{ "archive_path": "archive/1790082909.882784", "base_url": "www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-22 13:15", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.theatlantic.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/index.html" }, "domain": "www.theatlantic.com", "extension": "", "hash": "623BNA7WYB9484CZXW0N", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.theatlantic.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:14.162250+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:13.681537+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:14.637603+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:14.170229+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:26.319131+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:22.771497+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpziuahgtg", "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:22.758094+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Sign up for our newsletter about national security here.In 1917, as Canadian troops fought at Vimy Ridge in northern France, Lieutenant Leslie Miller collected acorns from the battlefield and carried them home to Ontario. Saplings from the resulting oaks were sent back to France about a century later, and became a living link between the two countries. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recounted that story in Strasbourg last week to the European Parliament as he proposed an alliance that went far beyond trade to encompass defense, energy, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence.The pitch was part of a broader transformation under way among America\u2019s allies. For years, the strategy among U.S. allies was to wait President Trump out. Now many are preparing for a world in which the United States is no longer indispensable\u2014not simply during Trump\u2019s presidency but afterward as well, regardless of who occupies the White House. They are building military capabilities, diversifying trade, developing new domestic industries, and forging relationships that reduce their dependence on Washington.This isn\u2019t a coordinated revolt against America or a wholesale turn toward China. Most U.S. partners see Washington as an essential partner and don\u2019t fully trust Beijing. But nations that were once firmly in the American orbit are concluding that they cannot rely on the U.S. to provide the same leadership, markets, technology, and military protection that it has for decades. And that, foreign officials told me, is true no matter who wins the presidency in 2028.The shift may be the most consequential legacy of Trump\u2019s foreign policy. Since his first term, he has demanded that allies become more self-reliant. In his second term, Trump has accelerated the emergence of a world in which American influence is less central\u2014and China has more room to maneuver. Beijing benefits if Europe, Canada, Japan, or South Korea becomes more willing to engage and less certain that Washington is the power around which all strategic decisions must revolve. And the shift undercuts the delicate strategic balance Washington seeks with Beijing itself\u2014an issue Trump will confront when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.The changes are already visible, including in rising European defense spending, Canada\u2019s commercial outreach to China, and Japan\u2019s efforts to become a larger arms supplier. Taken together, these trends point to a reordering of the international system that stretches far beyond Trump. \u201cTrump brought with him an earthquake, but we\u2019d be foolish not to prepare for aftershocks,\u201d a senior European official told me. \u201cThe fact is, we\u2019ll be setting ourselves up for failure if we assume that everything will go back to the way it was after Trump leaves office. The world is changing, and we can see very clearly now that America is changing too.\u201dRead: NATO\u2019s nightmareThat belief is altering the calculations of governments that spent decades organizing their security and economic policies around the United States. What was once viewed as institutional hedging until the 2028 election has morphed into a longer-term effort to build alternatives. This theme of finding alternatives to Washington has become so prevalent that it\u2019s likely to dominate discussions at the United Nations General Assembly this week.Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative in the Biden administration, told me that she and other senior officials were sent on an \u201capology tour\u201d following Trump\u2019s first term to convince allies that the America they knew had returned and that President Biden was committed to protecting the relationships. (The reference was a throwback to the Barack Obama\u2013era \u201capology tour,\u201d as some later called it when he traveled the world after taking office to apologize for past American actions, military interventions, and foreign-policy decisions.) But the message dissipated over the next few years amid the political divisiveness in the U.S., Tai recalled. Foreign diplomats relayed to her and other top Biden officials a nervousness \u201cthat what you kind of hoped was an aberration is actually going to come back,\u201d she told me. With Trump\u2019s second term, \u201ceverything is more over the top than even in the first administration,\u201d Tai said. \u201cThe insults are more insulting, the jabs are drawing more blood, and my gut is that there is not a second time for America to declare that it\u2019s back.