HAMBURG — The Europeans have stopped trying to paper over their differences with President Donald Trump and the United States.

Traditionally respectful of US leadership and mindful of the country’s crucial role in European defence and global trade, European leaders normally repress or soften their criticism of US presidents. Europeans were generally not happy with President Barack Obama’s reluctance to involve the country in Libya and Syria, for example, or his tardiness to engage in what became an international confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, but their criticism was quiet.

But at the Group of 20 (G20) summit meeting, public splits with Mr Trump were the order of the day. Those rifts have been reflected in European domestic politics too, from Britain and France to Germany, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Europe must “take our fate into our own hands” and stop “glossing over” clear differences.

The new French President, Mr Emmanuel Macron, whose election has renewed confidence among Europeans, said bluntly: “Our world has never been so divided. Centrifugal forces have never been so powerful. Our common goods have never been so threatened.”

Mr Macron, who waved his iPhone around during the meeting as a symbol of global trade, sharply criticised those like Mr Trump who do not support multilateral institutions but push nationalism instead.

“We need better coordination, more coordination,” Mr Macron said. “We need those organisations that were created out of the Second World War. Otherwise, we will be moving back towards narrow-minded nationalism.”

Mr Trump and the British vote to leave the European Union (EU) “have proved to be great unifiers for the European Union”, said Mr Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a renewed sense of confidence in Europe after the French election”, the apparent retreat of populism, an increase in economic growth and the prospect of Mrs Merkel’s re-election in September, he said.

“There is an increased willingness to be assertive towards Trump, who makes Merkel look like a figure of international importance,” Mr Leonard said. “If the election is about who can save the international world order from Trump,” he added, then Mrs Merkel’s opposition seems unimportant and she finds an eager partner in Mr Macron. “They egg each other on and feel more self-confident together and help keep Europe together, too.”

Mr Jan Techau, director of the Richard Holbrooke Forum at the American Academy in Berlin, said: “There is now a more openly confrontational language with the United States. The European public is already outspoken about Trump, but now there is a more outspoken European leadership that won’t paper over these divisions any more.”

If Europeans had previously felt constrained, Mr Techau said, there is now a feeling that “Trump has no constraints and will say anything, and now the Europeans feel they can do the same.” And, he said, “that means less respect for each other, and less mutual confidence”.

Mr Francois Heisbourg, a French security analyst, agreed. “The reticence has gone away,” he said. “On an issue-by-issue basis, there is apparently no penalty for playing hardball with Trump without necessarily affecting security, on climate for example.”

The strains were most visible here on climate policy and trade. Mr Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord was widely condemned, and all the leaders aside from Mr Trump signed up to language that called the agreement “irreversible”.

“Whatever leadership is,” said one senior French diplomat, who was not authorised to speak by name and insisted on anonymity, “it is not being outvoted, 19-1.”

The climate debate in the meeting displayed how hard it is to isolate the world’s richest, most powerful country.

The Americans did try to persuade some countries, like Turkey and Poland, which Mr Trump visited just before going to Hamburg, to move towards the US position on climate, but they were rebuffed. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said later that his country might still be in play, depending on money. The US withdrawal, he said, jeopardised compensation for developing countries to cope with compliance.

Australia and Saudi Arabia, which Mr Trump has wooed, were also leaning towards adopting part of the US position in the final communique, especially on “working closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently”, European officials said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also tried to balance Mr Trump’s deep unpopularity in Britain with her need for US support for the country’s exit from the EU and for future trade deals. She was criticised for not making the climate issue one of her four priorities, and found comfort in Mr Trump’s promise of a “very powerful” trade deal for a post-Brexit Britain that could be completed “very, very quickly”.

Mrs May even expressed the hope that Mr Trump might change his mind on the Paris accord, although Mrs Merkel did not agree. And in the end, all wavering members sided with the 19, not the one.

The White House saw progress nonetheless. “The vast majority of the G20 supports the President’s vision for universal access to affordable and reliable energy, including finding ways to burn fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently,” said Mr George David Banks, a special assistant to the president on international energy and environment and lead negotiator for climate change during the G20 conference.

On trade, there was more effort to find compromise, with previous G20 positions for free trade and against protectionism watered down to secure US support.

The communique cited, for the first time, the right of countries to protect their markets with “legitimate trade defence instruments” — wording that essentially gives Mr Trump room to pursue his “America first” policy on issues like steel imports, where Washington is talking about restrictions based on “national security”.

The group agreed to accelerate work on a global review of steel production and sales, although any sanctions must meet the standards of the World Trade Organisation.

In a general way, such open disagreements can undermine future coherence in times of crisis, Professor Eswar Prasad, an expert on economics and trade at Cornell University, wrote in an email.

“Trump has put the rest of the G20 in a largely defensive mode,” he said, as they try to limit the damage on issues like globalisation, multilateralism and climate. But “it comes at a cost of eroding US leadership”, he said. “If even in calm times such rifts are exposed, it could make it more complicated for the group to work together in more complicated circumstances.”

Yet politics also matter. The Europeans are determined to punish Mr Trump for abandoning the Paris accord as a matter of “diplomatic dignity”, said Mr Paul Bledsoe, who was an aide to former president Bill Clinton on climate change.

“Because European leaders pleaded with Trump to stay and he rebuked them so directly,” Mr Bledsoe said, “I think they’re determined to show the administration there’s going to be a price to pay, even if it’s not entirely in Europe’s own interest.” THE NEW YORK TIMES