ESSAY: Transatlanticism as a Convenience Partnership — and Why That Is Enough, for Now

Introduction: an alliance that outlives its ideal

Foreign Policy, June 29, 2026 — the thesis that unsettles

On June 29, 2026, Foreign Policy publishes an analysis that summarizes in one formula what many observers have been watching for two years without daring to name it: "an equilibrium has emerged between Europe and Trump," and this equilibrium has produced something functional without being ideal — a convenience partnership. The transatlantic alliance, according to this reading, has degraded. It is no longer built on shared values proclaimed with conviction. It now rests on a calculation of mutual interests — Europe pays for defense, the United States sells the weapons and maintains its presence. It is not pretty. It works. And in the world of 2026, working may be enough.

This finding deserves an essay, not a news dispatch. Because behind Foreign Policy's formula lies a philosophical and strategic question that will determine the architecture of global security for decades to come: are alliances built on values more durable than alliances built on interests? And in the answer to that question lies the survival or collapse of collective Western defense against Russia, China, and the other actors watching for every crack.

The context — Ankara approaching, Trump staying unpredictable

Foreign Policy's analysis appears five days before the NATO summit in Ankara (July 7-8, 2026). That timing is not incidental — the publication positions its analysis as a reading frame for the summit. The allied leaders arriving in Ankara will bring with them an unresolved question: what is the real status of the transatlantic relationship under Trump, and how robust is it against Russian and Chinese pressure? Foreign Policy's answer: it holds, but through interests, not ideology. This is not a celebration — it is a diagnosis.

Rutte's visit to Washington, the "Trump trillion" — the European commitment to a trillion dollars of defense spending that the NATO Secretary-General presented as supporting 195,000 American jobs and $300 billion in orders placed with American industry — all of this sketches the contours of a transatlantic partnership reframed in a language Trump understands and values: economic benefits for the United States. This translation of geopolitical solidarity into dollars and jobs is pragmatic. And that translation, however pragmatic, works.

Trump and the reversal — from neutral mediator to conditional partner

Abandoning mediation — Zelensky held firm and Trump stepped back

One of the most significant developments of 2025-2026 is Trump's gradual reversal on the Ukrainian dossier. In the early weeks of his return to power, Trump pushed for a quick peace deal that implied Ukrainian territorial concessions. Zelensky refused to cede the already occupied Donbas territories. Faced with this refusal — and confronted with a Russian position demanding maximalist objectives incompatible with any acceptable deal — Trump progressively abandoned his equidistant mediator posture.

Macron publicly welcomed this shift, noting that Trump is no longer behaving as a "neutral mediator." This diplomatic formula masks a blunter reality: neutrality between an aggressor and its victim was morally untenable, and even Trump — whose relationship to international morality is instrumental — ultimately found the posture unsellable. The image of a Trump forcing Ukraine to capitulate before Putin is not an image that serves his narrative of strength. He preferred the reversal.

Russia failing to play Trump's game

It is also necessary to name Russia's role in this reversal. Moscow refused to play the role Trump expected: accepting a quick deal that gave it symbolic victories (de facto recognized occupied territory, Ukrainian neutrality) in exchange for ending hostilities. Russia wanted more — much more. It wanted permanent Ukrainian neutrality, a definitive halt to any NATO alignment, and additional concessions that neither Kyiv nor Washington could accept without losing all credibility.

Russia's refusal to play the expected moderate forced Trump into a difficult position: either force Ukraine into even more unacceptable concessions to satisfy Putin, or acknowledge that Putin was not the rational partner he believed he could manage. Trump's transactional logic — where everyone makes reasonable compromises to close a deal — collided with a Russia not seeking a reasonable deal but a total victory. This collision of logics partly explains Trump's drift toward a less equidistant posture.

What "convenience partnership" really means

The alliance reduced to its common-interest denominator — a systemic risk

Foreign Policy's formula — "the transatlantic alliance has degraded into a convenience partnership, but it is still a partnership" — deserves to be dissected. Saying it is still a partnership is a consolation. Saying it has "degraded" is a warning. The degradation in question is the erosion of the shared values base — democracy, rule of law, press freedom, peaceful resolution of disputes — in favor of a mutual interest calculation that can, in theory, be renegotiated or abandoned whenever interests diverge.

