine. What the Americans are explaining is that when you have economic ties with the country, then it's also in your interest to work for the security of this country. You know, it's clear that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. So it's clear that we need to have very, very concrete security guarantees for Ukraine. And the strongest security guarantee that there is is the NATO membership. President Trump, however, has said this about membership.

8:48But I can tell you that NATO you could forget about. But for Kalas, NATO membership doesn't just benefit Ukraine. She says Ukraine has one of the strongest armies at the moment. So to have a strong NATO, that would mean having Ukraine as a member. Do you think that Americans are taking the Russian threat seriously enough? Well, it's clear that we need to really explain how important this is also to America. I mean, if we don't get Russia right, we don't get China right either. And it's clear that Iran, Russia, North Korea, and more covertly China are working together to establish a new world order where might makes right.

9:32And that is dangerous to everybody, including the United States. So that's why it's not only Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity that is at stake, but it's a much, much broader fight between the autocracies and the democracies of the world. Leila Fado spoke with Winston Lord, a former U.S. ambassador to China, who was a close aide to the late foreign policymaker Henry Kissinger. Lorde is the only surviving American witness of a landmark meeting in 1972 between President Richard Nixon and China's leader Mao Zedong. Now, those who are apologists for Trump say, well, maybe what he's trying to do is a reverse Nixon-Kissinger, namely to pry Moscow away from Beijing when they've gotten closer and closer.

10:17But what does Lorde think about this moment of closer ties between the U.S., Russia and China? Leila asked. I think Trump has done more damage to America's position in the world, not even mentioning what he's doing to our democracy at home, in one month than decades of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Just take what's going to happen in Asia if this continues. China and North Korea are delighted at what's going on. If he can sell out Ukraine, he could easily sell out Taiwan. Your historic trip with Nixon to Beijing changed the fate of Taiwan. Will what's happening today under the Trump administration fundamentally change the U.S.

10:59approach? So it is premature to conclude conclusively what it's going to do about China and Taiwan. And so it would be interesting to see how Trump's instinct to suck up the dictators with people like Xi and to forget about commitments and just worry about our own transactional economic interests comes up against the hawks in the administration. But I must say that given the fact that he's made comments on Taiwan taking advantage of us, making the point they're far away, they ought to do more for their own defense, I'd be apprehensive if I were in Taiwan. How are other U.S. allies in Asia viewing these shifts in longstanding American foreign policy?

11:46With astonishment, and they're appalled. If this trend continues, no one can depend on the United States under Trump to come to their defense. There could be a real drift toward either accommodating China because they don't have America as a deterrent, or going after their own nuclear weapons. It's a disaster for Asia as well as Europe. These are just some of the perspectives we've been hearing about how U.S. foreign policy is shifting under the Trump administration.

12:18And that's it for this bonus episode of Up First. We'll keep following this closely here at Up First and on Morning Edition, so keep listening for more news and analysis. This episode was edited by Lisa Thompson, Arazu Rezvani, Rina Advani, and Olivia Hampton. It was produced by Claire Murashima, Nia Dumas, Chris Thomas, and Paige Waterhouse, with additional production from Adam Bearn, Milton Guevara, and Ana Perez. And don't forget, Up First airs on the weekend, too. Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon have the news. It will be here in this feed or wherever you get your podcasts.

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