US Lost Coherence With Its Closest Allies
The US is out of sync with the major countries in the Anglo orbit. How is this coherent?
Christine Arakelian, a lawyer and international finance expert with CIA background, makes a striking observation about contemporary US foreign policy coherence. While acknowledging that democracy is inherently messy and involves competing interests between Congress, the executive branch, and various departments, she draws a critical distinction: what matters is not consistency across all sectors, but whether core strategic approach is fundamentally coherent.
Arakelian walks through the breakdown with the “Anglo orbit” as the test case. She notes that the Trump administration has criticized European allies for abandoning their identity, yet the same standard reveals glaring US contradictions. The UK, historically America’s closest partner, has been deprioritized for a free trade agreement while pursuing deals with the GCC and India instead. Canada faces 50 percent tariffs on the USMCA, a Trump-negotiated trade agreement from his first term. Australia has prominent politicians and former prime ministers turning against AUKUS. Meanwhile, the Anglican Church voted to hear Palestinian voices, and Canada, Australia, and the UK recognized Palestinian statehood.
The deeper concern, Arakelian emphasizes, is that this incoherence is not just bad optics but actively weakens US strategic position. If the United States is not going to be the leader of the West or the Anglo world, what is it? These questions matter because without a coherent answer, the country is playing a tactical game rather than a strategic one. The implications extend to questions of shared values like due process and free speech, traditionally at the heart of the Anglo-American alliance.
This moment crystallizes a larger argument about whether the current US posture can sustain the alliances it depends on.
Transcript
Christine Arakelian: Let's leave aside Iran for a moment, okay? But just in terms of, let's just say, for example, the Anglo Alliance, okay? Trump spent a lot of time criticizing the Germans for not being German enough, right? And he goes through Europe and basically says, you've turned your back on your people, you have rampant immigration. Okay, so let's use that yardstick now with respect to the United States. Let's see if the United States is basically within an Anglo framework at this point. We'll start with UK. We now have Prime Minister Andy Burnham, brand new. He gives an interview with the BBC. He basically says, I'm going to do what's right for the UK. Now, he didn't come out against Trump, but he's hedging. He's hedging. At the beginning of the Trump administration, Trump deprioritized a free trade agreement with the UK. We don't have one. That was a priority for the UK. It was not a priority for us. UK went ahead. UK entered into a free trade agreement with the GCC countries. We have not. Church of England. That's about as Anglo as it gets, right? The Anglican Church voted to hear and listen to Palestinian voices. This is on the footsteps of basically the Anglo countries,