The F-35, a fifth-generation fighter, was developed in partnership with eight countries, making it a model of international cooperation. When President Trump introduced a sixth-generation aircraft, the F-47, he praised its strengths — and said the version sold to allies would be deliberately downgraded.

That made sense, Mr. Trump said last week, “because someday, maybe they’re not our allies.”

For many countries wedded to the United States, his remark confirmed a related conclusion: that America can no longer be trusted. Even nations not yet directly affected can see where things are heading, as Mr. Trump threatens allies’ economies, their defense partnerships and even their sovereignty.

For now, they are negotiating to minimize the pain from blow after blow, including a broad round of tariffs expected in April. But at the same time, they are pulling back. Preparing for intimidation to be a lasting feature of U.S. relations, they are trying to go their own way.

A few examples:

• Canada made a $4.2 billion deal with Australia this month to develop cutting-edge radar and announced that it was in talks to take part in the European Union’s military buildup.

• Portugal and other NATO nations are reconsidering plans to buy F-35s, fearing American control over parts and software.

• Negotiations over a free trade and technology deal between the European Union and India have suddenly accelerated after years of delays.

• Brazil is not only increasing trade with China, it’s doing it in China’s currency, sidelining the dollar.

• In several countries, including Poland, South Korea and Australia, discussions about whether to build or secure access to nuclear weapons are now commonplace.

Some degree of distancing from the United States had already been in motion as other countries became wealthier, more capable and less convinced that American centrality would be permanent. But the past few months of Trump 2.0 have supercharged the process.

History and psychology help explain why. Few forces have such a powerful, long-lasting impact on geopolitics as distrust, according to social scientists who study international relations. It has repeatedly poisoned negotiations in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It kept Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union burning for decades.

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The French naval patrol plane descended rapidly through the clouds, leveling off at 900 feet above the Baltic Sea, practically skimming the waves. The target was a Russian warship, which came into view off the plane’s port side, dark gray against a light gray horizon.

The aircraft, an Atlantique 2 of the French Navy, was designed to hunt submarines and other enemy naval craft, but on this day its torpedo bay was empty and its only weapons were a high-resolution camera and other sophisticated surveillance instruments. The goal was to observe, and be seen observing.

“We are to show that we are here,” said Romain, a lieutenant commander and a member of the plane’s crew.

Never fully tranquil, the Baltic Sea, with a coastline heavily militarized by Northern European and Russian navies, has become an increasingly tense theater in the conflict between Moscow and the West. Later on the patrol, Russian forces attempted to jam the plane’s GPS, and at one point, another Russian warship locked on to the plane with radar, a warning that it could open fire. Russian naval ships and a submarine were visible in the sea below.

But the main reason the French naval plane was on patrol lay underwater. Three times over the past year and a half, commercial ships are suspected of having damaged critical undersea communications cables and a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. European officials fear that these were acts of sabotage, with the Kremlin viewed as the primary suspect, though finding hard evidence has proved difficult.

Last year, Marine Le Pen spoke menacingly of the possible fallout from her trial on embezzlement charges. “Tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people will see themselves deprived of their candidate for the presidency.”

After a court disqualified her on Monday from running for public office for five years, those millions of French voters are adrift and angry. France is a democracy governed by the rule of law, as the verdict demonstrated. But it is unclear how far its troubled Fifth Republic can resist an inevitable gale of political protest before the 2027 election.

Unlike President Trump, who met with convictions, indictments and criminal cases on the way to his election last year, possibly even benefiting from perceived persecution, Ms. Le Pen could find no political path past the verdict of the French legal system.

“The independence of our justice system and the separation of powers stand at the heart of our democracy,” said Valérie Hayer, a centrist lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Nobody is above the law.”

That view is certain to come under sustained attack in a global environment where questioning of the legitimacy of legal systems has become frequent — across Europe, but particularly in Mr. Trump’s United States. Mr. Trump has called for the impeachment of judges who rule against him and called them “lunatics.”

“When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents,” Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s billionaire aide, said after the verdict.

Three days after Myanmar’s worst earthquake in more than a century ravaged the remote, war-torn city of Sagaing, razing monasteries and apartment buildings, help was still just starting to trickle in.

