Donald Trump has killed NATO, its up to Europeans to reinvent it.

The credibility of a military alliance like NATO is based on Article 5 of its founding treaty, signed in 1949: Article 5 states that an armed attack against a member state “will be considered an attack directed against all parties.” It is the trust in this solidarity among the 32 member states – two in North America, the United States and Canada, and the others in Europe – that has been its strength. This explains why all the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe wanted to join at the end of the Cold War.

Donald Trump seriously undermined this credibility in recent days with a series of harsh impromptu remarks, in his anger at Europeans’ refusal to engage militarily in the Strait of Hormuz, facing Iran. On Wednesday, during an Easter lunch surrounded by loyal supporters, the president improvised a speech so damning that the White House preferred to remove the video.

In his remarks, besides a personal attack on Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Trump criticized the “cowardice” of his European allies. He once again mentioned the temptation to leave NATO, calling it a “paper tiger” that costs the United States “tens of billions of dollars.”

This is not the first time he has raised the threat of leaving NATO. He had previously done so during his first term, believing that Europeans were not paying enough for their security.

To appease Trump, but also in a context of much more serious threats, NATO countries decided last year to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP, an artificially inflated figure with infrastructure expenses that could be considered related to security. This was a moment of glory for Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, who felt compelled to call Donald Trump “Daddy.” We are far from that today, as the Israeli-American war in Iran has changed the game.

Donald Trump either does not understand, or pretends not to understand, that Europeans have no desire to participate in a war for which they have not been consulted, notified, or called upon; and they are only called upon when things go wrong. A war outside the bounds of international law, with goals that differ depending on whether you listen to Israel or the United States, and change every day.

The problem is broader. In the same speech, Trump once again targeted Ukraine and regretted the weapons and ammunition that were delivered to them and would be useful against Iran. This is part of the problem: Ukraine is Joe Biden’s legacy, an obstacle to his reconciliation with Vladimir Putin; Iran is HIS war.

Europeans are not ready to see NATO disappear, and will do everything to keep the United States on board. But they know that NATO is, in fact, dead in its historical conception: Donald Trump killed it. They have no choice but to imagine a NATO in which the European pillar takes precedence. It is a cultural revolution to be carried out, vital and urgent.