4 ways to contain Trump and prevent global wreckage after Helsinki and NATO summits Helsinki was a clarifying moment. Congress and the world need a Trump containment strategy, or we'll be living with the global wreckage for generations.

Tyson Barker and Mark Simakovsky | Opinion contributors

President Donald Trump’s trans-Atlantic diplomacy this month makes clear that he is the single greatest source of uncertainty on the world stage. Just as the United States developed a containment strategy to check the Soviet threat against U.S. allies and global interests, Trump’s Russia policy cries out for a “Trump containment strategy.”

In one week, Trump took a hatchet to the U.S.-built international system and crown jewel of American power — NATO — while siding publicly with an adversary, Russia. Trump’s cataclysmic performance in Finland came after he purposefully sought to undermine NATO in Brussels; questioned German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s credibility (even though she has been the linchpin of Western unity on Russia); shoved the leader of America's most important defense ally, British Prime Minister Theresa May, over a political cliff; and warned NATO that America would go it alone if his demands on burden sharing were not met. Trump’s shocking but not surprising decision in Helsinki to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence community was a fitting coda to a dismal week.

Let’s drop the pretenses and plausible deniability. The president’s half-hearted walk-backs, rhetorical claims that “he went too far” or simply needs to apologize won’t cut it. It is time for the American people, Congress and the world to put constraints on the White House to clip the president’s damaging behavior on Europe and Russia. We need to erect guard rails that protect our democracy and national interests. A Trump containment strategy could help inoculate America and its allies from Trump’s worst impulses. Here are the four pillars of that strategy:

Check Trump's recklessness

First, Congress should reassert its legislative power and check Trump’s recklessness by protecting U.S. interests and global stability. It can build on existing efforts to handicap the president’s Russia policy (best exemplified by sanctions overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate) by passing a new law that would require the president — and any president — to seek and receive congressional approval before withdrawing the United States from NATO or any other treaty alliance.

The Senate passed a bipartisan 97-2 resolution in support of NATO last week. It's time to lock that support into law. Even better would be to extend this effort to include any U.S. attempt to withdraw from a trade agreement such as North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump enjoys playing Russian roulette with NATO and the international trade order. It’s time to take the gun out of his hands.

The conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is critical to U.S. ability to shape a coherent Russia policy, as the air needs to be cleared of whatever ties Trump campaign had with Russia before trusting the president’s motivation to improve ties. Congress should pass legislation ensuring Mueller is able to finish his job without threat of removal by the president. Congress also should heap tougher sanctions on Russia to respond to ongoing Russian interference before the midterm elections.

More: Trump's he-man act is catnip to his fans. They don't care that he's putty for Putin.

Parody: Aboard Air Force One after Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin havoc in Helsinki

Trump has taken Putin's side. His stability and America's safety are now in question.

Congress can also use its power to hold hearings reviewing the implications of Trump’s trans-Atlantic policy. Congressional committees on foreign affairs, defense and intelligence should call parallel hearings on the Brussels and Helsinki summits, requiring U.S. officials to explain to Congress how these meetings concretely propelled U.S. interests and what the president was willing to give up during his two-hour, one-on-one meeting with Putin. The Russian Ministry of Defense statement last week that the president agreed to certain measures to enable military-military cooperation surprised Congress and the Pentagon, and hearings should clarify what the president promised Putin.

Second, European allies who value their relationship with America should reconsider the value of state visits, summits and high-profile meetings with Trump. NATO allies should appreciate that a meeting with Trump will likely be counterproductive, and instead focus on improving ties with Cabinet secretaries such as Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who have purposefully sought to reassure nervous allies. Allies also would be wise to consider the utility of multilateral summits and state visits in the current environment. Freezing the annual NATO Summit would be prudent (instead hold only the foreign and defense ministerial in 2019). NATO cannot afford another round of Trump’s destructive political theater next year in Washington at a 70th anniversary summit.

Third, the U.S. government and European allies should build on agreements reached by heads of state at the Brussels summit, which were approved despite Trump. Defense and State officials should continue their successful campaign to push allies toward financial contributions of 2 percent GDP by 2024; increase NATO capabilities to deter Russia; ensure that NATO’s Readiness Initiative that will deploy 30 maneuver battalion, 30 air squadrons, 30 naval combatants in 30 days is fully sourced and implemented; build up logistical capacity to move military equipment and personnel across NATO; continue fusing NATO-European Union cooperation; increase NATO’s next generation capabilities on space, cyber, counterterrorism, hybrid warfare and disinformation; and support robust police training in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict ridden areas.

Prepare to handle crises without America

Finally — and most painfully — European states and other countries should build institutional stabilizers in the event Trump’s rhetoric helps contribute to an acute crisis. Mostly, that means developing existing arrangements and building new ones that can function and respond to crisis without the United States. To some extent, that is already happening.

Even as Trump played fan boy to Putin in Helsinki, EU leaders held a summit in China to discuss trade, tech and climate change.

The EU then went on to Japan to sign a trade deal covering one-third of the world's economy.

The reborn Trans-Pacific Partnership — now without America — has already been concluded with some of the most dynamic economies in the Asia Pacific. This ring of trade agreements could slowly bend the United States to play nice again with its trading partners. Ultimately, America should be welcomed back into the family of free traders it helped create.

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. presidency has always been one of the world’s “public goods,” a source of focus, vision and moral leadership. Perhaps it will be again one day. For now, Trump’s Helsinki summit is a clarifying moment. If we don’t contain this president’s worst foreign policy impulses on Europe and Russia, we could be living with the wreckage for generations.

Tyson Barker, a program director for the Aspen Institute Germany. was an adviser on Europe at the State Department from 2014-15. Follow him on Twitter: @tysonbarker. Mark Simakovsky, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, was chief of staff in the Europe/NATO Office at the Pentagon; Russia policy director at the Defense Department during the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a Pentagon adviser during Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia.