These plans of dissociation have been in motion for some time now. I think two ruinous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused a shift in American foreign policy that we are now starting to see play out more frequently. This will continue for many decades.
The traditional (not current) left was for disengagement (WTO protests, Iraq protests), it’s strange to see the left now argue for intervention and more internationalism and intervention and hegemony.
Yes, on the face of it, this is about sidestepping sanctions. But the implications of doing so go far deeper. The US posture today basically makes the US weaker in the long run.
That's all a fantasy though. The US isn't stepping back from the world stage. Its $20.5 trillion economy is growing twice as fast as the EU's smaller economy. Its $700 billion military isn't going to be reduced in size. The USD is as strong as a global standard as it has been in the last 40 years, it has no serious currency challenger (including the Yuan).
The US isn't stopping / abandoning trade. The US isn't leaving NATO. The US isn't reducing its economic or military heft. The US isn't leaving the UN or the security council and giving up its permanent seat. The US isn't ending immigration in any regard. Few of the things people pretend are happening re a step-back & isolationism, are actually happening.
Germany + UK + France = $9.5 trillion in economic output, with the combination persistently lagging behind the US in output growth. The global alternatives to the US are all growing weaker, not stronger, with one exception: China. The EU isn't better off today than it was in ~2005, it's weaker.
Trump is gone in 2-6 years. He's opposed by nearly the entire political system when it comes to isolationist policies. There is no actual step back occuring and there isn't going to be one. Trump is a fluke one-off as a politician. The next president - which will be a typical politician from inside the system - is guaranteed to follow the same script every other president has since WW2 when it comes to the US global engagement and power projection. When people write that there is a step-back occuring, it's a projection on their part of what they would like to see happen (it often involves an emotion-based fantasy that the US will soon collapse and be humbled as a superpower).
Who is unreliable here? Why isn't Germany getting their natural gas from the US?
Of course the EU doesn't like Trump. If somebody has been giving you free money for decades and all of a sudden somebody wants to put a stop to it or at least get something in return, of course they aren't going to like the new guy