Parlous States: let's face it, America has switched sides

What does Donald Trump want from Europeans? It’s a question we didn’t use to have to ask ourselves about American presidents.

- SEAN O’GRADY

That was because Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and even George W Bush, whom we used to think a little extreme, were very clear.

They wanted a unified Europe to be a free and strong ally of the United States in Nato, and to stand for "Western values"; to defuse or to win the Cold War, and, in the long term, to liberate Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation, albeit while trying to coexist with the Russians.

We did not insult one another, and no US leader ever bothered themselves about who was running London, still less called a mild-mannered mayor "vicious and disgusting". The very name "Khan" is something that Trump can barely tolerate in his mouth. Imagine, if you possibly can, Ronald Reagan spewing bile about Ken Livingstone back in the day. Try to visualise Jimmy Carter saying that Germany faced "civilisational erasure", or "Dubya" whingeing about free speech in Sweden.

That world has gone. We need to face up to the full extent of what is happening to us - and what Trump's America wants and expects in return for even the semblance of military alliance and protection.

Most immediately, Trump wants us to abandon Ukraine and make friends with Vladimir Putin, as if the invasion and the war crimes had never happened - or, as the new US National Security Strategy puts it, "reestablishing conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia". We are a continent of "decaying countries" suffering "weak leaders" who "talk too much". Maybe, but it's up to us Europeans to vote them in or out. We neither want nor need interference from Washington or Moscow.