What America lost in a few days under Trump

After the infamous Trump-Zelensky-Vance conversation on Friday night, America’s image has fundamentally changed in the eyes of those who, until recently, admired its political and economic model. The entire world watched in shock as events unfolded like a scene from a Wall Street wolf movie—except this time, the heist was happening live, and the target was Ukraine.

What we’ve seen in recent days is an American president who has taken a transactional approach to the extreme. Military aid for Ukraine, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe, even a potential collaboration with Russia on the North Stream 1 pipeline—all these decisions stem from a cold, calculating, real-estate magnate mindset, where everything boils down to profit and loss. There are no principles, no morals, no rules, no values.

Trump seems to govern America according to the three rules of his unscrupulous Manhattan lawyer, Roy Cohn, who helped him rise in the business world. Rule number one, the simplest: attack, attack, attack. Rule number two: never admit anything, deny everything. And rule number three, the most important of all: no matter what happens to you, no matter what people say, no matter how hard you are hit—declare victory. Never acknowledge defeat.

These rules may work in New York real estate, on Wall Street, or in big tech. But when you try to run a country like a property development firm, you risk irreversibly losing the respect of the Western world—a world that, despite its imperfections, still operates under a system of rules, values, and principles.

In just a few days, Trump’s America, along with his ally J.D. Vance (U.S. Senator from Ohio and a close Trump supporter), has lost its moral authority, its status as a beacon of democracy, and its ability to divide the world into good and evil. Trump can no longer credibly point out enemies or define an „axis of evil” when America itself has become the adversary of nearly everyone—starting with Canada, Greenland, and Mexico, and extending to Europe and Ukraine. Meanwhile, he has suddenly become a favorite in Moscow’s eyes. America’s new friends today are Europe’s far-right extremists—the outcasts of the Western world.

This is perhaps the greatest loss, one with consequences that are difficult to foresee. A nation’s greatness is defined by the moral high ground and respect it has earned over time, not by „MAGA” stamped on campaign hats. It pains me to see how outraged Romanian citizens, rightfully indignant over the behavior of Washington’s new leadership, have been flooding the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest with hundreds of critical comments on almost every recent post.

The second major loss is America’s ability to inspire as an aspirational model. I belong to a generation for whom the United States, with all its strengths and weaknesses, represented the cornerstone of the Western world. Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America remains a guiding book for me. The Founding Fathers built this great nation on a set of values, sacrificing their own interests as large landowners or slaveholders for a greater ideal.

Now, I struggle to imagine how much appeal Trump’s America still holds. Who would want to live in a country run like a corporate holding, governed strictly by the interests of Big Tech? One thing is clear—a study conducted in late February in the United States found that two out of five Americans are considering a future outside their own country. According to a recent poll, 17% of American adults want to move abroad within the next five years.

The America I know and respect is the one that called on the Western world to stand in solidarity after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to defend our shared democratic values—freedom being the most important among them. The Western world responded unconditionally, including Romania, which sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Back then, no one told Americans that they would stand with them in the fight against terrorism only if there was something in it for them—yet that is exactly how Trump now frames his stance on Ukraine. He treats the Ukrainians as aggressors, not victims of a Russian invasion. „Your freedom costs a fortune,” he essentially told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday night, „so if you want our help, give us something in return—rare earth minerals, for example.” His remarks sparked global outrage.

Imagine if Romania had sent America a bill for the costs of the hundreds of soldiers it deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the years, demanding LNG shipments in return as payment for the Romanian troops killed or wounded in those wars. Trump is now teaching the world that this is how struggling nations should be treated—you help them, but never for free. You invest a dollar, but expect to make three in return.

Maybe this is how Trump’s America will handle relations with the European Union going forward. But that path will only accelerate the erosion of trust and respect between these two global powers. For Europe, however, this moment presents an enormous opportunity—to build its own defense system, to rally even more around the common EU project, and perhaps even to bring the UK back into the fold sooner rather than later. Outside the EU, we don’t have many friends left.