World

With Donald Trump becoming more erratic and lashing out at the traditional allies of the US, plans are afoot by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to create a separate version of the organization beyond the American president's reach.

According to the Wall Street Journal's Bojan Pancevski and Daniel Michaels, European officials are advancing informal plans for what some are calling "European NATO," a parallel structure that would give Europeans greater command-and-control authority and supplement U.S. military assets with their own capabilities.

The plans represent a massive shift in European strategic thinking now that Germany has ceased resisting French calls for greater European defense sovereignty, preferring American military guarantees. That calculus has fundamentally changed under German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is now actively participating in the initiative over concerns about U.S. dependability as an ally during the Trump presidency and beyond.

European officials are explicit about their purpose: preserve deterrence against Russia, operational continuity and nuclear credibility even if the Trump administration withdraws forces from Europe or refuses to come to its defense, as the president has repeatedly threatened.

Trump's recent rhetoric has only accelerated the timeline. He branded European allies as "cowards," called NATO "a paper tiger," and added menacingly, in reference to Putin: "Putin knows that too." He has also threatened to leave NATO entirely over Europe's refusal to support his Iran war, describing the move as already "beyond reconsideration," the Journal is reporting.

The momentum is undeniable. Finland's President Alexander Stubb, one of the leaders involved in the initiative, signaled the permanent nature of the shift: "A burden shifting from the U.S. toward Europe is ongoing and it will continue…as part of U.S. defense and national security strategy."

The report notes Europe is not waiting for Trump to make good on his threats. The plans, first conceived last year, have accelerated dramatically after Trump threatened to seize Greenland from NATO member Denmark and intensified amid the standoff over Europe's refusal to back the highly criticized Iran war.

Though congressional approval would be required for a formal NATO withdrawal, Trump retains broad authority as commander-in-chief to move troops or assets out of Europe or withhold support — a threat that has transformed European defense planning from theoretical to urgent.

Donald Trump has turned on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, publicly denouncing her as "unacceptable" for defending Pope Leo XIV against the president's criticism of his unprovoked Iran war.

According to Politico, Trump spoke directly with Italian daily Corriere della Sera to express his fury with Meloni's refusal to join his attack on the first American-born Pope who resides in Vatican City.

"I was shocked by her. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong," Trump said in the phone interview, delivering a stinging personal rebuke to an ally he had publicly praised just a year earlier.

When confronted with Meloni's Monday statement calling Trump's criticism of Pope Leo "unacceptable," the president responded with characteristic vindictiveness:

"It's her who's unacceptable, because she doesn't care if Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow up Italy in two minutes if it had the chance."

Trump's grievance extends beyond the Pope dispute. He complained that Meloni expected the United States to "do the work for her" by protecting Italy from nuclear threats and ensuring stable oil supplies — suggesting she should be grateful for American military protection rather than criticizing his policies.

The deterioration of their relationship is striking. Trump noted the two hadn't spoken "in a long time," a stark contrast to just last year when Meloni visited Mar-a-Lago as Trump's guest. At that dinner, he called her "a fantastic woman" who had "really taken Europe by storm."

The rupture exemplifies Trump's pattern of discarding allies the moment they show independence from his agenda — a warning sign for other world leaders considering whether solidarity with the American president is worth the political cost.

Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance just suffered a humiliating foreign policy defeat that exposes the severe limits of American influence abroad — and signals potential disaster for the GOP in the midterm elections.

According to the Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum, Trump's decision to personally intervene in Hungary's election by dispatching Vance to campaign for strongman Viktor Orban not only failed catastrophically, but also damaged Republican credibility on the international stage.

Orban had been a darling of the American right, preaching to conservatives at CPAC about seizing control of institutions. "Have your own media," Orban once declared, "it was the only way to combat the 'insanity of the progressive left.'" He aligned perfectly with Trump's worldview, opposing NATO aid to Ukraine and framing it as anti-war rather than pro-democracy.

Trump returned the embrace enthusiastically by exempting Hungary from energy sanctions imposed on other European countries, and Vance personally campaigned for Orban, telling Hungarians they had a guaranteed friend in Washington if they reelected their prime minister.

It wasn't enough. Orban was decisively defeated. A constitutional supermajority for the opposition will now rewrite election laws that Orban had previously reshaped to favor his own party — a stunning reversal of fortune for Trump's endorsed candidate.

Vance attempted to minimize the damage, claiming "I'm sad that he lost. We will work very well, I'm sure, with the next prime minister of Hungary. It wasn't a bad trip at all because it's worth standing by people, even if you don't win every race."

But Republicans are furious. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who is retiring, blasted the intervention as a norm-breaking disaster that backfired spectacularly.

"President Trump and Vice President Vance broke the norms by going and campaigning for a candidate in another democracy," Bacon said. "It's not appropriate to do it, and then they failed. So it's like a double-dumb move, and it just undermines us."

The strategic implications are dire. One Republican strategist with extensive European experience warned that Orban's ouster is "a harbinger" for what might come in the midterm elections this fall.

"If you don't define your campaign on an issue set that gets your base energized to turnout in huge numbers, it will be a problem," the strategist told the Post.

Donald Trump's Iran struggle has exposed a fundamental truth: the world no longer fears American threats, and traditional allies are abandoning Washington to form new partnerships.

According to Politico's Nahal Toosi, Trump faces a wall of resistance from longtime U.S. allies who are actively forming new alliances and sidelining America as a diplomatic partner. In recent days, multiple global players have openly defied the president, exposing the severe limits of American influence.

The core problem is philosophical. "Trump and his aides often appear to operate as if most other people on the planet are 'non-player characters' in a video game," and they believe that America can use "threats, economic muscle and military action to bend other capitals to its will," Toosi observed.

But foreign policy doesn't work that way and the Politico analyst suggested the current administration is "not adjusting well" to a changed world.

Trump shows no signs of learning from this reality. Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, observed: "If there were an appreciation that bullying was no longer a likely to succeed tactic you'd see a move away from it, but there's no real sign that Trump is doing so."

The problem is structural. "He is surrounded by 'yes' people," one senior European diplomat fumed.

Diplomacy requires reciprocity — a concept Trump's team appears incapable of grasping. "If you want something from somebody you have to give them something, unless like in World War II they've truly surrendered. It can't just be 'we're going to keep beating you,'" said a Western diplomat based in the Middle East.

Trump's tariffs are accelerating the divorce. Other countries are actively finding new trading partners beyond the U.S., reducing their economic reliance on America. As nations decrease their military and economic dependence on Washington, they become less likely to heed American demands in the future.

The fundamental misunderstanding runs deeper. Many foreign affairs experts worry that Trump treats global conflicts as real estate deals, reducing complex geopolitical issues to mere land disputes. But "identity, politics and the desire to simply survive as a people is what fuels many conflicts," not purely material calculations,' he wrote.

Trump and his team "fail to realize that people tend to fight for what gives their life meaning beyond the purely rational or material cost-benefit analysis," according to a former Latin American official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive topic.

Democratic efforts to constrain Donald Trump's Iran war are gaining unexpected momentum. More Republican lawmakers are privately signaling they're ready to join Democrats on a war powers resolution — and the defections may accelerate dramatically by month's end.

According to MS NOW, Democrats believe "there's a pathway to success" on forcing votes this week that would dampen hostilities in Iran.

The political math is shifting in Democrats' favor. While they would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override Trump's almost-certain veto, a privileged war powers measure only requires a simple majority to pass — a threshold that appears increasingly achievable as GOP support erodes, MS NOW reported.

The breaking point could happen on April 29. One House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity, told MS NOW that "a lot of Republicans" would be ready to support a war powers resolution by then.

"This issue is already coming ripe at the end of this month, and if they don't come to us by then, they're in violation of the law. And that's when you'll see many of us saying no más," they told MS NOW.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) framed the political stakes sharply: "Every day that Republicans stand in the way of Democratic efforts to end this war is another day that they own the chaos, the bloodshed and the economic volatility that has resulted."

Senate Republicans are already showing cracks. So far, only Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has voted with Democrats on three separate Iran war powers resolutions over the past month. But Trump's apocalyptic rhetoric is pushing other Republicans toward the exit, MS NOW reported.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) directly rebuked Trump's threat to wipe out a "whole civilization." "It cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran. It undermines our long-standing role as a global beacon of freedom and directly endangers Americans both abroad and at home," Murkowski wrote.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was equally damning about Trump's Easter Truth Social posts threatening to annihilate Iran's infrastructure and demanding Tehran open the Strait of Hormuz in a social media post loaded with obscenities.

"Completely inappropriate," Collins said of the threats. "And the subsequent post in which he threatened to essentially annihilate the whole country of Iran is also not conducive to the negotiations that will shortly be underway."

• Regime change in Iran? Senior government and military leaders have been killed, but it is still the same regime.
• Destruction of Iran's nuclear program? Damaged or delayed, perhaps, but not ended.
• Elimination of Iran's ballistic missile threat? Reduced, perhaps, but still a threat.