Jonathan Clamp: We should be less alarmed by Trump’s big wake-up call

Jonathan Clamp is a former local councillor and parliamentary candidate.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have rewatched Harry Potter 5 with the family in January. Now I’m seeing dark forces everywhere.

Russian spooks in the English Channel; Russian spooks (in Bulgarian invisibility cloaks) in Great Yarmouth. On the other side of the world, Chinese spooks circling the coast of Australia; Chinese spooks (1,200+ of them?) skulking about in Aussie alleyways….

Cue tornado-rush of Death Eaters scything through tempestuous skies; the Dark Lord’s forces are gathering.

And where’s Western resolve at this crucial hour? The US – for so long the West’s dependable Ministry of Magic – has changed course, apparently turned against its own side. Panic has set in amongst the commentariat (so many ‘Daily Prophets’!). The US is selling out on Ukraine; pulling out of Europe; undermining NATO; dividing the world into Orwellian spheres of dictatorial influence.

Yes, it’s difficult not to have wobbles. But Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch are right not to over-react.

It’s hard watching President Trump’s shock-and-awe provocations towards allies. His values, seemingly steeped in harsh realpolitik, leave many of us cold. He also has a jarring habit of conducting his negotiations in public. Uncomfortable as it is, his style is a reality and the US is our strongest ally. We need to stand back from all the noise to see the bigger picture.

To understand the bigger picture – that is, the direction of US defence policy – we should be listening to Elbridge Colby.

No, he’s not a relative of Dolores Umbridge nor Albus Dumbledore. Elbridge Colby is completely non-fictional; he wrote Trump’s National Defense Strategy in 2018 and is Trump’s choice of ‘Under Secretary for Defense for policy’.

Colby is categorised as a ‘Prioritiser’ – he believes that, as rich as the US is, it does not have infinite resources and cannot fight a war on multiple fronts at once: it must prioritise its firepower. For now, at least, the ‘Prioritisers’ appear to be winning the Republican Party’s debate on US defence policy direction versus ‘Primacists’ (those who believe the US does have the resources to maintain global leadership) and ‘Restrainers’ (essentially, more isolationist).

Colby further believes that ‘America First’, in defence policy terms, means prioritising containment of China. Only a couple of weeks  ago, Colby told the Senate Armed Services Committee: “The core American interest is in denying China regional hegemony.”

Trump’s foreign and defence policy approach is based on this. He wants to end war in Ukraine and the Middle East (at least bank-rolled by America) so that he can turn US focus to the Indo-Pacific, where long-term US interests lie.

What does all this mean for NATO? Clearly a loosening of the ties but not necessarily a break. Today, at least, US commitment to NATO Article 5 still holds. Trump repeatedly expressed US commitment to Article 5 in his first presidential term (2017-21). He said the same on 27 February 2025: “I support it.”

Yes, of course, he then goes and ruins it on another day by adding a subjunctive: if NATO countries pay their way…

That’s probably just him negotiating in public. Asking NATO countries to pay more towards their defence and to place less ‘primary responder’ reliance on the US is not the same as saying “no” to NATO.

Trump is not the first person to say this. In fact, Barack Obama’s team were warning in 2011 of the consequences if NATO countries failed to take on more of the defence burden:

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

Trump’s being tough about it now because time has moved on and change is more pressing. Some NATO governments kept hitting the snooze button. All of a sudden: “I really do have to get up!”

To his credit, our Prime Minister has taken a strong leadership role in adjusting to the new realities. I hope we’re developing a Plan B for a day, sooner than we wish, when the US might leave the European field altogether. It’s not now, however. Trump may be walking off the field but he hasn’t yet taken the ball with him. Whether the US is prepared to stand behind the Coalition of the Willing in Ukraine will be the proof of that.

Finally, how should the UK approach a professional pot-stirrer like Trump? We must stay measured. The next four years will require a tightrope act deciphering which of Trump’s comments are a definitive policy statement, a mere negotiating ploy or a shot from the hip. In addition, for whom each statement is really intended.

This unpredictable feature of Trump means we must avoid running commentary on everything he says. We should, of course, robustly correct his wilder comments (e.g. calling Zelensky a dictator who caused the Russian invasion) which are just plain wrong.

As the US upends the foreign policy status quo, it feels like Disorder of the Phoenix – but it needn’t be. Now we understand the US direction of travel, it’s over to us to re-cast our political mindset in a positive geopolitical vision for the UK.