\u201dWhether the next president is a Democrat or a Republican, allies see cause for concern. Officials from countries around the world have told me that they worry that Vice President Vance\u2019s vision of a less interventionist America could become a lasting conservative doctrine. \u201cOur real fear is that after Trump comes J. D. Vance, and he has made clear that he is not a friend of Europe\u2019s,\u201d one senior European official told me. Others see calls from the Democratic Socialists of America to \u201cdefund the Department of War\u201d as evidence that skepticism about America\u2019s traditional global role is no longer confined to one side of the political spectrum. Progressive Democrats are also embracing tools championed by Trump, including certain tariffs and other protectionist measures. As president, Biden kept most of the tariffs Trump imposed during his first term, even as his \u201cAmerica Is Back\u201d mantra sought to reassure allies they still had America\u2019s support. A dramatic reset of U.S. relations with allies appears unavoidable.Even more moderate Democrats are moving toward a foreign policy closer to \u201cAmerica First,\u201d reflecting growing skepticism of overseas interventions and a desire to prioritize domestic needs. Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive and a potential 2028 presidential contender, told me that the U.S. needs an economic agenda focused on rebuilding America\u2019s manufacturing base through an industrial investment bank, expanded trade schools, and investment in hollowed-out communities\u2014though, he added, it would be a mistake for allies to discount the U.S. as a partner in the post-Trump era. He favors keeping overseas markets open and using tariffs selectively.Read: Europe and Canada are like the kids in an ugly divorceBut what once appeared to allies like temporary political turbulence is now looking like a more lasting change in Washington\u2019s priorities. Just ask the Canadians. For decades, Washington and Ottawa have been the closest of allies. Although they have been frequently at odds over trade, their militaries have operated together, their intelligence services have cooperated closely, and their economies have been deeply integrated. Yet Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off as part of the U.S., while imposing and threatening tariffs on Canadian goods. Last month, his administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian products.Carney, who has called for what he calls \u201cmiddle powers\u201d such as Canada to become more self-reliant, has responded accordingly. In January, he traveled to Beijing\u2014the first visit for a Canadian prime minister since 2017\u2014and announced a new strategic partnership focused on trade, energy, and agriculture. Canada subsequently secured renewed Chinese-market access for canola, seafood, and beef and set a goal of increasing exports to China by 50 percent by 2030. Canada also became the first non-European country to participate in the European Union\u2019s new Security Action for Europe defense-financing program, giving Canadian companies access to European defense contracts and deepening military ties.Earlier this month, the EU proposed making Canada its first \u201cassociate member,\u201d a status that would reflect the closeness of the relationship and give Ottawa\u2014as well as, perhaps, other nations\u2014an alternative to the U.S. and China. Trump has taken notice of their deepening ties, but in ways one imagines Carney might see as a form of respect. The president recently told reporters, \u201cA lot of people say, Who\u2019s the toughest one to deal with? Is it China, sir? Is it China? Is it Vietnam? I said, No, actually, it\u2019s Canada. Canada has felt emboldened.\u201dThe American decision to pull back from its alliances has created opportunities for China, particularly in the Pacific region. The U.S. has few allies stronger than Australia, which during the Biden administration agreed to a deal with the U.S. and the United Kingdom to receive a supply of nuclear-powered submarine technology. But China is Australia\u2019s largest trading partner, and the Australian government has been trying to bolster its relationship with Beijing in other areas as well, including energy and climate. \u201cThe United States\u2014not by accident or circumstance, but by design\u2014has become a less dependable ally,\u201d former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told my colleague David Frum in a recent interview. America\u2019s \u201ctraditional allies have got to hedge.