The Trump administration’s sharing of sensitive military information on Signal has shocked allies, while further eroding trans-Atlantic trust thanks to group chat messages from top U.S. officials expressing contempt toward Europe's “freeloading” on security.  “I think every allied intell igence agency that read that article is probably having their own internal panic attack about what this implies,” Craig Kafura, the director of public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said of the bombshell report in The Atlantic earlier this week.  In the article, Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed how Trump’s top Cabinet officials used the open-source messaging app to debate and detail planned attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen, while also expressing loathing for America having to defend European economic and military interests. “I think because this is such a public scandal, such a public lapse of judgment in so many ways, it's going to continue to push public attitudes in — especially Europe given the contents of those messages — a more negative direction towards the United States,” Kafura said.  President Trump’s controversial America First foreign policy has rapidly transformed even Washington’s most “ironclad” relationships, with Canada’s new prime minister saying this week that the historical relationship with the U.S. was “over.” Tariff wars are just one issue that’s rattling America’s partners. The Trump administration’s hard turn toward Russia in its push to end the Ukraine war has jolted Europe, and nationals of friendly countries have been wrapped up in hard-line domestic policies toward immigrants and anti-Israel protesters.  The Houthi attacks group chat — revealed by Goldberg after he was inadvertently invited into the chat — has added incompetence and carelessness to the mix of unprecedented concerns for foreign governments.  “I wouldn’t use Signal to cheat on my wife,” said one foreign diplomat in Washington, D.C., capturing the shock.  “Mistakes happen,” the diplomat added, but he quickly followed up with, “OK, not this mistake.”  When mistakes do happen, openness with allies is crucial to maintaining trust, said Dan Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel under President Obama.  “When there’s a breach, it’s very important to the maximum extent possible to share honestly with partners what happened, how it happened and what steps are being taken to prevent its recurrence,” Shapiro said.  “That helps to build or rebuild confidence that can be damaged by these kinds of exposures.”  That’s not the playbook Trump and his allies are employing.  Backed by Republicans in Congress, the president and his team are aggressively attacking Goldberg’s credibility, denying the classified nature of the information shared and pointing to the military strike itself as proof that no harm was done.   Experts say intelligence sharing between the U.S. and its closest partners is so engrained, and occurs at so many different levels of the bureaucracy, it’s unlikely to stop over an embarrassing scandal.  In one high-profile incident in August, CIA cooperation with Austrian law enforcement helped disrupt a major terrorist plot targeting a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. “Look, our intelligence partners are not going to stop working with us and they benefit a great deal because they get a lot of information from these exchanges,” Shapiro said.  But there are real concerns over Trump’s trustworthiness in diplomatic and intelligence circles, from his own unscrupulous approach to classified information, isolationist tendencies and cozy relationship with autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin.  After Trump temporarily halted U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine, some NATO allies questioned their acquisition of American F-35 fighter jets given the reliance on U.S. support to maintain the systems.  “The recent U.S. stance in the context of NATO and the international geostrategic dimension, makes us think what are the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a factor to be reckoned with," Portugal’s Defense Minister Nuno Melo said earlier this month.  In Germany, only 16 percent of the population viewed the U.S. as a partner Berlin can trust, according to a poll by ARD DeutschlandTrend. And three-quarters said NATO members cannot currently rely on the United States for protection.  “If allies and partners don’t trust that the United States will handle sensitive information appropriately, they will be less likely to share it,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power.  “That would make Americans less safe,” he said. “I've heard firsthand allies express such concerns in the past,” Bowman continued, pointing to his experience working with classified information as a national security adviser in the Senate. “The United States has the best intelligence collection capabilities in the world, but still relies heavily on intelligence provided by allies and partners. That intelligence sharing is more important than ever as we see growing cooperation among the Axis of Aggressor adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.” Kafura of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said it would force both European and Asian allies “to really reconsider how publicly friendly they're going to be with the United States in a pretty short period of time.” Trump’s antagonistic approach to allies, calls to annex Canada as the 51st state and harsh tariff policies are weakening ties even among our “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partnership with the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada must “look out for ourselves” Tuesday, responding to Signalgate during a campaign stop ahead of national elections on April 28. Questioning ties with the U.S. could play well to the 79 percent of Canadians who have a negative view of Trump, according to a recent poll.  In London, the head of the Liberal Democrats called on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to launch a “review into the security of the intelligence that we share with the United States.” But Starmer rejected any slowdown in intelligence sharing. “Unpicking our relations with the U.S. on defense and security is neither responsible nor serious,” he said. In the U.S., Trump’s Republican allies in Congress have largely lined up behind the president's defense of the Cabinet members involved. But some senior GOP lawmakers are attempting to walk the line between support and accountability.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) this week put his support behind Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) investigating the scope of the fallout of the Signal chat.  It’s a far cry from the outrage expressed by Democrats, demanding the resignations of national security adviser Mike Waltz, who organized the chat, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who shared the Yemen attack plans.  Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a combat veteran and former Black Hawk helicopter pilot, called Hegseth a “f‑‑‑ing liar” for saying no classified information was in the chat and the attack plans didn’t put service members at risk.  Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), during a Senate hearing featuring top intelligence officials involved in the chat, chastised the group's recklessness. “The intelligence we gather to keep Americans safe depends on a lot of allies around the world who have access to sources we don't have,” he said.  “These relationships are not built in stone, they're not dictated by law. Things like the Five Eyes are based on trust built on decades. But so often that trust is now breaking, literally, overnight.” ...read more read less