The city’s 300,000 residents had been left to largely fend for themselves after the 7.7-magnitude quake struck, damaging roads and prompting the authorities to close a bridge over safety concerns. The area was already deeply isolated, cut off from the internet by Myanmar’s military, which has been fighting rebels in a civil war.

By late Monday, some international aid groups began arriving in Sagaing. But local volunteers seeking to help with search and rescue efforts said they were being blocked by the military.

“We are not allowed to freely enter and provide assistance,” said U Tin Shwe, a resident of Sagaing who was standing outside a military barricade at a monastery that had toppled, with monks still trapped under the debris. “Rescue operations can only be carried out with their permission.”

The military government said on Monday that the toll from the earthquake, which ripped through large swaths of Myanmar, including Sagaing, and the cities of Mandalay and Naypyidaw, had surged to 2,056, up from around 1,700 on Saturday. An additional 3,900 were injured. Preliminary modeling by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the number of deaths could be more than 10,000.

Search-and-rescue teams have flocked to the cities of Mandalay and Naypyidaw, the home of the country’s generals. But many people in Myanmar have taken to social media to plead with foreign governments to redirect aid into Sagaing, which was close to the quake’s epicenter and where residents say that over 80 percent of the town has been destroyed.

The White House, for two months, has warmly embraced the Kremlin.

But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has given little in return, despite his professed willingness to cooperate.

His forces have carried on bombarding Ukraine, both on the front and deep into the Ukrainian heartland. He has barely budged in peace negotiations, freighting an agreement to an unconditional 30-day cease-fire with myriad conditions. His subordinates have dragged out talks, voicing requirements for a limited Black Sea truce in recent days.

Then, during an Arctic appearance late last week, Mr. Putin suggested a temporary Ukrainian government might need to be installed under the auspices of the United Nations and an election might need to be held to pave the way for a lasting end to the war.

The implication was that a quick peace would not be in the offing, with Mr. Putin again suggesting he couldn’t cut a deal with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whom Moscow for months has been tarnishing as illegitimate.

President Trump took notice.

The U.S. president told NBC News this weekend that he was “very angry” about the comments and threatened to impose tariffs on any country buying Russian oil, a measure that could dent Moscow’s most crucial source of income for the war.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr. Trump said.

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The rescue teams at the collapsed office tower in Bangkok thought they’d found a miracle on Sunday night: a channel into the basement, leading to a wide-open space where workers still unaccounted for might have lived through Friday’s giant earthquake.

“We thought for sure we’d find someone,” said Piyalux Thinkaew, chief of operations for the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, one of Thailand’s leading emergency organizations. “It was a whole room. It was big.”

Around a dozen rescuers stepped in. They were from Thailand, China, the United States and Israel. They could see the foundation’s pillars holding strong. But the room was empty.

The next morning, another wisp of hope arrived when infrared sensors found potential signs of life. The recovery work fell silent. But after a while, there was nothing. No one was pulled out alive or dead on Monday by the time the clock ticked past the so-called golden window — the 72 hours in which survival is most likely.

“Hope is dimming,” Mr. Piyalux said. “We’re very disappointed.”

Was rescue becoming recovery? Not officially. Around 80 workers were still under the pile of chest-crushing rubble and steel that was tall enough to be seen from blocks away. Rescue workers said they were racing against time, as if 72 hours really meant 96, or maybe more.

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, was found guilty of embezzlement by a criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately barred from running for public office for five years, setting off a democratic crisis in France.

The verdict effectively barred the current front-runner in the 2027 presidential election from participating in it, an extraordinary step but one the presiding judge said was necessary because nobody is entitled to “immunity in violation of the rule of law.”

Jordan Bardella, Ms. Le Pen’s protégé and a likely presidential candidate in her absence, said on social media, “Not only has Marine Le Pen been unjustly convicted; French democracy has been executed.” Hard-right leaders across Europe, including Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, appeared to agree.

“Je suis Marine!” Mr. Orban declared.

However, Sacha Houlié, a centrist lawmaker, asked, “Is our society really so sick that we are going to take offense at what is no more and no less than the rule of law?”

The verdict infuriated Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who has already mounted three failed presidential bids. Murmuring “incredible,” she briskly left the courtroom before the hearing was over.

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