Why does Trump treat his enemies better than his friends?

So much for the “special relationship”, then. It’s strange how Donald Trump treats his friends and allies. Badly, I mean.

Trump, openly if indirectly, was rude about Keir Starmer for the first time, and described the Chagos Islands deal thus: “Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ Nato Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital US Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.”

It feels very much like someone has “got at” Trump – people perhaps associated with Nigel Farage or the Tories using a go‑between to undermine the Chagos deal – by linking it to Trump’s current obsession, Greenland. Both are militarily important to America: neither is US territory, and, supposedly, they are about to be invaded by China or Russia. Possibly both. Something like that.

It was not always thus. Only last May, the US State Department, in the name of secretary of state Marco Rubio himself, issued a statement lavishing praise on the Chagos treaty, ending a long‑running dispute with Mauritius over sovereignty of these remote Indian Ocean atolls. Their geopolitical significance lies in the huge joint UK-US (mostly US) naval and air force base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands (the British Indian Ocean Territory).

In the communiqué, Rubio explicitly referenced Trump’s knowledge of the treaty with Mauritius, and to being personally briefed on it by Starmer: “This is a critical asset for regional and global security. President Trump expressed his support for this monumental achievement during his meeting with prime minister Starmer at the White House.”

There was no suggestion the Mauritians would betray their American and British partners now that territorial claims had been settled and international legal action abandoned: “The United States values its partnership with both the United Kingdom and Mauritius, and we stand ready to continue our collaboration to promote peace, security, and prosperity in the Indian Ocean and beyond.”

Now the United States does not value the partnership quite so much, and, presumably, neither does Trump value his previously warm relationship with Starmer. Fundamentally, Greenland and the Chagos Islands pose the same question. Either you care about international law and the rights of small nations (Greenland/Denmark, Mauritius, and Ukraine) – or you don’t (America nowadays, Russia, China and their clients).

One intriguing detail from the president’s phone call with Starmer about Greenland is that Trump admitted he might have been misinformed about why European troops had been sent there. Trump thought it a hostile act; the British insist the US had been consulted through the usual channels. It would appear nobody told Trump, or, if they did, he didn’t understand or wasn’t listening. Could it be that when Rubio and Starmer explained the Chagos deal he was dozing off, bored?

When he discovered the French, Finns, Germans, Dutch and others (including a token British officer) were in his backyard, Trump went tonto. Starmer calmed him – briefly.

Almost in the same digital breath as the attack on Starmer, Trump published screenshots of a private exchange with Emmanuel Macron. The French president had invited him to meet other G7 leaders in Davos and to a slap‑up dinner in Paris. The offer was spurned and mocked on social media – an echo of the cringe‑inducing impersonation of Macron (the ’Allo, ’Allo accent included) that Trump performed at a Maga rally. Breaches of diplomatic confidence with a garnish of childish spite. I fear what Starmer may face in the coming days.

No ally is safe. The Norwegian prime minister was sent an unhinged email about Trump not getting the Nobel Prize. Trump’s allies, presumably with his consent, ridicule Denmark despite its high per‑capita casualty rate among US allies in Afghanistan. Greenland has been Danish for centuries, yet Trump says, “we sent boats there too”. Canada is dismissed as “just an arbitrary line on a map drawn by ‘somebody’.” The Irish Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was told in the Oval Office that his nation “cheats” America. Volodymyr Zelensky, once a friend and ally, was infamously humiliated by Trump and his cronies in the Oval Office – a moment of shame for America. Muslim‑majority nations, even friendly oil‑rich ones, are periodically subjected to hate campaigns.

Contrast that with Trump’s obsequiousness to leaders he publicly brands as security risks. It makes no sense.

If Russia is such a threat, why is he effectively handing so much of Ukraine away? If China is set to eclipse American power, why is Trump relaxed about the prospect of it reclaiming Taiwan? How can he and President Xi have a “great relationship” amid a trade war?

Trump knows the crimes against humanity these men are accused of, and sometimes complains – yet the red carpet is always rolled out. Putin in Alaska was treated as an equal, though he gave Trump nothing; now Putin and Lukashenko of Belarus have been invited to join Trump’s ridiculous “Board of Peace”, apparently willing to stump up the $1 billion fee payable to Trump himself. Macron declined – so Trump, strolling to his plane, casually announced 200 per cent tariffs on French wines and champagne.

This is what we’re dealing with – and we have another three years of it. All that can be done is for Starmer, Macron, Carney and others to carry on making the best of it, because there isn’t someone else – someone normal – available to talk to. The others, like Rubio, Witkoff or even Kushner, matter little.

The Americans knew what they were getting when they voted him in again, and that is the real problem. Trump does not represent all of America, and certainly not the best of it, and his ratings are poor. But he does represent and symbolise a shift in how America wants to deal with the world. When Trump’s gone, that will remain.