This reduction of the alliance to its interest components is a systemic risk. Alliances based on values have a cohesion that is harder to erode because values do not fluctuate with markets, elections, or changes of government. An alliance based on economic interest is, by definition, only as solid as the shared interest itself. If that common interest disappears — if Europe stops buying from America, if the United States finds more profitable commercial partners elsewhere — the defense solidarity has no foundation.

Allies learning to manage Trump — a new and fragile competence

Foreign Policy's analysis notes that European allies have "learned to manage Trump." This phrasing reveals something essential about the nature of the current relationship: America's partners are no longer managing the alliance — they are managing the American president. These are not the same thing. Managing the alliance involves institutions, processes, shared rules. Managing a president involves understanding his psychology, his personal incentives, his fears of losing face.

This new competence is real and useful in the short term. Less so over the longer run, for two reasons. First: if the transatlantic relationship depends on the ability to manage the personality of a single individual, it is as fragile as that individual. Second: "learning to manage Trump" comes at a cost. European partners accept diplomatic humiliations, hard-fought negotiations, unfavorable commercial terms in order to maintain a vital security relationship. These costs accumulate and eventually produce domestic political reactions — as the rise across Europe of parties questioning the security dependence on Washington illustrates.

The Putin question — is he genuinely ready to negotiate, or only seeking a pause?

The Foreign Policy analysis — Putin as Iran's Kim Jong-un

One of the most complex questions that Foreign Policy's analysis poses ahead of the Ankara summit is this: is Putin genuinely ready for real negotiations, or is he seeking to declare a symbolic victory and freeze the conflict the way Iran did after the 2015 nuclear deal? This analogy is revealing. Iran accepted nuclear restrictions without abandoning its program — it declared a symbolic victory while preserving its strategic trajectory. The question is whether Putin is looking for the same thing: a deal that allows him to present a victory to his population while retaining the capacity to resume hostilities when conditions permit.

If this reading is correct — and the available evidence does not contradict it — then any peace deal not accompanied by solid security guarantees for Ukraine is a pause, not an end. Ukraine would remain vulnerable to a resumption of hostilities in five or ten years, after Russia has reconstituted its forces, retooled its defense industry, and waited for Western support to drop again. This prospect is the deep reason behind Ukraine's refusal to cede territory without firm guarantees.

The lessons of Minsk — agreements that do not end wars

Ukraine has direct experience with peace agreements that are not peace. The Minsk I and II agreements, signed in 2014-2015 after the first Russian offensives in the Donbas, produced a superficial ceasefire. Russia used that period to consolidate its positions in occupied territories, reinforce its forces in the Donbas, and prepare the full-scale invasion of 2022. Ukraine drew the lesson: an agreement without guarantees is a deferred defeat.

This lesson explains Zelensky's resistance to pressure for a quick deal — including Trump's pressure. This is not stubbornness. It is institutional memory. Any agreement that does not guarantee Ukraine's future security — either through NATO membership or equivalent bilateral security guarantees — reproduces the structure of the Minsk agreements. And the Minsk agreements led to 2022.

European strategic autonomy — from rhetoric to industrial reality

The European trillion and American jobs — the dependence that persists

The European commitment to massive defense spending — the "Trump trillion" whose American economic benefits Rutte presented — raises a structural question: is Europe building its strategic autonomy or reinforcing its dependence on the American defense industry? When Rutte presents European defense spending as producing 195,000 American jobs and $300 billion in orders for American manufacturers, he is not talking about European autonomy — he is talking about European purchases from America.

European strategic autonomy — a concept born under Macron and debated for years in EU circles — requires a European defense industry capable of producing the systems Europe needs without depending on a single supplier. That is not what orders to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing build. They build European defense on an American technological and industrial foundation — reasonable in the short term but problematic in the long term if the transatlantic relationship deteriorates further.

What Europe is actually building — between ambition and reality

An honest analysis of the situation shows a mixed picture. On one side, Europe has genuinely increased its defense spending to levels unprecedented since the Cold War. Most NATO members now meet the 2% of GDP target and several exceed it. The European defense industry — Rheinmetall, KNDS, Saab, Leonardo, Thales — has accelerated production rates. Joint European armament projects — the MGCS tank, the future SCAF air combat system — are advancing, slowly.

