For centuries, Europe has come to rely on the United States for diplomacy, economic partnership, and friendship. But Trump has betrayed the alliance. From tariff threats to restricted military aid to Ukraine, Europe has been forced to strategically pivot as trust in the U.S. plummets.
Tim Mak, international journalist, joins Jen from Brussels to analyze the shifting international order and the European sentiment of disappointment towards America. Mak touches on new alliances forming within and outside of Europe, including Canada building partnerships with China. It seems as though Trump’s foreign policy hinges on the fact that Trump only thinks he’s winning if others are losing.
Tim Mak is an international journalist and the founder of Counteroffensive.News — a Kyiv-based publication that uses human interest stories to relay the news of the war in Ukraine. Their journalism tells the personal stories of individuals threatened by authoritarianism.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. Where in the world is Tim Mak? He’s actually in Brussels. Welcome, Tim.
Tim Mak
Hey there, it’s good to see you again.
Jen Rubin
Good to see you too. What are you doing in Brussels?
Tim Mak
I run a news publication with two people who work in Brussels, so I’m popping in, briefing people on defense technology, briefing people about what the latest happenings are in Ukraine. As you can imagine, there’s always a lot of translating and conveying of new information.
Jen Rubin
What are the Europeans saying about Trump’s, really bizarre, foray into threats to Denmark, his overall posture internationally? Talk to us a little bit about the transformation in the way Europe is thinking of itself, and talking to one another, and acting to form alliances without the United States.
Tim Mak
Well, look, Europe, for a long time, has taken the American friendship as a given, right? Much in the same way that Canadians have taken their relationship with their southern neighbor as a given, that the United States would be a friend, a trading partner, an ally. That they could rely on, not only for economic ties, but also diplomatic and friendship. Just basic… Understanding. And, and, friendship involves not insulting your, your neighbors, gratuitously, and, and, and, in a vicious way, in the same way, I don’t know if you followed Donald Trump’s comments about how European partners had not really shouldered the load in Afghanistan. Of course, European countries, particularly those that have lost a lot of their soldiers, find that to be an outrageous insult to their war dead.
In general, it’s not just a matter of the threats, it’s a reshuffling of the entire world that’s taking place over the last few months. I think the Europeans understand that this isn’t something that is just a Trump phenomenon. the Europeans, a lot of European officials that I’ve spoken to, believe that the Trump phenomenon is a harbinger of what’s to come next. A conservative, Republican Party that is hostile to Europe in general, whether Trump or J.D. Vance or whoever else is leading it is leading that party. And that’s why we’ve seen so much effort in Europe to build up new industrial capacity for military arms, to build up militaries, and to create new alliances.
Someone told me, someone quipped to me, this week that national security in Europe is about the coalition of the beer drinkers against the coalitions of the wine drinkers, right? So you have the Nordics and the Baltics, the Poles, the Ukrainians, all lined up, understanding very seriously the Russian threat. And then you have those a little further away, the Spanish, the French, the Italians, the wine drinkers, a little less urgent in their push to develop their militaries and new technologies, drone technologies, artillery, things like that. but you are seeing those Nordic, Baltic countries, Poland, Ukraine, all investing heavily, because they realize, in some sense, that the United States is not going to be coming To their substantial aid in the future, or at least they can’t… strategically plan for that. They need to plan for the outcome that the United States will not be supportive. And this is one of those things where you know, like I say, it’s not a four-year plan, it’s not a, let’s just ride it out until Trump is gone and see what happens next. The bet has to be on a much more hostile, America towards Europe. And that’s obviously an upending of all the things that we’ve been, we’ve been told about the world since World War II.
Jen Rubin
This is very reminiscent of what Biden liked to say when he talked about America being bad. And the Europeans would ask him for how long? And it seems that they have figured out that they cannot be at the mercy of the four-year electoral cycle, that even if they get a, quote, good president from their standpoint, that may swing back in another four years. So they can’t go through this knee-jerk reaction, this wild swing from friendship to animosity. They have to kind of fend for themselves. In addition to making, a stronger military, what else suggests that they are beginning to separate themselves from the United States and make inter-connections among the other European partners?
Tim Mak
Well, Europe has decided not only to make connections among themselves, but also to expand trade with countries like Brazil and Canada. The big controversy here is whether Canada and Europe will deepen their relationships with China. The United States is, at the same time, incentivizing them both to be closer with China while threatening them about it, right? That Trump is threatening Canada, for example, and saying, if you get deeper economic ties with China, I will punish you more. Which is, by the way, a great is a great reason to seek deeper economic ties with China. I mean, if your supposed ally and next-door neighbor is threatening you. you’re gonna want to push back against that.
