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As recently as November 2025, it seemed that US partner governments’ worst fears about a second Trump presidency had not materialized.

Western governments have been able to point out that Ukraine is still in the fight and receiving support from Washington; that NATO is still functioning and receiving the occasional favourable comment from President Trump; And that China policy – while erratic – has not represented a complete reversal.

Even the economic relationship has managed to avoid all-out trade war. Tariffs actually collected have been significantly lower than numbers publicly assessed, and significant rollbacks have occurred quietly, not least on Italian pasta. In Brussels and other allied capitals, a rhythm, however distasteful, of managing Washington had begun to emerge – along with an acceptance that such management and acquiescence is what the times require. But the new year’s developments must challenge the idea that a rhythm can be maintained.

The attack in Caracas and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro was the most dramatic incident. But it followed other developments that highlight the extent of change the US administration is seeking in the global order – and within the societies of its closest partners.

On Christmas Eve, Washington shocked Brussels, and diplomats the world over, by sanctioning a former EU Commissioner for his leadership while in office on the EU’s Digital Services Act. France’s Thierry Breton, alongside two private EU citizens and two British citizens, were given travel bans as what Marco Rubio called ‘leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex’. This is, to say the least, an unusual way to describe fellow democracies’ internal legal systems.

Before that, the administration’s new National Security Strategy warned of ‘civilizational erasure’ in Europe, elevating 2025’s culture war to a central tenet of US foreign policy.

There will be a steady stream of such challenges in the weeks ahead, as the Trump administration seeks to consolidate gains and excite its base before the midterms.

Allies, especially but not only Atlantic ones, must understand that on economic and cultural issues they cannot carve out distance from US domestic policy. Even as the president works to loosen the US security relationship with Europe, his team is seeking to pull European markets and politics closer to the MAGA model.  

High stakes

Against this backdrop, the stakes for US allies over Washington’s decision to remove President Maduro by force are very high indeed.

It has been widely assumed that the EU opted to soft-pedal its concerns in hopes of preventing a more open rift with Trump over Ukraine – as negotiations on a peace plan enter yet another round.

But major NATO allies could not bring themselves to question the strikes’ legality, or to demand the installation of the civilian Venezuelan government whose election they had previously recognized.

These are not points that are relevant only for the United Nations or for the future of international law. Europe’s own sovereignty is affected: In addition to threatening Cuba, Iran and Mexico, Trump and his team were commenting about the American future of Greenland – an autonomous territory of NATO member Denmark – within hours of the Caracas strikes.  

Some NATO countries have pushed back on this relatively quickly: on 5 January, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated that Greenland’s future should be decided by Greenland and Denmark, while France and Germany’s foreign ministers have made similar comments. The lack of institutional response from the EU or NATO, though, will confirm Washington’s sense of their irrelevance.

But Trump’s threat to European sovereignty is not only territorial.

Cultural and social aims

Washington’s focus on its view of free speech – and the associated opportunities for US tech firms – will only increase in the new year. Combined with the likelihood of yet more turbulence on trade and tariffs, the UK, Europe and every other society that seeks to maintain its own sovereign balance between profit and privacy will face very difficult choices in 2026.

A team of Chatham House researchers visited European capitals in 2024 to explore European perceptions of the transatlantic relationship. We observed that, although governments had thought extensively about the security and economic challenges they might face from a second Trump administration, they either ignored the cultural and social aims of Trump’s team – or assumed that right-of-centre voices in their own societies would be able to build effective partnerships.

But this administration has been consistent, from Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security conference in early 2025, to language in the new National Security Strategy. 

Its goal is not only to shift the burden of paying for Europe’s defence onto NATO partners. It is also to empower and partner with Europeans who share its focus on Eurocentric culture, conservative Christianity, and traditional social values.