There are leaders who govern with speeches. Others, with decrees. Donald Trump governs with a very concrete idea of power: he who commands decides and the rest adapt. That is why his foreign policy is not a succession of whims, but the reappearance of an old imperial logic that many believed overcome: the Monroe Doctrine.
There's no need to cite it. He applies it. America for Americans and, outside that perimeter, relations based on force, not rules. Multilateralism is bothersome because it forces negotiation; treaties are a hindrance because they limit; allies are tiresome because they ask questions. Trump prefers a world without referees, where economic and military might replaces international law
The United States' withdrawal from global bodies and agreements is not driven by ideological impulse, but by a clear strategy: to eliminate common frameworks in order to negotiate from a position of superiority. Fewer rules, more room to maneuver. Fewer commitments, more imposition. The result is not order, but global uncertainty.
The Monroe Doctrine was born in 1823 as a warning to Europe. Over time, it became a license to intervene in Latin America. Today it returns updated: America as a zone of direct influence, Europe as a subordinate partner, Africa as a space for dispute, and Asia as a containment front against China. It is not international cooperation; it is backyard geopolitics.
In that scheme, the European Union ceases to be a strategic ally and becomes an inconvenient actor. Environmental regulation, labor rights, data protection, or taxation of multinationals clash with a vision where the market rules and the state hinders. When Trump threatens tariffs, abandons agreements, or demands automatic alignment, the message is clear: they are not allies, they are part of the sceneryBut the European problem is not only external. It is also internal. The EU faces a structural weakness: the rise of far-right parties that not only question the European project but would unreservedly align themselves with Trump. They do not hide it. They admire his style, reproduce his rhetoric, and adopt his worldview
These parties wrap themselves in national flags while renouncing real sovereignty, which today can only be exercised collectively. They criticize Brussels, but they would accept a fragmented and dependent Europe without batting an eye, perfect for being negotiated country by country from Washington.
Trump's logic doesn't stay at home. The growing harshness in immigration policy and the increasingly aggressive use of state force convey the same idea: authority is not debated, it is imposed.
Europe continues to react with polite statements. Trump understands something that the EU still resists accepting: divided, we are negotiable. And even more so when some of its own political forces actively work towards that division
The dilemma is simple and brutal. Either Europe accepts the cost of becoming a global player or it faces its progressive irrelevance in a world that is once again organizing itself into spheres of influence.
Because in the new global order there is an unwritten, but very clear rule: whoever does not define their space, ends up being the space of others.