Europe is likely feeling a very similar way. You know, and this is what illustrates the real limits of Trump’s bullying tactics. Trump’s tactics and bullying and leverage, they’re all based on friendship over… that’s been developed over the course of generations, over decades of… long-term relationships. He’s whittling that down while making the same amounts of demands. So even as his leverage is decreasing and decreasing and decreasing with every single bullying, taunt, and insult, he’s making the same requirements. And so his leverage is decreasing as he makes the same requirements. And as we’ve seen, his word, when people make economic deals. with Trump. All it takes is one news story, one late-night tweet for him to reverse himself.
It’s led to a lot of instability and a lot of mistrust, and I would say the view from Europe isn’t hostility, it’s… deep, deep disappointment, deep… Yes. A sense that they don’t recognize. And even I, as an American, who’s been living abroad for the last few years, I don’t recognize what is happening in the United States.
I mean, I see the things, you know, I see, generally speaking, some of the same news stories that you see, but not being in the United States, it feels like some weird alternate reality that I’ve stepped into.
Jen Rubin
I know what you mean. Every time I am overseas, I feel that as well. The irony is that for decades, presence of both powers were maneuvering to make alliances stronger, to box out China. That’s what TPP was about, making alliances in the Far East. We had been really in vain against Europe for years not to get in bed with China, and instead to make alliances on everything from intellectual property to trade to global warming, and now that’s been entirely undone. Trump says he’s very anti-China, but all of these moves wind up empowering China as China grows closer to these allies, and we pull away. Is there any recognition, about, the, you know, sort of, really, stupidity, the counter productiveness of this, among the American diplomats and business people that you talk to who are overseas?
Tim Mak
Well, I think it’s obvious to everyone but the White House that this is having the natural effect of driving away traditional allies and pushing them towards…really the only other country that has the kind of size and economic scale, that could in some ways replace the American market, or the, or as a supplier of goods and services. So, there’s only so much that the Canadians can sell to Europe or that Europeans can sell to Canada. And so, where else to look around the world for partners? China is there.
Now, I’m among those, and I think you are too, Jen, that are quite hostile to the idea of Chinese Chinese growth and power on the world stage. But even as I am hostile to that, I understand why these countries might see nowhere else to turn, and… The point of having a global strategy diplomatically, from a national security standpoint, is to be able to coordinate the competing demands of the government, and make our friends closer, and make our enemies less competitive. the national strategy, the national security strategy that you and I have talked about in the past, the White House put together, is an ideological document that, that in many ways drives away our friends, and then doesn’t set out a very, very serious or strategic view on how to contain or limit our adversaries.
And that’s where we’re standing right now, is we’ve in some sick way, we’ve succeeded, or the White House has succeeded in doing that. In that Europe doesn’t… doesn’t, want to trust the United States right now. And frankly, you can’t blame them, given the wild ups and downs that the Trump White House has put them through.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Two of the things I want to touch on. First of all, Ukraine, of course. How is the, in some ways, the independence, a little bit more self-confidence, the growth of the defense industry in Europe. impact Ukraine. And second, I want to talk to you about the abject corruption of this administration, and how that is affecting our international alliances, and really the willingness to do business with a government that more and more resembles some kind of tin-pot dictator and kleptocracy. So let’s talk about Ukraine first. Does the enhanced European cooperation and resilience help Ukraine? Does it, fully replace the United States? And where does Ukraine stand now, vis-a-vis 6 months ago, or when the Trump administration took power?
Tim Mak
Well, you know, if you had asked me a year ago—and I think we did talk about this a year ago—I would have said that the Europeans were unlikely to be able to make up that gap. I’ve been proven wrong by that. The Kiel Institute, which studies the supplies of military and social aid being provided to Ukraine by Europeans and the United States, has shown that even as the United States has turned off the spigot, the Europeans have really stepped up and provided, about as much aid as was previously being provided by the United States.
