There's a lot of "well, look the liberal international order wasn't all peaches and cream" talk right now. Sure. But by the same token this dispute illustrates your actually existing options (+/-): Canada or Saudi Arabia. The Trump WH claims they're equal. They're not.
And just to be clear: yes, the US' other NATO allies are taking note that, beyond Trump's anti-NATO rhetoric and his anti-EU & anti-Canada tariffs, he is actively siding with a non-NATO state in significant diplomatic dispute. Ottawa will remember, so will the EU.
I've argued on repeated occasions that thx to reactionary policies of Trump WH & the pro-Brexit camp in the UK we're on the brink of a world-historic shift in international relations. The US, in practice, siding w KSA over Canada like so is another step twds chaos & dissolution.
By which I mean, to be clear, that seeds are being planted today for catastrophic confrontations within NATO itself. In effect, for precisely the kinds of "great power" confrontations post-1945 liberal order was meant to definitively end. Not tmrw but sooner than many believe.
And if you think that's alarmist, I want you to reflect long and hard on the world as it was on Sept. 10, 2001 and where we are today, less than two decades later. What the US & EU look like, what the Middle East looks like, what Eastern Europe looks like. A widening gyre. /x