On the other side, timelines remain too long, volumes insufficient, and coordination between member states still difficult. Procurement decisions are still largely made at national rather than European level, producing duplication and inefficiency. Ukraine — waiting for anti-drone systems, missiles, armored vehicles — is the real-world test of Europe's capacity to produce at volume and with urgency. That test reveals persistent shortcomings that political goodwill does not yet compensate.

China in the equation — the absent presence that structures everything

Foreign Policy and the implicit pivot toward Asia

Foreign Policy's analysis of transatlanticism focuses on Europe and Ukraine, but it cannot ignore the structural backdrop: the primary concern of American foreign policy in the long run is not Russia in Ukraine — it is China in Asia. This geostrategic reality creates a permanent tension in the transatlantic relationship: Europe wants America to remain fully engaged in Europe; America wants Europe to free up resources for it to focus on China.

The European "Trump trillion" is, in this reading, also an American response to this tension: if Europe invests massively in its own defense, the United States can progressively redirect its military attention and resources toward the Indo-Pacific competition. This arrangement may appear balanced but assumes that Europe is capable of defending its eastern flank without decisive American intervention — a hypothesis that remains to be demonstrated in the event of an escalation with Russia beyond the Ukrainian theater.

Beijing watches and waits — the Ukraine test as a signal for Taiwan

China is watching the war in Ukraine and the Western response with extreme attention. What it sees will partly determine its calculus on Taiwan. If the West demonstrates firm and lasting solidarity — sustained deliveries, effective sanctions, unwavering support despite the costs — Beijing receives the signal that the Asia-Pacific would also be defended. If the West shows fatigue, hesitation, internal fractures — Beijing receives the opposite signal.

This is why the response to the Ukrainian dossier is not only a European question — it is a question of global deterrence. China is watching whether the transatlantic partnership is truly "one of convenience" or whether, when what matters is at stake, allies hold. What they do at Ankara will be read in Beijing as carefully as in Moscow. The stakes extend beyond Ukraine — they structure the world order for the decade ahead.

Ankara as a test — what does a successful summit look like?

The criteria for a substantive outcome versus minimal expectations

The NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8, 2026 will be judged against precise criteria. A substantive summit would produce: concrete, dated commitments for additional air defense system deliveries to Ukraine; a clarification on the security guarantees offered to Ukraine pending formal membership; coordinated sanctions against entities supplying the Russian defense industry; and a defense spending commitment that goes beyond the already achieved 2% of GDP target.

A minimal summit would produce a communiqué reaffirming solidarity with Ukraine, expressing concern about Russia, noting progress on spending, and scheduling the next follow-up meetings. This type of outcome is better than open failure — but it will not satisfy Kyiv, which has clearly expressed that words are no longer enough. What Sybiha said on the morning of July 2 — "do not delay decisions" — defines precisely the difference between a substantive summit and a symbolic one.

The host's role — Erdogan between NATO and calculated neutrality

Erdogan's Turkey is hosting the summit. This geographical choice is not incidental. Turkey is a NATO member that has maintained economic and diplomatic relations with Russia throughout the war in Ukraine — Russian energy imports, tourism, facilitation of transactions circumventing sanctions. Erdogan plays the mediator between opposing camps, a position that gives him diplomatic influence disproportionate to his country's economic power.

His role as host in Ankara will give him a platform and influence over the summit agenda. He will be tempted to use this role to promote a resolution of the Ukrainian conflict that includes territorial compromises — a position closer to Russian than Ukrainian preferences. NATO partners will need to navigate between keeping Turkey in the alliance (essential for its geography and military capabilities) and resisting pressure for concessions that Ukraine regards as unacceptable.

The transatlantic alliance after Trump — what will remain and what will have permanently changed

The structural damage that would not repair itself automatically

One of the least discussed questions in analyses of post-Trump transatlanticism is structural damage that would not repair itself automatically with a change of administration. Trust between allies builds over decades and is destroyed in months. The doubt Trump has installed in European capitals about the reliability of the American security guarantee will not disappear with a new president. It persists in defense plans, in procurement decisions, in the strategic calculations of every member state that must now factor a margin of uncertainty about Article 5 into its threat assessments.

