How can China best profit from Trump’s latest rift with traditional US allies?

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The US president’s decision to pull troops out of Germany and threats to do the same to Spain and Italy are the latest rift within Nato

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Alyssa ChenPublished: 8:00pm, 3 May 2026Donald Trump’s latest attacks on US allies in Europe – including the order to withdraw troops from Germany and threats to do the same in Italy and Spain – may help to relieve the pressure on China.

For now, Beijing’s priority should be to deny the US the chance to “redirect attention towards China” and let Washington’s own actions do the work, some analysts have argued.

Trump has escalated his attacks on European allies in his second term, threatening to quit Nato over their refusal to support the Iran war or allow their bases to be used to launch strikes, and has repeatedly floated the possibility of seizing Greenland, a Danish territory.Advertisement

“We got no help, zero from Nato,” Trump said on Friday. “You know, we spent trillions of dollars in Nato. We got no help.”

On Friday, the US president announced that around 5,000 troops would be pulled out of Germany over the next six to 12 months, after Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Washington had been “humiliated” by Iran and lacked a coherent strategy.

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A day earlier, Trump also floated the idea of cutting American troop numbers in Italy and Spain, saying: “Why shouldn’t I? Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible.”

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