\u201dRead: Will Taiwan just give up?Japan, meanwhile, has eased its arms-export rules. The country has largely isolated itself from global arms markets since the end of World War II, and the shift has sparked interest in countries around the world that have long relied heavily on U.S. weapons sales. Japan and South Korea, longtime rivals, have also been drawing closer to each other as they confront both a powerful China and the unpredictability of the Trump administration.That unpredictability was on display with recent annual joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea. Known as Ulchi Freedom Shield\u2014the name evokes a seventh-century Korean general celebrated for repelling a Chinese invasion\u2014the exercises have been held for decades. But hours before this year\u2019s exercises were due to begin, Trump blindsided officials by announcing on social media that he was ordering a substantial pullback in U.S. participation. He argued that the drills were costly and sent a signal that was \u201ctotally inappropriate and hostile\u201d to North Korea. Trump continues to praise the country\u2019s dictator, Kim Jong Un, despite the leaders\u2019 failure to reach a rapprochement during Trump\u2019s first term.U.S. and South Korean forces, as well as those from other countries, were confused about how and whether to proceed with the exercises. They ultimately went ahead but on a much smaller scale, with the 11-day schedule cut to five and major field-training activities scaled back. \u201cIt was an absolute clusterfuck,\u201d a U.S. official told me as the mess was unfolding. In the meantime, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has moved aggressively to deepen ties with Beijing. His January state visit to China included a summit with Xi and a business forum attended by about 600 Korean and Chinese business leaders. Fourteen government-to-government memorandums were signed during the visit. With Seoul stuck on Trump\u2019s bad side, that may be just the beginning.Experts told me that even if these countries don\u2019t open the floodgates to Chinese cooperation, Beijing still stands to gain. Every weapons system current U.S. allies build themselves, every supply chain they diversify, and every new relationship they develop gives Beijing another opening\u2014a possibility that even Trump allies acknowledge. \u201cWe have to make sure that China doesn\u2019t take advantage of the situation in the short term,\u201d Richard Grenell, who has held a number of positions in both Trump administrations, including as ambassador to Germany, told me. \u201cBut I\u2019m not worried about the long term, because what we hear over and over from world leaders is that dealing with China is not worth the price they pay.\u201dFrom the January issue: The new German war machineLast year, European leaders traveled to Beijing with major complaints about China\u2019s growing industrial output, their limited access to its markets, and the massive trade imbalance. But the summit also reaffirmed a collective desire among European nations for deeper engagement with Beijing, despite the Chinese government\u2019s obvious weaknesses as a prospective alternative to the United States as a global superpower. Their appetite for closeness reflects evolving public opinions around the globe. This year, a Pew Research Center survey in 36 countries found that for the first time, China was viewed more positively than the U.S. in a majority of the countries surveyed. In Canada, 44 percent of respondents expressed a favorable view of China, compared with 33 percent for the United States. China also overtook the U.S. in overall favorability in several European countries.I asked William Taylor, who twice served as head of the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, whether Europeans feel that they can just buy time until Trump leaves office in 2029, when things might presumably snap back. \u201cThey\u2019re not sure that it\u2019s going to snap back,\u201d Taylor responded.The economic stakes of these shifts are substantial. Trade wars with allies raise costs for American consumers. U.S. defense companies could eventually lose market share as allies develop their own industries and buy more from one another. And the more that countries diversify their supply chains and commercial relationships, the less leverage Washington enjoys. \u201cOur old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over,\u201d Carney said, weeks after assuming office last year. \u201cWhile this is a tragedy, it is also the new reality.\u201d Trump\u2019s biggest impact during his second term may be that America\u2019s allies are now planning for that reality to outlast him." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:20.734315+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:20.727087+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "America\u2019s Allies Are No Longer Waiting for Trump to Leave - The Atlantic", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:20.697095+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:20.686952+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/index.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-22T16:17:14.647199+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "America\u2019s Allies Are No Longer Waiting for Trump to Leave - The Atlantic", "warc": null, "wget": "www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/index.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790082909.882784", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-22T16:17:22.771497+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-22T16:17:13.681537+00:00", "path": "/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "3c701acc-addd-4e60-a398-636576897ca5", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790082909-import.txt" ], "tags": ",war-wiki,drudge,pool", "tags_str": "war-wiki,drudge,pool", "timestamp": "1790082909.882784", "title": "America\u2019s Allies Are No Longer Waiting for Trump to Leave - The Atlantic", "updated": "2026-09-22T16:17:13.681343+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-22 16:17", "url": "https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/09/allies-trump-canada-foreign-policy/688729/" }