[Next year will bring new strains to the transatlantic alliance, with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The president-elect is certain to pile more pressure on European nations to increase their spending on defense and may use the threat of downgrading US support for NATO as leverage.
Trump spoke again this week about his desire to quickly end the war in Ukraine and is already talking about ending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alienation from Western leaders by meeting him at an early opportunity.
European nations are competing for Trump’s affections and preparing for the storm to come. French President Emmanuel Macron lured Trump to Paris for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Britain has just named Lord Peter Mandelson, one of its most Machiavellian political operators of the last 40 years, as its new ambassador to Washington. Germany is in political turmoil with a new election looming. And Trump prefers the company of leaders who share his populist nationalist creed, like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
It’s been decades since the idea of the “West” has seemed so tenuous. The foundations for the post-World War II global order were laid by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II.
In a time of crisis, FDR and Churchill met for a historic summit in 1941, during the darkest days of World War II. Churchill, who was in the middle of a long journey to the United States, arrived at the White House for a Christmas dinner. The two leaders would eventually forge a bond and create a blueprint to win the war.
Despite their differences, FDR and Churchill would go on to ink a Europe-first strategy to defeat the Nazis, agree on the United Nations Declaration, and unite the West with institutions and a common transatlantic mission.
On Christmas Eve, Churchill stood by as Roosevelt flipped a switch to light the National Christmas tree. Roosevelt urged Americans to use the holiday season to muster for the fight ahead with “the arming of our hearts.” Churchill, who had traveled to the US in his “wilderness years” during the 1930s, reflected on his own sense of unity and fraternal association with Americans, saying, “I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your welcome, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.”
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