How did America and Europe suffer a “rupture”? The Wall Street Journal had a deep dive into that topic this week, ahead of the upcoming NATO meeting.
The story starts with an anecdote from earlier this year: shortly after Trump intervened to remove Venezuela’s leader, he made noises about trying to take over Greenland.
“Around a circular table in the European Council headquarters known as ‘The Space Egg,’ heads of government were venting so emotionally about the 47th president that some of the nearly 30 leaders present would later call the session “therapy night.” There were no cameras or recordings, and each of the presidents and prime ministers was told to come alone, no phones allowed, for a moment to speak candidly.”
Britain’s MI6 told Keir Starmer that Trump’s second White House, “is ‘The Crucible’ meets ‘Wolf Hall,’” referencing two fictional works about the Salem Witch Trials and the court of England’s ill-tempered Henry VIII. @JoeWSJ @drewhinshaw @DanMichaelsWSJ https://t.co/3jMlU6qj6b
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) July 6, 2026
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
“We are drawing a line here,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during that meeting.
“For a year, America’s closest allies had tried to placate Trump with a mix of flattery and concessions on mutual-defense and trade issues, hoping to buy time,” the Journal said. “Now, French soldiers were in Greenland, alongside Danish special forces equipped for a shooting war with America. The French president repeated an argument he’d been pressing for years, with mounting urgency: that Europe’s overreliance on America was a security risk. ‘There is no going back,’ he said.”
A surprising character in the story was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who had his own run-in with Trump over territorial ambitions.
Carney “had been regularly messaging Europe’s major leaders using a British phone number from his time in London, trying to persuade them that ‘the old America isn’t coming back,'” the Journal said. “Now, on the heels of a blistering speech at the annual Davos gathering, his arguments were gaining ground. “Canada,” said the prime minister of Spain, ‘is openly saying what we should do.'”
Those meetings, the Journal reported,
“In the months to come, the January crisis meeting would be remembered by Europe’s most powerful figures as the moment that countries bound together by blood and a sense of shared destiny since the aftermath of World War II began to explore separate paths.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
