“The administration has alienated allies while not clearly impressing competitors and foes. In the short term our old friends will step warily, in the long term they’ll wish us ill.” That sentence is taken from Peggy Noonan’s excellent summary of how we arrived at the present moment as a country. As a naturalized American citizen who has always been exceedingly proud of what this nation stands for, and how we are viewed in the world, those thirty words in Noonan’s column are among the saddest I have read in a long time.

It is no secret that the leaders and some segments of the populations of countries like Iran, Russia, North Korea, and many others, hate us with a passion. They abhor our way of life, and don’t miss any opportunity to discredit anything we do. If they could, some of those leaders would wipe us off the world map in an instant. As powerful and as wealthy as we are, our lives as Americans would be quite miserable on this planet if we didn’t have the friends who have long shared our values and stood by us in our times of need.

I vividly remember where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. I watched on live television the utterly horrific scenes after the hijacked planes were used by the terrorists to bring down the Twin Towers. Apart from those who were killed instantly, over a thousand others were trapped in the topmost floors. Many were incinerated. To escape the inferno, some jumped to their deaths from floors as high as 95 and above. I was aghast when, in the middle of all that, some television channels showed pictures of people dancing and celebrating in the streets of some of those countries that despise us. They were rejoicing in the murdering of so many of our compatriots in such gruesome fashion.

The day after that national tragedy, our NATO allies sprang into action. They invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which says that an attack on one member constitutes an attack on all. Canadian and European soldiers joined our armed forces in Afghanistan when we embarked on the hunt for the masterminds of the terrorist attack. It was the first and also the only time that Article 5 has been invoked. President Trump can claim to be unaware of history, even one as recent as this, but the rest of us shouldn’t display such amnesia.

It is quite unfathomable that we would recklessly antagonize these allies to the point where, as Noonan predicts, they will, at some juncture, start praying for harm to befall us. Can anyone imagine Canadians dancing in the streets of Ottawa and Toronto and rejoicing because something bad happened to us? What about such scenes in London, Berlin, Warsaw and other European capitals?

Anyone who dismisses Noonan’s fear should read this Wall Street Journal article about the increasing resentment that Canadians harbor for us. Many of them have reportedly canceled their planned vacations to the U.S. In their zeal to boycott U.S.-made products, more and more of them are using apps to identify and ditch our products in their grocery stores. Canadian retailers are said to be taking advantage of the hostility to attract shoppers to their domestic brands, in a practice that people are calling “maplewashing.” U.S. companies selling into the Canadian market have been forced to come up with a variety of measures to counter some of the backlash.

President Trump has a point when he expresses frustration with some of the domestic policies of our allies. Defense spending is one of them. I had to do a bit of digging to find out that several member countries of NATO were contributing far less than they should to the collective defense budget, even after decades of being prodded to do so. In our trading relationships, there are probably some imbalances that we could legitimately complain about, although that picture is a lot murkier and it is difficult for someone like me to know the extent of the problem. But does the president honestly believe that when it comes to unfair trade practices, the EU is nastier than China? Why doesn’t he realize the enormity of the damage his loose language causes?

This problem, the careless destruction of centuries-old friendships, is compounded by the fact that the president is not even impressing any of our competitors and foes, as Noonan correctly says. He bungled his tariff spat with China, prompting senior Chinese officials to high-five each other in Beijing. On Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has ignored pretty much everything he has asked him to do because he has concluded that our president issues mostly empty threats.

It is extremely unwise, and indeed irresponsible, for our political leaders in Washington to sit idly by while the president prioritizes his personal friendship with Vladimir Putin over our national interest. As he is doing that, the Russian dictator continues to plot actively with his fellow autocrats to take down America. For proof of that, check out the list of world leaders who traveled to Moscow on May 9 to hang out with him during the parade to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

The Republicans in Congress who enable the president’s reckless behavior should know better. They should remember that they represent the American people. No one sent them to Washington to help President Trump solidify his relationship with a tyrant that he inexplicably seems to have strong affection for. Vladimir Putin is certainly not a friend of the American people.

Some of the damage that President Trump has done to our relationships with our European and other NATO allies may be irreversible. But there is still quite a bit left to salvage. We must act quickly. The best person to lead that effort is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

In his recent article in The Economist, Maurice Obstfeld, former chief economist of the IMF, referred to an interview Mr. Bessent gave a few months before joining the current administration. According to Obstfeld, Mr. Bessent proposed that ‘tariffs should favor “like-minded” members of a “security zone” with “shared values, shared economy, shared defense, [and] shared currency goals.”’ Quite clearly, Secretary Bessent was referring to our European allies, Canada, Japan, Australia and other countries with open societies, not the likes of Russia, China, and Iran. He has exactly the right instinct when it comes to identifying who our friends are.

Based on some of the reporting in recent weeks, Secretary Bessent is considered to be one of the adults in the room in the current White House. The good news is that as treasury secretary, he gets ample opportunities to meet with people at the highest levels within the governments of our allied countries that we have needlessly alienated. He should use every chance he gets to begin the repair process.