On the 16th of September, Ursula Von Der Leyen announced to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, that Canada would become the first associate-member of the EU. This proposal was welcomed by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who was there during the meeting and, while it is unclear what this new status as associate-member means, both sides seem ready to collaborate to make it happen. It seems naïve to ignore that this idea comes after a continuous back-and-forth that Canada and the US have been having for months. Since the beginning of his second mandate Trump has been referring to Canada as the US’ 51st state, with a fixation that is mainly economical and commercial. He has imposed 50% tariffs on almost 20$ billion worth of Canadian goods, even though Canada is one of the US’ main trading partners and has pushed petty talks to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. Furthermore, Trump’s administration, on behalf of the White House, has been attacking Canada saying that the country cannot survive without the US.

These strained relations extend beyond Canada, with the European Union as well. Alongside the trade war, what mostly worries the Europeans are the constant threats to Greenland, that have been going on for months. An agreement between the US, Denmark and NATO seems to have been achieved in the last few days of September; we don’t know the exact content of this pact, but from the outlines that have been given to us it looks like a reaffirmation of already existing agreements and it looks like the parts involved are satisfied. This still doesn’t change that many European leaders are backtracking from their relationships with the US, as they don’t see them as reliable allies anymore.

We can link all these developments in the relations between the US and other countries with something greater. Since the start of Trump’s second administration something has begun to shift in the world order. After the Cold War the US has been the main protagonist in international relations: especially in the West many countries have been very dependent on them, both economically and politically. Now they are forced to learn how to move on without them. This does not mean that all ties are being cut, they still are on the same front against Russia with NATO, but that they need to plan a picture of the future where the US might not be one of their closest allies.

An anti-American sentiment is starting to grow and to expand in Canada and Europe. In a study conducted on 10 EU countries the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations has detected a fall in respondents seeing the US as a reliable ally from November 2024 where it was 21% to November 2025 with 16%. Although many argue that this anti-America sentiment is just a simple synonym to anti-Trump, the measures that are being taken by the people are much different. One of the most popular on the internet is the app BrandSnap, which helps users buy strictly European products and is promoted on social media with videos that suggest the viewer to replace their American products with European ones. A similar movement took place in Canada, with a strong momentum at the beginning of the year, where many people stopped buying American products to protest the tariffs and show that their country doesn’t need the US.

European government and leaders too are starting to leave behind American products, mainly the tech softwares. France is seeking to reduce its reliance on Microsoft, announcing in April 2025 that it would move its Health Data Hub from Microsoft Azure to Scaleway, a French cloud provider. The government is also planning to transition its computer systems from Microsoft software to Linux and replace Microsoft Teams with the French-developed video-conferencing platform Visio. However, these actions are not of any real concern to the giant American tech companies, who have showed us multiple times that they don’t need the European market to stay afloat. Microsoft, alongside Meta, Palantir and Starlink still remain colossal in Europe and getting rid of them might not be completely possible. Unless the European Union doesn’t want to start relying on Chinese tech companies, the Europeans will be forced to develop their own, but that is going to be time-consuming. For many years it was believed that anti-Americanism was something that belonged only in the communist states of the Warsaw Pact, that it was propaganda pushed to make people weary of liberalism. Today this term takes up a whole other meaning, becoming a fight against a tyrannical leader that is walking all over the pillars of democracy for which the West has spent decades to build and protect. But realistically, is it convenient to leave the US behind? Or should we all take this as a lesson to never depend on a singular country for so much ever again?