Several debates are converging around the United States in early summer 2026, and in each country they sound different. In Berlin they argue about how to live with Donald Trump’s America, which simultaneously remains Europe’s military anchor and threatens to roll back the continent’s protection. In Pretoria and Cape Town they discuss what “America First” means for South African workers, car exports and the status of white Afrikaners. In Seoul they still view Washington through the prism of North Korea and the broader US–China rivalry, trying to understand how reliable the American “nuclear umbrella” is. These conversations rarely become part of the English‑language agenda in the United States, but they shape the real expectations and fears of allies and partners.
The first major theme that appears in both Germany and South Africa is the sharp reshaping of American foreign policy under a second Trump presidency: reduced security commitments, hard protectionism and the unpicking of old economic agreements. In Germany this is discussed through the lens of NATO and the presence of US troops. On the German channel n‑tv a commentator describes Washington’s stance almost caricaturally: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “with a raised index finger,” demands that Europeans not raise their own index fingers too often, while insisting on higher defense budgets and a reduced American contribution to Europe’s defense. The piece refers to a draft document listing which kinds of US military capabilities “will no longer or will only be limitedly” be available to defend Europe, with Germany singled out critically for excessive dependence on Russia and China. The author summarizes: for Washington Europe ceases to be a priority, and Germany is no longer a reliable pillar. Something similar appears in the business press, for example in Handelsblatt commentary that “Germany saved NATO” by significantly increasing defense spending and thereby partly “relieving” the US; but the subtext is: the alliance has become less about values and more transactional.
This same logic of “alliance of calculation” is vividly present in the trade and tariff debate. German economic institutes calculate that bilateral trade with the US in 2024 already reached about €252 billion, and accumulated investments by German companies in the US exceeded half a trillion euros, but now all of this has come under crossfire from new tariffs based on the White House’s emergency powers. Industry analysts point out that even if the Supreme Court restricts the use of the most aggressive instruments like IEPPA tariffs, the administration will find alternative legal bases to continue tariff pressure. Against this backdrop, a sense is growing in Germany that Washington no longer distinguishes allies from competitors: Europeans, including Germans, are increasingly labeled in US national security documents as a “problem area” — not enemies, but no longer strategic priorities.
South Africa enters the same conversation from a different angle — not as a military ally, but as a vulnerable trading partner. Here the central theme has been the collapse of the AGOA preferential regime and a wave of American tariffs under a second Trump term. Studies by South African economists, published in local journals, show how the expiration of AGOA in 2025 and the shift to “reciprocal” tariffs sharply changed conditions for goods from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) entering the US market. The authors stress that steep duties effectively “nullify” the benefits African countries once had from duty‑free exports of cars, agricultural products and industrial raw materials. In this context columns have appeared in the South African press with telling headlines: “Minister Meyer must convince Pretoria, not Washington, about the benefits of the deal,” stressing that the problem is not only the US’s hard line but also the internal indecision of the South African government, which is reluctant to make politically painful concessions to preserve market access. One columnist writes that after months of tension between Pretoria and Washington, new negotiations are beginning without a clear mandate from the South African side and without a precise plan for what the country is willing to do to mitigate the tariff impact.
At the same time, both in Germany and South Africa a similar theme of US strategic reorientation is heard: Washington no longer sees Europe or Africa as priority theaters, and attention has shifted to the Indo‑Pacific and competition with China. German commentators note that in the new US national security strategy the Indo‑Pacific occupies an “outstanding place,” while Europe is only one of the theaters expected to bear increasing costs. South African analysts directly contrast American protectionism with what Beijing offers: China manages to combine promises of duty‑free access for African goods with large infrastructure investments, while the US imposes political conditions and simultaneously raises tariffs.
The second major connecting theme is a crisis of trust in the United States as a moral and political reference. In Germany this crisis in recent weeks has received a rare, almost domestic expression. Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking in a conversation, said a phrase that spread widely through the German media: “Today I would not recommend my children go to the US” — he meant both studying and working there. In an interview with Tagesspiegel he elaborated, explaining it as a combination of political polarization, the spread of firearms and the overall toxicity of the public environment in America. In the same conversation he sharply criticized US Middle East policy, saying American leadership had been “humiliated” by the Iranian regime, which provoked an irritated reaction from Trump and subsequent threats of partial troop withdrawals from Germany and higher tariffs on German cars. German commentators note that Berlin and Washington have never been this bad, even though Germany’s military dependence on the US remains critical: as Die Zeit points out, deterrence of potential adversaries still relies almost entirely on American strike capabilities, and “relations with Washington are now worse than ever.”
In South Africa the crisis of trust toward the US takes a different form. The key irritant at the end of May was the Trump administration’s decision to sharply increase intake of white South Africans — Afrikaners — as refugees, on the pretext of an “unexpected emergency humanitarian situation.” The South African government and organizations representing Afrikaner interests synchronously rejected the framing: both official Pretoria and Afrikaner groups said that talk of a “humanitarian crisis of white people” in the country does not reflect reality and is being used by Washington for domestic political maneuvering. Commentators recall the wider context: in 2025 the Trump administration expelled the South African ambassador and sharply cut aid, and American right‑wing think tanks publish reports calling to “hold Pretoria accountable for discrimination against the Afrikaner minority.” For a significant part of South African society this looks not like protection of human rights but like selective humanitarian policy, where the rights of certain racial groups are used to undermine the legitimacy of the post‑apartheid state.
