Raluca Niță on Trump’s Global Paradigm Reset: The Return of Spheres of Influence

Trump’s Revisionist Test of the West: A Darwinian Theory of Power

U.S. strategic messaging is placing stronger conditions on European alignment, and that Greenland-related rhetoric underscores growing sovereignity sensitivity.

In a world of giants, neutrality is fragile. You may not choose the great powers, but you must choose how to live with them.

Romania has historically operated in a survival mode shaped by asymmetric power: alignment, restraint, and pragmatic diplomacy were not choices of convenience, but necessities of geography. From managing imperial pressures to navigating externally imposed systems, Romania learned that smaller and medium states rarely have the luxury of open defiance. In today’s shifting paradigm—under a more transactional U.S. posture associated with Trump—Europe is increasingly being pushed into a similar role: disciplined, compliant, and strategically aligned, not because it wants to be, but because the cost of misalignment is rising.

The question hanging over the transatlantic relationship today is whether Donald Trump is actively attempting to recode the meaning of international law—replacing the post-1945 framework of multilateral legitimacy (UN principles, NATO credibility, rule-based constraints) with a more improvised architecture of ad-hoc transactional blocs that aim to “enhance the global security” not to “confront NATO”.

His public posture increasingly resembles an effort to construct a parallel system to the traditional Western alliance order: something closer to a „Board of Peace” model of geopolitics, where participation is conditional, obligations are renegotiable, and outcomes are dictated by leverage. The emerging logic is a conditional protection, paid defense, a rulling world of the „strongest powers” (USA, Russia, China). The logic of positioning has been reduced to a simple equation: loyalty—or consequences.

What makes this moment qualitatively different is that Trump’s rhetoric and policy framing represents a revisionist view of sovereignty. His worldview suggests borders are not upheld by law and legitimacy but by power and possession: the strong can claim what they wish because the weak cannot defend it, and “ownership” is reduced to capability. This is a return to a Darwinian logic of international politics—closer to 19th-century spheres of influence than to 21st-century legal norms.

The US National Security Strategy (November 2025) casts Europe less as an equal partner than as a drifting civilization: over-regulated, militarily insufficient, and politically constrained by supranational bodies that dilute sovereignty. It calls for “European greatness,” not as Europe defines it, but as Washington prefers it: a continent that “remains European,” regains “civilizational self-confidence,” and shifts away from regulatory governance toward national political revival. Europe is encouraged to stand on its own feet militarily—while Washington seeks to end the perception, and prevent the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance. This is a strategic posture with an ideological payload. It is not simply burden-sharing; it is political conditioning. Europe is no longer treated as the institutional heart of the West, but as terrain in a contest over sovereignty, culture, and alignment.

Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2026 captures the consequence: the United States itself becomes the principal source of global volatility. Tariff threats are wielded for concessions, military power becomes more assertive, alliance commitments fluctuate with presidential mood, and soft power erodes—accelerating a fragmented “G-Zero” world where coalition-building is harder and crises are more dangerous. For Europe, the warning is straightforward: unpredictability is now structural, not episodic.

At home, Trump has advanced by weakening the guardrails: Congress has largely complied, opposition has fragmented, and dissent—political, corporate, and media—has been chilled through lawsuits, investigations, and regulatory pressure. Even when courts intervene, the strategic effect often lands first: self-censorship, retreat, and normalization. Backed by a Supreme Court receptive to an expansive “unitary executive” vision, power consolidates through intimidation and institutional capture. This domestic pattern is the parallel to his foreign posture: alliances become transactional, sovereignty becomes conditional, and the rules-based order becomes negotiable by force.

Nothing captures the rupture more clearly than the Greenland episode. When Trump questions Denmark’s “right of ownership,” he is not negotiating policy; he is contesting the sovereignty of a NATO ally. Greenland has been part of the Danish Realm since 1721, remains within the Kingdom of Denmark, and enjoys extensive self-rule—yet Trump’s language escalates from cooperation to possession, demanding “complete and total control,” including through the idea of „purchasing it”.

So when Trump questions Denmark’s “right of ownership,” he is not merely pressuring a small ally. He is implying that sovereignty is conditional on defense capacity—and therefore that power creates title. That principle—if normalized—does not threaten Denmark alone. It destabilizes every small and medium power that relies on rules to balance inequality of force.

And the intensity of the Greenland fixation suggests it is bigger than a fleeting disposition. Greenland is strategically central in the Arctic: geography, future sea routes, surveillance, military posture, critical rare earth resources. Even without proof of any hidden agenda, the rhetoric signals that something is being treated as strategically non-negotiable, too valuable in terms of US National Security to be discussed in conventional terms—so it is instead asserted through confrontation.

Europe’s challenge is to prepare for a West without guarantees, in what appears to be an irreversible shift in the global order. If alliances become conditional and sovereignty negotiable, Europe faces two broad paths: confrontation or compliance. Donald Trump may tolerate a certain level of pushback, but he is unlikely to forgive sustained opposition. In a transactional order, credibility is the only currency that cannot be renegotiated—and Europe can no longer afford to spend it lightly.

About the Author

Raluca Niță, author of The Silent Language of Power, holds double degrees in Law and European Studies, a Master’s in Diplomacy, and an Executive MBA. She has authored articles for the Ion I. C. Brătianu Institute of Political Science and International Relations (Romanian Academy) and the Romanian Diplomatic Institute. She has experience in institutional negotiation, legislation, and strategic partnerships at national and European levels, including work in key state institutions. She is currently Public Affairs Director, working with strategic institutional stakeholders.

NITA RALUCA
Global Media Consulting S.R.L.
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Email: raluca@globalmediaconsulting.ro