Trump’s rage at NATO allies is binding them together — against him

“NATO is paralyzed — they can’t even have meetings,” said one European diplomat, like others granted anonymity to speak freely. “It's pretty clear NATO is already falling apart,” an EU official said, adding that Europe must urgently bolster its own defenses: “We can’t wait for it to be completely dead.”

The blunt assessment, drawn from POLITICO's interviews with 24 ministers, officials and diplomats, vividly depicts the shift in the postwar world order that Trump has done so much to bring about.

In recent days the Trump administration has plunged the military alliance into perhaps the deepest crisis of its 77-year history. The president and his team have vowed to reassess U.S. membership in NATO once the Iran war is over, in retaliation for the failure of European allies to join the conflict against Iran.

Trump himself has been happy to stoke the flames, calling NATO a "paper tiger" in an interview with The Telegraph.

America’s biggest gripe is the refusal of European powers such as Spain, the U.K. and France to let U.S. forces use their military bases or air space to conduct operations against Iran. In the month since the war began, Trump’s ire has only intensified in a stream of increasingly embittered posts flowing from his Truth Social media account.

For the Europeans, the question, as always, is how to protect themselves from the worst of it — and save what matters most.