So that’s a really, encouraging sign that Europe understands its responsibilities there. Now, of course. Europe, can provide monies, but it still lacks some of the unique capabilities of the United States. The United States, for example, is one of the world’s prime producers of anti-air defense assets, things that shoot down these drones and missiles that are flying over Ukraine on a nightly basis. That’s something that is still pretty much the exclusive domain of the United States, but in large part, we’ve seen intelligence sharing expanding between France and Ukraine, between the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
And this is the irony. We talked a bit about how, Trump’s demands remain the same, even as he slowly whittles away his own leverage. He decided first to stop the aid, then to make demands of Ukraine. So, he first gave up all of his leverage, and then decided to demand that Ukraine do what he wants. As time goes on, he has less and less to hold over Ukraine as the Europeans step up, provide intelligence. Ukrainians still have an incentive not to fully alienate. Donald Trump. But Donald Trump has less power today to order Ukraine around than he did a year ago. And if that’s not bad negotiating, then I don’t know what is. So that is really the absurdity of the White House’s negotiating style is to give Ukraine, or firstly, to, halt all of its support for Ukraine, thus eliminating its leverage, than to give Russia whatever it wants without providing substantive reasons for Russia to change its behavior, then to demand both sides come to the negotiating table. Gosh, I mean, I can’t think of a more backward way to approach that.
Jen Rubin
Oh, that’s good for Ukraine, at least for now. So let’s end on the kleptocracy front. It used to be that the United States, worked with allies, and in particular in developing countries, to have an anti-corruption policy. This was bad. We wanted markets to operate. We didn’t want a world that operated on bribery and suck-upery. and, that drained finances away from, useful public goods. Now we are part of the problem. How does Europe view this? And how do European businesses view this, that now are trying to compete with companies that are literally buying access and buying crypto, from this president?
Tim Mak
Well, you know, we have, we have a law in the United States called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and, Last year, around this time, in February 2025, the United States said that it would not be systematically enforcing that act anymore, and this is a law that, you know, among other things, as I understand it, prohibits American companies from going abroad and paying bribes and engaging in a sort of thing that we would never view as acceptable here. And that was a… that’s a big signal about, the way, America will view not only how it expects American companies to work in the world, but also how it expects foreign companies to operate in the United States. What is within the bounds of acceptable business behavior. and it’s… it’s a real shock that this is going to be a country less based on role of law and more based on, in some strange way, the Chinese ways of doing business, the pay-to-play, the… Yes. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours type of mentality, and that people pay to have the inside track, you know, for various types of government actions. That is something that is, deeply, deeply concerning to me, and deeply concerning, I think, to a lot of Europeans.
Jen Rubin: Absolutely.
Tim Mak: You’ll remember, you know, we talk a lot about Ukraine, but you’ll remember that, last year there was this whole debate over critical minerals in Ukraine, and the Trump White House demanding that Ukraine hand over the rights to its critical minerals. That was an early taste of what the Trump 2.0 era was going to be. That it would be about, that it would be about exploitation and extraction, as opposed to building partnerships and collaborating. It doesn’t feel to me that the Trump White House really understands that there’s such a thing as a win-win. That they see the world as a zero-sum environment, where we’re not winning unless other people are losing, and we are gonna crush everyone else, and that’s how we know we’re succeeding. Of course, that’s not how.
Jen Rubin: Very nice.
Tim Mak: economies work, that’s not how sustainable businesses work, that’s not how we grow as societies. And so it’s a very troublesome and dark view of… How human beings ought to operate with one another.
Jen Rubin: I think that is a… superb insight, which explains a lot of why Trump fails internationally, and why he fails domestically as well, the inability to crush opposition, particularly when the opposition is your own people, your own allies. And I would just say this, our own businesses liked the Corrupt Practices Act, because they could tell other powers, we can’t bribe you, it’s illegal. And now those other regimes can say, oh no, you guys gotta pay off Like everybody else! So, the market is open, the bazaar is open, they better come with their, dollars, because these people now have the expectation that American companies will pay the freight. And the irony of all this is that it hurts American businesses. But Donald Trump doesn’t see that way, because he wants the bribes, he wants the crypto investment, he wants the Qatari jets, he wants all of this, and that’s the world in which we live currently. Well, enjoy your time in Brussels. I will be overseas very briefly, next week, and I, am always of a mixed mind when I am in Europe. On one hand, it is a relief, as I’m sure you feel, to know that there are functioning democracies, that the values that you and I have held exist someplace. On the other hand, it’s very distressing to see that America is not part of that right now, and that we are going to have to rely on Europe as the bastion of the free world for the foreseeable future.
Tim Mak
Well, I would just encourage you not to give up on America yet. That Trump’s support and Trump’s time in office is limited, and he’s deeply unpopular. And I think that that is a reflection on just how far afield Trump has gone from his mandate from the American people, and that the broad public really, really does not like what they’re seeing right now, and really wants to return To the kind of democratic stability that we would otherwise have under a more normal president.
Jen Rubin
Turns out being a good guy is also good for America. Thank you so much, Tim. We always enjoy seeing you and hearing from you. Safe travels, and we will talk to you soon.
Tim Mak
Great to see you.
Jen Rubin
Take care. Bye-bye.
