We used to think the map was straightforward.
Friends were liberal democracies. Enemies were authoritarian rivals. Values and interests broadly aligned, even if trade rows flared from time to time.
Under Donald Trump, that alignment has shifted, because the friend–enemy divide is no longer driven only by geopolitics. It is also driven by ideology and by the sort of politics he rewards.
On raw power, some things remain constant. China is the principal strategic competitor because of its economic scale and military reach. Russia still collides with NATO’s security architecture. Iran opposes US influence in its region. Those realities do not depend on personality.
Yet the loudest quarrels often involve allies.
Trump’s governing instinct is executive heavy and impatient with institutional restraint. He pushes against courts, challenges media legitimacy and tests federal authority. Liberal democracies are built around those restraints. When you treat constraint as obstruction, you end up arguing with the countries that treat rules as non-negotiable rather than optional.
Consider Canada. It is not a threat to US power. It shares a border and defence commitments with the United States. But it also operates within binding trade agreements and domestic legal limits. When Washington demands rapid concessions, Ottawa cannot simply override its own system. What follows looks like defiance, but it is often just process doing its job.
Now add the part that is plainly ideological. Trump does not merely clash with liberal governments abroad. He amplifies movements that are trying to weaken liberal constraints at home. He gives oxygen to European populist insurgents who campaign against supranational governance, independent institutions, and the rules-based order itself. That is not neutral diplomacy. It is taking sides in other democracies’ internal arguments, and it inevitably poisons relations with the mainstream governments those movements are trying to displace.
In that light, friction with core European partners is not just about trade or burden sharing. It is about legitimacy. Liberal governments see a US president backing forces that treat courts, regulators and independent journalism as enemies. They hear the message: the alliance is conditional, the rules are optional, and the people shouting loudest get rewarded.
By contrast, more centralised systems can move quickly because internal veto points are weaker. Leader to leader negotiation becomes more direct. That does not turn adversaries into friends, but it changes the texture of engagement, which can create a dangerous illusion that the relationship is healthier than it is.
The consequences are practical.
American strength depends on predictable alliances. When partners begin to doubt predictability, they hedge. The language of strategic autonomy stops being theoretical. Procurement decisions start to shift, intelligence cooperation becomes more cautious. None of this requires a treaty to collapse. It requires uncertainty to become normal.
Uncertainty weakens deterrence. If allied trust declines, coordinated pressure on China becomes harder to sustain and NATO’s credibility looks less automatic. Rivals do not need to win a battle if they can encourage a slow, quiet unravelling of the coalition that would otherwise oppose them.
The difficulty is that America’s geopolitical advantage still rests on liberal democracies. They extend its reach and anchor its influence. Yet those same governments embody the institutional limits that executive-heavy populism resents, and Trump’s habit of boosting the European versions of that populism makes the strain worse, not better.
When ideological comfort diverges from strategic necessity, the friend and enemy map no longer aligns cleanly. The result is not immediate rupture. It is gradual loosening. And gradual loosening is how stability erodes.
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