Bangladesh, April 5 -- The second presidency of Donald Trump has pushed the transatlantic alliance toward a moment of profound reassessment. While friction between the United States and its European allies is not new, the cumulative effect of recent political signals, policy choices, and rhetorical confrontations suggests that something more structural is underway. What was once a resilient partnership grounded in shared values and mutual trust is increasingly being reframed in transactional and strategic terms.

During Trumps first term, tensions with Europe were often dismissed as turbulence within a fundamentally stable system. Leaders in Berlin, Paris, and London assumed that institutional inertia and shared interests would ultimately...