Nato needs to prepare for Trump's unilateralism on steroids

A second term for the former president would see foreign policy based on mutual interest’ rather than multilateralism.

- Alec Russell

What are America's traditional allies to make of last week's Republican shenanigans on Capitol Hill when they torpedoed the Bill to give billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine? Or of Donald Trump's comments over the weekend questioning Nato's doctrine of collective defence? The short answer is: Be alarmed. The more considered answer is: Prepare, by planning immediately for the possibility of an ultra-unilateralist second Trump term, because this time, his people seem to have a plan.

The scuppering of the Senate Bill which was to deliver a vital US$60 billion (S$81 billion) for Ukraine's war effort and stricter immigration policies was shameful. The last thing Trump, the likely Republican nominee in November's presidential election, wanted was a law that allowed President Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee, to look tough on immigration. Ukraine, desperate for the weapons the Bill would have funded, is collateral damage.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke for most European Union leaders with his response. "Dear Republican Senators of America. Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today," he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

His citing of Mr Reagan is well put. It does require intellectual gymnastics for right-wing thinkers now to argue, as some do, that pulling the rug from under Ukraine is consistent with the Republican party's traditional hawkishness on Russia.