This instilled doubt may be one of the most lasting effects of Trumpian foreign policy. A Europe that plans its defense accounting for a possible American disengagement is a Europe investing in its autonomy — healthy in the long term — but also a Europe dividing its resources between buying American now and building European for tomorrow. This division of resources hurts in terms of immediate efficiency. It may prove wise in the long run if European strategic autonomy becomes an operational reality.

The elements of the alliance that held — despite everything

There is also a more optimistic reading. Several elements of the transatlantic alliance held better than anticipated under Trump's pressure. Intelligence service cooperation — the Five Eyes group, intelligence sharing with Ukraine — continued to function. The NATO command infrastructure remained operational. Weapons deliveries to Ukraine continued, with interruptions and difficult negotiations, but they continued. Sanctions against Russia remained broadly in place.

These elements of institutional resilience deserve recognition. They suggest that transatlantic institutions — NATO, intelligence-sharing mechanisms, common sanctions frameworks — have their own inertia that protects them against short-term political will. That is not a guarantee — institutions can be dismantled by determined leaders. But it is a buffer. And that buffer has held.

Conclusion: the convenience partnership is imperfect — and it is all we have

Accepting the reality without idealizing it — and without letting it degrade further

Foreign Policy's essay of June 29, 2026 establishes a diagnosis that this essay seeks to complete: transatlanticism is a convenience partnership. It survives because interests converge sufficiently — Europe needs American protection, the United States needs European markets and the legitimacy its democratic allies confer. This convergence of interests is more fragile than the convergence of values it has replaced — but it is real.

Accepting this diagnosis is not a call to resignation. It is an honest starting point for a policy that seeks to preserve what works while working to rebuild what has degraded. Common values do not disappear when an American president treats them with cynicism — they are dormant in the electorate and in the institutions. They can re-emerge, as they did after Trump 1. But the war in Ukraine cannot wait for that re-emergence. It is being paid for now, with the tools available now.

What this essay does not resolve — the real open questions

This essay does not know whether Ankara will produce decisions commensurate with the urgency. It does not know whether Trump will stay in this conditional partner posture or tip back toward equidistance or withdrawal. It does not know whether Russia genuinely seeks an agreement or only a pause. And it does not know whether the convenience partnership will hold against the growing pressure of China pushing for yet another reorganization of global alliances.

What this essay knows with certainty: Ukraine is fighting for its survival. The West has decided, imperfectly and too slowly, to support it. This support, even imperfect, even grounded in interest calculations rather than value convictions, is currently the only thing standing between a Ukraine defending its borders and a Russia seeking to erase them. A convenience partnership that produces this result is not a disgrace. It is a functional minimum that deserves to be preserved, improved, and if possible elevated once again toward something greater.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Sources and editorial posture

This essay draws on analyses published by Foreign Policy on June 29, 2026 on the state of transatlanticism before the Ankara summit, on Euromaidanpress coverage of Rutte's visit to Washington (July 1, 2026), and on geopolitical comparative analyses published by Foreign Policy on the question of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. My editorial line is explicitly pro-transatlantic alliance, pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO. I believe in the value of democratic alliances, even imperfect ones.

What this essay cannot confirm with certainty

Foreign Policy's analyses are expert interpretations, not verifiable facts. Certain statements attributed to Macron on Trump's posture are reported indirectly. The conclusions of the Ankara summit are not known at the time of writing. This essay is an analytical reading of a situation in motion — it will be partially overtaken by events in the days that follow its publication.

Sources

Primary sources

Foreign Policy — NATO before Ankara: Trump, Erdogan, Europe defense — June 29, 2026

Foreign Policy — Europe, NATO, war: transatlantic deterrence — June 29, 2026

Euromaidanpress — Rutte tells Trump: Europe's arms spending supports 195,000 US jobs — July 1, 2026

Secondary sources

Foreign Policy — NATO summit: transatlantic alliance dead or alive? — July 1, 2026

The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US help — June 27, 2026

Kyiv Independent — If Europe wants real peace, it must make frozen war unattractive — 2026