LONDON — The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.

Just days before he is sworn into office, President-elect Donald Trump has again focused his penchant for unpredictable disruption on the rest of the world.

His remarks in a string of discursive and sometimes contradictory interviews have escalated tensions with China while also infuriating allies and institutions critical to the United States’ traditional leadership of the West.

No one knows where exactly he is headed — except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. For now. And he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of “Brexit’’ and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.

Trump’s unpredictability is perhaps his most predictable characteristic. The world is accustomed to his provocative Twitter messages but is less clear about whether his remarks represent meaningful policy guidelines, personal judgments, or passing whims.

As such, his barrage of inflammatory comments in joint interviews published Sunday and Monday in Britain and Germany elicited alarm and outrage in Europe, even as the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, dryly characterized Trump’s provocative positions as nothing new.

“They have been known for a while — my positions are also known,’’ Merkel said Monday. “I think we Europeans have control of our destiny.’’

Her clipped response came as officials and analysts struggled with how to interpret Trump’s remarks, in which he predicted the further dissolution of the European Union and also criticized Germany.

Some argued that the president-elect’s word should be regarded as tactical, intended merely to keep his options open. But nearly everyone agreed Trump had made trouble, especially in criticizing Merkel, given her importance as a figure of stability in Europe and her campaign for re-election later this year.

For good measure, Trump had also infuriated China by using an interview Friday with The Wall Street Journal to again question China’s long-standing “one China’’ policy. It holds that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the mainland.

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said that anyone attempting to use the status of Taiwan for negotiations would be “smashing their feet by lifting a rock’’ and would face “broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community.’’ She then added that “not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off.’’

The English-language China Daily accused Trump on Monday of “playing with fire,’’ saying that if Taiwan became up for negotiation, as Trump suggested to the Journal, “Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves.’’

Beyond China, Trump’s interviews in Europe have placed him in the middle of the Continent’s most contentious issues.

His critique of German dominance over the European Union is not a novel thought; many Europeans share the same complaints. But what is startling is how an incoming US president would make such a statement about a key ally, and, in doing so, give succor to populist parties seeking to shatter the European political establishment.

In the interview published Monday in Bild, a German newspaper, and The Times of London, Trump said Merkel had made a “catastrophic mistake’’ in allowing refugees to pour into Europe and also equated his trust of her with his trust for Putin.

“I start off trusting both,’’ he said during the joint interview, which was conducted inside his office in Trump Tower in New York, “but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.’’

Trump knows how to give a provocative interview. He repeated past criticisms that NATO is “obsolete’’ for supposedly not confronting terrorism, only to quickly add that “with that being said, NATO is very important to me.’’

Trump’s comments “are a direct assault on the liberal order we’ve built since 1945 and a repudiation of the idea that the United States should lead the West,’’ said R. Nicholas Burns, a former senior State Department official and ambassador to NATO, who also advised the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.

“To say that NATO is obsolete, openly support the disintegration of the EU, and then denigrate Merkel and put her on a par with Putin is a fundamental break with 70 years of American policy and strategic thought supported by Republicans from Eisenhower to now,’’ said Burns, who has served presidents of both parties and is now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. “NATO is the great power differential between the United States and Russia, as our Asian alliances are the power differential between us and China.’’

Trump’s remarks almost certainly rankled Europe’s two most powerful leaders, Merkel and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. His enthusiasm for Brexit has put considerably more pressure on May.

She is preparing to give a major speech on Tuesday about her Brexit plans, even as Trump promised to give Britain a quick and fair trade deal outside the European Union, a deal that cannot take place for at least two years until Britain leaves the bloc.

President Obama’s outgoing ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, has used a series of recent interviews and speeches to urge the Germans to stay calm, not to over-interpret Twitter posts or view them as finished foreign policy.

Emerson underscored that, while more clarity was needed, there were signs that Trump did value NATO. “It’s a very crucial issue, not just for European security, but for American security,’’ Emerson said.