Perspective.

https://archive.ph/2025.02.21-194022/https://www.ft.com/content/1511aa42-a9ad-4952-99c8-98bea07d0414

America has turned on its friends

Winston Churchill is credited with saying that America does the right thing after exhausting the alternatives. Donald Trump has turned that aphorism on its head. In the past 10 days, he has all but incinerated 80 years of postwar American leadership. Those who thought America was a friend or ally, notably Ukraine and Nato, are dropping once safe assumptions to cope with a world in which America is an unabashed predator. Countries that were treated by Washington as adversaries, notably Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are suddenly America’s friend.