Chatham House Warns: “America Has Turned on Its Allies” as U.S. Rejects International Law and Risks a New Cold War
January 16, 2026
“AMERICA HAS TURNED ON ITS ALLIES.”
When the strongest power ignores the law,
the world doesn’t become safer
it becomes unstable.
This is how Cold Wars begin:
not with missiles,
but with broken trust.
@chathamhouse_org
#usa #america #israel #freepalestine #fyp
English Script:
Bronwen Maddox: We’ve heard from President Trump what amounts to a revolution. He’s given the US a radically new role in the world. And at the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a role that rejects the principles on which the US was founded. The government should be accountable to the people. He has dismissed international law and the interests of old allies. It is not grandiose to call this the end of the Western alliance. On China’s side, though, we have also had hugely significant change. We’ve had rising military aggression around Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines, support of Russia in its war against Ukraine and Europe, and a strategy of dominating world trade in key sectors with little interest in buying all these products. When President XI Jinping met President Trump in October, it showed that China could force the US to back down over tariffs by threatening to withhold critical minerals. Where China commands more of the global supply than the white House had cared to notice. So this year has clarified what we face. We are in a world of two superpowers in rising competition with each other. Each says it does not want a war with the other, but the possibility is not zero, and it would be catastrophic for the world. Even with all that, though, the competition for power is a threat to the peace and prosperity of others. In the case of the US’s allies, they must now contemplate what was unthinkable to have to defend themselves against the US itself in trade and perhaps security.
