Mar 05 2025 44 mins 8
Can Europeans and Americans still speak of shared values? The longest-ever speech by a US president to a joint session of Congress doubling down on an America First vision of foreign policy that's heavy on the sticks, light on the carrots. In the past, critics of the US dismissed talks of exporting democracy by pointing to Vietnam, Latin America and Iraq, but the US has also put its might behind international institutions to broker peace and set up norms for doing business that the whole world could trust.
Globalisation without a US backstop has consequences. Has the US become a nationalist illiberal democracy or does it all return to normal when next year’s midterm elections roll around?
Europe finds itself having to rewrite its entire security architecture on the fly. Here you see Emmanuel Macron trying to convince one of Donald Trump’s European allies, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, ahead of an EU summit that’s facing the sudden end of the post-1945 order. How did allies not see this moment coming?
Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.
