All action corresponds to a reaction in the opposite and of equal force. Physical law translates these days into another geopolitical. The Donald Trump’s aggressiveness in the international arena Against its traditional allies is receiving a opposite response, an unpublished diplomatic departure from the fall of the steel curtain and the end of the cold war. It is a still embryonic process, but that is relocating the pieces of the world board.
One of the most palmary cases is that of Canada. The faithful ally of the United States, a rich country of 50 million inhabitants, has broken the ties that linked to its southern neighbor. President Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, have insulted To his prime minister and frightened to the country, insinuating that he would soon become one more state in the United States. But, above all, he has imposed 25%draconian tariffs. The Ottawa reaction has consisted of an explicit departure from the United States and an approach to Europe.
The words of their successive leaders account for the Copernican turn. “From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the peninsula of Coreafrom the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandaharwe fight and die by his side, ”said the former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau About the United States. He recalled that they had been with the United States “in their darkest hours”, for example during the Iranian hostage crisis, in which they worked “without rest for 444 days” so that “their innocent compatriots could return home.” Or in the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged his great city of New Orleansand when they recently sent Canadians to fight forest fires in California. “Also on September 11, 2001, when we offered shelter to passengers and stranded airplanes. We always followed there, next to you, crying with you. Together, we have built the most successful economic, military and security association that the world has ever met. A relationship that is the envy of the world. We have had our differences in the past, but we have always found a way to overcome them,” Trudeau concluded in an emotional discourse sentimental
The witness took his successor, the also liberal Mark Carney. “The historic relationship with the United States, based on an increasingly profound integration of our economies and a close military and security cooperation, It’s over”Said Prime Minister.
As soon as I swear, Carney took a plane and traveled to Europe. Another symbol of rupture: tradition sent that it should first go to Washington. In his meeting with the president Emmanuel Macron In Paris, the Canadian premier defined Canada as the most European country in non -European countries. Now, with its nationalist message against humiliation perpetrated by the United States, the Liberal Party has gone from 20% to more than 50% in surveys. The conservative, who was destined to win before Trump, has collapsed by his contemporization with Washington.
“It is clear that the United States allies can no longer rely on shared values and cooperation history as guarantor of their alliance,” explains El Periódico from Washington Jeremy Shapirodirector of the ECFR Thought Center in the United States. “They are clearly looking for their dependence on the United States and diversify both your economic and security relationship. It is a long -term process, but it has already begun. ”
Goodbye Europe
Something similar has happened with the United Kingdom, Germany or even Poland. The relationship began to cloud with them even before Trump arrived at the White House. His lieutenant, billionaire Elon Musk, used his speaker in X to insult the British and German leaders, whom he described as “Tyrannical” and “incompetent”.
Already released his mandate, vice president JD Vance traveled in February to the German city of Munich to attack against Europawhich he falsely described as a Place full of electoral manipulation and censorship. To the person in charge of the Security Forum that welcomed him, he ended up jumping his tears, in view of the damage to the transatlantic relationship.
But perhaps the moment that finished changing everything was Trump’s surprise call to President Vladimir Putin. The American aligned with Russian on the worst war on European soil since World War II. He bordered Europe in the resolution of the Ukraine conflict. What was happening? Was completely rotates the transatlantic relationship built during the previous 85 years?
“The one who was the leader of the western world since 1945 and the safety guarantor of Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, the leader of the economic world represented in the G7, has renounced that leadership,” he says in conversation with this newspaper from Brussels Ignacio Molinaprincipal researcher at the Royal Institute Elcano. “If you use your hegemony to subordinate their allies, aggressively, the other countries take note and prepare. They begin to think about how to achieve the security that the United States no longer guarantees and article 5 of NATO. Medium powers such as Canada or the United Kingdom look towards Europe.”
EU independence
The European Union, meanwhile, seeks its independence from the United States. That word has been used by the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merzand by the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. Brussels has launched a financing plan for member countries to increase their military power, and reinforce the so -called NATO European Pilar. But countries have also reactivated their diplomacy. Pedro Sánchez has been this Friday in China, trying to have a bridge between Beijing and Brussels on economic issues, in the middle of the global tariff war launched by Trump.
The United Kingdom, led by the Labor Keir Starmer, continues to try to make bridge between Brussels and Washington, but clearly emerges towards Europe. The movement is even more significant if it is taken into account that it is part of the global espionage system known as The “Five Eyes” (The Five Eyes): United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
They have been held a multitude of summits of countries interested in creating their own security front without the United States. There have been meetings in London, Paris or Madrid who have attended Europeans, Canadians and even Australians. In Madrid he met on March 31 The Weimar+ O G5+ Group (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain and the EU) to talk about the future of Ukraine and the defense of the old continent.
Realineration in Asia-Pacific
Something also begins to move in the Far East, but there the situation is more complicated.
On March 30, China, South Korea and Japan agreed to strengthen commercial cooperation between the three countries, amid the growing worldwide protection promoted from Washington. Chinese media came to say that they had a joint plan to face Trump’s tariffs, something that was nuanced from Seoul and denied to Tokyo.
But that did not take relevance to the meeting. The three countries have a historical confrontation since World War II, in which Japan martyred Asia, and in the Korea War later, in which China supported the north in its war even without settling with the south. South Korea has about 30,000 American soldiers to guarantee their safety against the Pyongyang regime. Japan is within the western axis for all purposes. In 2023 it was announced that the Atlantic Alliance was studying to create a link office in Japan, the first of this type in Asia.
Now, with Trump in command, that historical balance is in question. The ban for a global diplomatic realignment of still uncertain results has been opened.
