A Warning to My American Friends

A personal reflection from Germany, September 2026.

For most of my life, I have been strongly pro-American.

I admired the United States for its openness, its universities, its science, its music and culture, its technological creativity, and for the role it played in defending Western Europe after 1945. I have also known many Americans personally whom I respect and like very much.

That is why what is happening now troubles me so deeply.

When disagreement becomes pressure

Under Donald Trump, the relationship between the United States and many of its traditional allies has changed in a way that, to me, goes far beyond ordinary political disagreement.

Canada and European allies are increasingly confronted not only with negotiations and disputes, but with public threats, tariffs and demands backed by American economic power. After U.S.–Canadian trade talks broke down in August 2026, Trump said it was time to “teach Canada you can’t do this anymore.” The United States had just imposed new 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian imports, followed by Canadian retaliation.

At the NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump sharply criticised Britain, Germany, France and Italy over the Iran conflict. He called Spain a “terrible partner” and ordered his administration to halt trade with Spain, although his rhetoric toward Madrid softened shortly afterwards.

Of course governments disagree. Allies have always argued about defence spending, trade, wars and foreign policy. But this feels different to me. Too often there seems to be less emphasis on finding consensus and more on threats, demands, ridicule and the expectation that other countries should comply because the United States is stronger.

For many Europeans and Canadians, that can increasingly feel like contempt rather than partnership.

Language matters

Sometimes Trump’s rhetoric goes considerably further. In 2018, people familiar with an Oval Office immigration meeting reported that he referred to Haiti and African nations with the phrase “shithole countries” while saying the United States should have more immigrants from places such as Norway. Trump later disputed aspects of the reported wording. Whatever one makes of that controversy, the episode became powerful because many people heard in it not merely crude language but a hierarchy between desirable and undesirable countries and peoples.

His repeated warnings that immigration is destroying European societies reinforce that impression for many Europeans.

The view from Germany

For Germans there is another particularly sensitive issue. The Trump administration has developed unusually warm contacts with the AfD, a far-right nationalist party that Germany’s other major democratic parties continue to isolate politically. Reuters has documented deepening ties between AfD figures and members of the Trump administration, while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have publicly criticised Germany’s treatment of the party.

Americans should understand how extraordinary this can feel from Germany. Imagine a German government openly encouraging a radical American political movement and telling Americans that their own democratic institutions were wrong to isolate it. It would hardly be perceived as neutral, friendly advice.

The deeper damage is trust

But perhaps the greatest damage is not tariffs, lost exports or even diplomatic disputes. It is psychological.

People who once regarded America almost instinctively as a friend are beginning to ask whether the United States is still a reliable partner. This is no longer merely anecdotal. A 2026 Pew Research Center survey of 42,151 adults in 36 countries found sharply deteriorating views of the United States in much of Europe. In eight of the ten European countries surveyed, the share describing the U.S. as a reliable partner had fallen by between 28 and 52 percentage points since 2022. In Canada, it fell from 83% in 2022 to 35% in 2026.

Trump’s tariff policy was also deeply unpopular in the survey: only 8% in Germany and 17% in Canada approved of his handling of tariffs. Even in the United States, a separate Pew survey found that 63% of Americans had little or no confidence in his handling of tariff policy.

When distrust changes behaviour

Canada provides an unusually concrete example. Statistics Canada reports that Canadian leisure travel to the United States fell by 21.5% in 2025, while leisure travel to overseas destinations rose by 12.2%. Canadian travel spending in the United States fell by C$3.3 billion.

Politics does not explain every cancelled journey, of course. Exchange rates, prices and other factors matter too. But the scale and timing of the shift show how political distrust can spill into personal behaviour.

And I see something similar in myself. A few years ago I would have travelled to the United States enthusiastically. Today I would hesitate. At the moment, I would rather not fly there.

That surprises and saddens me.

This is not anti-Americanism

I do not confuse Donald Trump with America. Many Americans strongly oppose his policies, and the Americans I personally know are among the reasons I refuse to become anti-American.

But something has nevertheless been lost.

Once people begin to feel that a country they regarded as a friend no longer respects them, the damage goes much deeper than a tariff. Tariffs can be removed. A trade agreement can be renegotiated. A president can leave office. Trust is much harder to restore.

For decades the United States possessed something perhaps even more valuable than military or economic power: enormous goodwill. Millions of Europeans did not merely accept American leadership. They admired America and emotionally regarded it as part of their own democratic world.

That is soft power, and it cannot simply be ordered into existence.

If Canada trades more elsewhere, if Europeans become more determined to defend themselves independently, if tourists choose other destinations, if companies reduce their dependence on the United States, and if younger Europeans grow up no longer instinctively regarding America as their closest friend, the consequences will outlast the current tariff disputes.

The United States is powerful enough to force concessions from individual countries. But I doubt that it can indefinitely threaten Canada, Europe and much of the rest of the world without eventually paying a price itself.

And the greatest price may not be economic. It may be discovering that countries which were once America’s friends still cooperate with America when necessary — but no longer admire it, no longer fully trust it, and no longer automatically stand beside it.

I write this not because I hate America. I write it because I once admired America enormously, and because I would hate to see that relationship destroyed.