There is truth to US President Donald Trump’s declaration earlier this week that the UK-US relationship is “not what it was,” although there is no indication that he understands the reasons for the change.
Trump said he is “very disappointed” that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been “uncooperative” in the war against Iran, offering only limited logistical support to US forces. Starmer’s concession that Royal Air Force resources could be involved in defensive operations does not compensate for the prior refusal to put Britain’s military assets at the US’ disposal. It came too late for Trump, whose irritation turned to culture-war jibes about “windmills” ruining British landscapes and false claims about the prevalence of sharia courts.
Starmer is not the only European leader guilty of lese-majeste. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been forthright in opposition to the Iran war. In response, Trump threatened to cut off all trade, saying he no longer wanted “anything to do with Spain.”
Starmer is right to keep his distance from a military operation with no justification in law and incoherent objectives. However, judicious caution does not protect the UK from repercussions if Trump’s irritation should mutate into a longer grudge.
There are important differences between the Spanish and British situations. As an EU member, Spain trades with the US as part of the European single market. Disagreements about Iran could complicate relations between Washington and Brussels, but Trump would not sever economic ties with the bloc just to spite Sanchez. Post-Brexit Britain is more exposed to vindictive unilateral action. Trump’s power to impose tariffs on a whim has been curtailed but certainly not ended by a US Supreme Court decision.
There are other areas of UK-US commerce — a multibillion-pound “tech prosperity deal” being negotiated, for example — where a souring of diplomatic relations could have swift economic consequences.
Then there is the problem of military dependency. All European NATO members have relied on US power to guarantee their security, but for Britain, the “special relationship” extended to a thorough enmeshing of systems. The technological infrastructure of UK national defense is wired to the Pentagon in ways that cannot simply be disregarded.
The contrast with France, whose security and defense capabilities have evolved out of Gaullist mistrust of the US, is notable. French President Emmanuel Macron was an early advocate of “strategic autonomy” from Washington, before most continental leaders anticipated a crisis in transatlantic relations. Last week, Macron proposed extending his country’s nuclear deterrent to other European countries for the first time.
The asymmetry of military heft between the US military and every other NATO member’s forces remains the dominant material consideration in European security, but the diplomatic and political calculus is changing rapidly. In this context, Britain’s detachment from the European project looks increasingly misjudged and hazardous.
Starmer is rightly pursuing a policy of closer European cooperation in defense and security policy, but negotiations are moving slowly. Trump’s erratic temperament and volatile actions make a compelling case for moving faster. The legacy of Brexit complicates the relationship with Europe, but it does not alter the strategic imperative of making common cause with continental allies.
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
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