Europe and Ukraine are learning how little the US cares, as the new president aligns himself with their greatest enemy
The thing about war is that it forces people to choose sides. And Donald Trump, it seems to many in Europe, is on Vladimir Putin’s side. Seven days of presidential intervention in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have made the anxieties of Ukrainians and many of their allies a reality, upending the transatlantic relationship that has underpinned European security since 1945. Europe’s politicians are beginning to realize how profoundly their world has changed: They must now deal with an America that is at best skeptical and at worst hostile to the old world they represent. If there were lingering doubts about the extent of Trump’s willingness to make enemies in Europe, he put them to rest Tuesday night when he blamed Ukraine for “starting” the war with Russia. Such a blatant denial of the fact of Putin’s unprovoked invasion three years ago shocked even America’s most loyal friends in the Region.
“Jesus,” a British government official said privately in response to the president’s outburst. “We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” another European diplomat noted in recent days, declining to be identified discussing sensitive matters. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”
After nearly three years of unwavering support for the Ukrainian resistance under Joe Biden, the new man in the White House is toeing the line for Putin. In a new speech on Wednesday, he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” for not calling an election and admitted he didn’t care much about the outcome of the war. “This war is much more important to Europe than it is to us,” Trump wrote on social media. “We have a great, beautiful ocean dividing us.” The sentiments are devastating to Europeans, but consistent with the hostility Trump has shown toward the continent since returning to office. In his first month back, Trump and his team have announced tariffs, repeatedly savaged the EU as an institution, sold out Ukraine before peace talks could begin, called time on historic American commitments to European security and welcomed Putin back into the international fold.
In internal discussions in Brussels, some diplomats are directly spreading a notion that was once unimaginable: that the US leadership is finding common ground with Russia in an attempt to destroy the EU.
“IRRITATING”
During the first round of talks between US and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the two sides discussed “irritants” in their relationship, which include sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the illegal war. They talked about opportunities for future cooperation and investment in energy – even as the EU agreed to a new round of sanctions against Russia. A new reality is emerging in Brussels: the US is simply not on our side. Pro-European political parties in the European Parliament issued a joint statement, acknowledging the scale of the crisis they face. The leaders of the centre-right European People’s Party, the Socialists and Democrats, the Liberals Renew Europe and the Greens declared: “Europe cannot rely entirely on the United States to defend our common values and interests.”
European countries must now act urgently to ensure their own defense, with more spending on the military and more support for Ukraine, the statement added.
“Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security,” the parties said. “The European Union and its member states have no choice but to take immediate action, with NATO and similar non-EU allies, to invest in a more efficient and integrated European security and defence architecture.” Not everyone is ready to accept the changed reality. Elsewhere, particularly among parties whose politics are closest to Trump’s, such as that of Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, there were disagreements. A spokesman for the European Conservatives and Reformists group, which includes Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, explained why it did not sign the joint statement: “We were not entirely satisfied with the wording of the United States’ assessment in the text… Now is the time for calm, measured dialogue and a focus on pragmatic solutions.”
In the United Kingdom, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been in regular contact with Trump, insisted that Europe was overreacting. “Trump’s statements are not intended to be historically accurate, but to shock Europeans into action,” he said. A senior Polish official also argued that Trump did not want to leave NATO or divide Europe. “He wants Europe to take more responsibility for its own security to strengthen NATO,” the official said.
WHO IS NOT SPEAK?
But even if many of Trump’s comments are simply positioning for a negotiation, what exactly is being negotiated? For whose benefit? And which side is feeling the most pressure as a result? For now, Ukraine and Europe are neither in the negotiating room nor are they feeling the strain, while the Russian media rejoices. In a sign of how badly the US relationship with the EU has been damaged, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has failed to even have a phone call with Trump in her first month back. She sat down with Vice President JD Vance in Paris, but he did not warn her that Trump would begin talks with Putin the next day.
In Kiev, Zelensky initially tried to appeal to Trump’s commercial instincts as a real estate developer, offering a share of Ukraine’s critical minerals, such as lithium, in exchange for continued military support. That appears to have backfired, with Trump now demanding access to the minerals as back pay for aid the US has already provided.
Since then, Trump’s direct targeting of the Ukrainian president has only grown. In a move that many Europeans fear could undermine prospects for a stable democracy in Ukraine and play into Russia’s hands, Trump is pushing for a snap election to remove Zelensky. British lawmakers remain optimistic that the so-called special relationship between the UK and the US will last. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will travel to Washington next week to meet the president. Government officials in London have also tried to portray Trump as a “transactional” politician and hope he will not want a bad deal on Ukraine, in which he appears to have lost to Russia.
The truth is that Trump’s idea of a bad deal may be very different from Europe’s if he is negotiating on behalf of his version of America – and not in the interests of Ukrainian and European security.
James Nixey, director of Russia-Eurasia at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Trump and his team do not appear to be negotiating with Putin from an “oppositional” position. “The reality is that the current crop of Republicans view Russia and the Ukrainians as equals,” he said. “There is a way to deal with Russia that is not militarily or aggressively, and that is to give Russia everything it wants. And they are probably quite prepared to do that.” If, as European officials increasingly fear, the transatlantic alliance is mortally wounded, how bad could it get? Putin has ambitions to go far beyond Ukraine and extend Russia’s territorial control over swathes of Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet Union, Nixey said.
As for U.S. relations with Europe, Trump has already floated the idea of potentially using military force to gain control of Greenland, a mineral-rich Danish territory strategically located in the Arctic. This outlandish idea raises the possibility of a potential armed conflict between the two founding members of NATO.
Trump’s second term is almost a month old. In his inaugural address on January 20, he declared that the United States would be “a rising nation” that “again expands our territory.” “Nothing will stop us because we are Americans,” Trump said. “The future is ours, and our golden age has just begun.”
