Trump’s lightbulb moment: America needs Europe after all

The U.S. is even looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran — as Trump rages at Starmer and Sánchez for refusing to back his war.

Donald Trump's German grandparents may have known the word for what some European officials now feel, as they watch him complain that America's traditional allies have let him down: Schadenfreude. 

Having spent a year criticizing, insulting and threatening European leaders, Trump now sees the value of having friends in strategically important places --- if they have military assets he can use, anyway.

The hardening position of European leaders on Iran marks a watershed moment, just as U.S. President George W. Bush’s doomed and divisive invasion of Iraq in 2003 undermined transatlantic trust for years. The tensions over such a consequential new conflict in the Middle East may even prove existential for the Western alliance, after 12 months that had already strained U.S.-European relations to the breaking point.