At this point German and South African perspectives unexpectedly converge: in both places it is increasingly said that America claims the role of arbiter without being willing to subject its own political and social order to the same scrutiny. German journalists point to mass “No Kings” protests inside the US against Trump’s attempts to expand presidential powers, drawing parallels between street mobilization in America and anti‑monarchist, anti‑populist movements in Europe. South African commentators appeal to history: during apartheid the US long viewed the white minority as a strategic ally against communism and was slow to impose tough sanctions — so today’s selective “concern” for white South Africans evokes bitter associations.
South Korea in this part of the discussion appears more cautious. Open criticism of Washington is less frequent, and the tone of coverage is generally more pragmatic. However, the recurring theme — the reliability of the US as a security guarantor — grows louder. Korean news regularly covers conferences on peace on the Korean Peninsula organized by Korean‑American civic groups in Washington, inviting US congressmembers, Korean parliamentarians and former South Korean presidents. Announcements emphasize that these forums aim to remind American lawmakers that policy toward North Korea cannot be reduced to episodic show summits and sporadic threats. South Korean analysts warn in opinion pieces that if US attention fully shifts to competition with China in the South China Sea and Taiwan, Korea risks becoming not a standalone priority but merely one bargaining chip in a larger strategic game.
The third common theme uniting Germany, South Africa and South Korea is the search for a place in a world that is becoming less unipolar. In a speech at the first International Security Forum, South African Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni speaks of “a transition from a largely unipolar system to a more complex multipolar order,” where the US is only one center of power alongside China, Russia, India and the EU. For South Africa, she emphasizes, it is important to defend a policy of non‑alignment, sovereign equality of states and primacy of international law. This is a veiled but sufficiently clear message to Washington: Pretoria is not ready to automatically support American positions in conflicts with Iran, Russia or Israel, even if that means paying in trade preferences and market access.
Similar words are now coming from Germany’s traditionally pro‑Western political class. The same commentators who a few years ago treated the US as the unconditional leader of the “free world” now write about an “era of strategic uncertainties,” in which Europe must think about its own military and technological sovereignty. One US expert in a column for a major news portal notes that the 2026 American security strategy focuses on “maximizing short‑term gain” and minimizing long‑term military presence around the world. For Germany this means the end of an era when one could assume automatic American guarantees.
South Korea occupies a special place in this triangle: it perhaps understands more loudly than any other country that it cannot do without the US in a multipolar world, but fully relying on Washington is becoming ever more dangerous. Korean analysis increasingly discusses the idea of “dual hedging” — building its own deterrent capabilities, including debate on nuclear armament prospects, while deepening cooperation both with the US and with other regional players such as Japan and Australia. In this sense Korea looks to Germany as an example of a country trying to catch up with a reality that has suddenly found it a “frontline state” without the familiar American safety cushion.
A distinct layer is the cultural and value perception of America. In Germany, where American culture has been part of modern identity for decades, a light anti‑Americanism has become fashionable, especially among youth and left‑leaning circles. Newspaper columns about Trump’s visits to China use harsh language: one political scientist on ntv writes that Trump’s improvisations “diminish the US as a superpower,” contrasting his unpreparedness with Xi Jinping’s carefully measured steps. In these texts America ceases to be a model of democracy and turns into an unpredictable giant that does not understand what it wants. At the same time German media follow domestic protest movements in the US, such as the multi‑million “No Kings” marches, viewing them as an echo of their own debates about limits of power and the dangers of charismatic populism.
In South Africa the cultural image of the US is more complex: on the one hand American pop culture remains attractive, and the civil rights movement’s legacy is an important part of political imagination. On the other — every new Trump gesture “protecting” white South Africans is seen as an attempt to rewrite the apartheid narrative and call into question the legitimacy of black majority rule. Afrikaner media publish pieces grateful to America for the chance to emigrate and seek asylum; in English‑ and Zulu‑language press there is strong criticism of what is called “selective humanitarianism” and a continuation of colonial paternalism.
South Korea may be the only one of the three where the image of America as a “land of opportunity” remains relatively resilient. Korean students still flock to American universities en masse, and K‑pop’s penetration into the US only strengthens interest in mutual cultural exchange. Yet even here articles about school shootings, political polarization and attacks on Asian Americans create a background of mistrust. Korean commentators often draw parallels: the US, which once criticized Korea for insufficient democracy in the 1980s, now finds its democratic institutions undergoing stress tests no less severe than Korea’s were under military regimes.
Across this diversity of voices there are several common motifs. The first is fatigue with American unpredictability. In Berlin, Pretoria and Seoul they acknowledge that they must learn to live with a US that no longer guarantees free trade, automatic security guarantees or consistent ideological leadership. The second is a desire to preserve relations, but on new, more reciprocal terms. German writers speak of an “alliance of interests” instead of an “alliance of values”; South Africans seek a partnership that “respects the country’s independent foreign policy”; Koreans call for a “renewed” alliance in which Washington accounts not only for its calculations against China but also for existential risks on the Korean Peninsula.
And finally, the third motif is a quiet but growing conversation that the world after Trump‑2 will never return to the old, familiar unipolarity. Germany, South Africa and South Korea look at the US differently, but they agree on one thing: America is still too big and influential to be ignored, and at the same time too volatile to be fully relied upon. It is in this duality — between dependence and disillusionment, between the fear of losing America and the desire to distance from it — that new international views of the United States are being born today.
