Built with doubt and worry: NATO in the second Trump presidency
Declaring that NATO is on the cusp of dying is premature. It is far from moribund. However, while the Alliance will likely persist, this does not mean that it has a clean slate of health.
September 26, 2025 -
Alexander Lanoszka
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AnalysisIssue 5 2025Magazine
When leaders from across NATO met in Washington last year to celebrate the Alliance’s 75th anniversary at its annual summit, a nervous energy was in the air. Then US President Joe Biden had recently delivered a disastrous performance in his presidential debate with his rival Donald Trump. For many observers, the future of the transatlantic relationship had become clouded in dark uncertainty. With Ukraine on the back foot against Russia and worries lingering over the pace and scale of European rearmament, would the Alliance survive yet another four years of populist tumult coming from the White House?
Shortly after that NATO summit, Biden renounced his bid for re-election, paving the way for his vice president, Kamala Harris, to lose decisively to Trump in November. As president-elect, Trump wasted little time in provoking discord within the Alliance. He spoke openly of grabbing Greenland from Denmark, all while mocking Canada’s political sovereignty and territorial integrity. He promised, and would later impose, large and sweeping tariffs on his countries’ closest trading partners, including Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Whatever constraints there had been on Trump during his first time in office were now gone. Worse, the officials surrounding him echoed his rhetoric in a manner largely unseen before, with Vice President JD Vance launching vitriol against European allies at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. The first four weeks of Trump’s restored presidency was a bad omen.
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NATO, Transatl, transatlantic relations, Trump Administration 
