China's trade data reveals that the world is not de-risking from Beijing but from Washington, as China's overall exports continue to rise despite sharply reduced exports to the US, with its trade surplus surging to nearly $1.2 trillion in 2025 as shipments to Latin America, Africa, Europe and much of Asia expand rapidly.

When President Trump unleashed the highest tariffs in nearly a century, many expected Europe to retaliate and trigger a transatlantic trade war, but Europe resisted by absorbing the pressure, avoiding escalation, and buying time, which prevented a downward global spiral.

The situation of NATO threatening to annex territory from another NATO member state represents the greatest crisis in transatlantic relations, presenting an existential challenge to the alliance structure itself.

The only credible US response to China's ecosystem building is not tariffs (which over the past year have coincided with declining manufacturing employment) but ecosystem building of America's own, leveraging its extraordinary advantage of a vast network of allies and partners controlling most of the world's advanced technology, capital, skilled labor and consumer demand.

Over the past year, Europe has behaved with quiet shrewdness by neither lashing out at nor capitulating to an unpredictable United States, instead adapting strategically through restraint and diversification.

For decades, the global order was built on an American platform where trade flowed through US-designed institutions, security rested on US guarantees, crises were managed by Washington, and the global agenda was set in America. While this platform still exists, the world is no longer building on it but building around it.

Brussels and Beijing have recently resolved trade frictions over EV subsidies and market access, with the EU now viewing China as a necessary partner despite remaining wary of China's industrial policies and political system.

Europe has accelerated outreach to Southeast Asia, with the EU now having trade agreements in force with Singapore and Vietnam, having concluded negotiations with Indonesia, and pushing ahead with talks across the region, where Southeast Asia is already the EU's third largest trading partner outside Europe.

For three decades, Canada made a clear strategic bet that its future lay in ever deeper integration with the United States, with more than 75% of Canadian goods exports flowing south in 2024, representing one of the most successful post-Cold War integration stories.

Trump's tariffs, threats to reopen trade agreements, and bizarre declarations about annexing Canada have shattered Canada's trust in the US, forcing a rethink of its strategic integration and prompting Canada's new prime minister Mark Carney to openly seek distance from Washington.

Canada's foreign minister Anita Anand stated it is necessary for Canada to diversify its trading partners and grow non-US trade by at least 60% over the next ten years, representing a strategic reversal rather than mere hedging.

Tariffs did not wall China off from the world but instead encouraged many countries to keep trading with Beijing, as they diversify away from the unpredictable US.

A major new poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that in key emerging powers—India, Brazil, South Africa—the share of respondents who would prefer their country join an American-led bloc rather than a Chinese one dropped by between 15 and 19 percentage points in just two years.

Among ten European countries surveyed, only 16% now describe America as an ally, with a majority still considering the US a key partner even as views of China remain mixed rather than warm.

Singapore's former foreign minister George Yeo observed that Trump is fast-forwarding the future towards a multipolar prism, raising the question of what is at stake: not America's image, but its future power.

China is methodically building one of the most resilient economic ecosystems in modern history by dominating critical mineral processing, achieving scale in batteries and electric vehicles, and diversifying export markets to withstand shocks, sanctions and tariffs.

In theory, a US-led coalition could source critical materials from friendly countries, spread manufacturing across trusted partners, share research and anchor markets that remain open and predictable, but in practice America has squandered much of that advantage by treating allies as transactional customers, weaponizing tariffs against them, and turning longstanding commitments into shakedowns.

Washington has encouraged others to hedge most extraordinarily by pursuing protectionism and nationalism while the world is searching for more trade and cooperation, positioning the US as no longer the trendsetter but retreating to an outdated position.

President Trump announced additional 10% tariffs escalating to 25% on imports from several of America's closest allies, including the UK, France and Germany, as part of increasingly serious efforts to pressure Denmark to give up the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland.

EU countries approved a sweeping trade agreement with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay after 25 years of stalled negotiations, creating one of the world's largest free trade zones by population covering more than 700 million people.