The spectacle that played out in the Oval Office yesterday showed the world once again that the US under Trump is not only no longer the leader of the family of countries long known as the “democratic West,” but has instead been transformed into an adversary and threat to this community of values.
It’s difficult to know for certain whether the rapid-fire escalation was intentional sabotage or the inevitable result of thin-skinned and unserious people thinking more about TV ratings than the matter at hand (as Trump said, “this is going to be great television”).
There is a reason diplomacy is typically done in private, with any agreements announced afterwards in a news conference. This time around, Trump carried out his diplomacy in full view of the global media. As with domestic issues, Trump evidently viewed this as just another episode of the reality show that is his presidency.
He gambled that he could bully President Zelenskyy into giving him a critical raw materials deal without security guarantees on live TV. But then the accusatory question from a pro-Trump journalist “why aren’t you wearing a suit” and Vice President Vance’s signature servile sanctimony showed that humiliation was also part of the agenda.
Zelenskyy was put in an impossible position; any pushback to the bullying would have been – and was – interpreted as “disrespect,” insubordination. Signing the framework deal might have bought Ukraine some time, but the evident unwillingness of the Trump administration to offer Ukraine security guarantees for the immediate ceasefire that they seek leads us to believe an acceptable outcome for Ukraine was unlikely from the beginning.
Inability to trust Washington to fulfil any agreement or promises also constitutes an existential risk for Ukraine or any other ally. In light of Trump’s affinity for Putin it’s difficult not to imagine that this deal would have been a way to formalize a sort of US/Russia extraction racket in a subjugated Ukraine.
The reactions from Europe were swift. It is commendable that European leaders closed ranks and sided with Zelenskyy. However, action is needed more than ever. This needs to include continued delivery of weapons and support to Ukraine, jumpstarting Europe’s own defense manufacturing capacity, and continuing to keep up pressure on Russia economically to inflict costs on Moscow’s actions. This would be the moment for Germany – as soon as a new government takes office – to deliver Taurus cruise missiles.
More broadly, since the end of WWII, the US has served as the universal connector of the democratic West. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is right to say that that mantle needs to move to Europe – or more precisely, Europe+. This needs to include wider Europe – non-EU members UK and Norway and fellow democracies in Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Oceania as well. They need to strategize for a world in which the US can shift from friend to abusive adversary in the span of six weeks.
Europe undeniably needs its own security – including nuclear – umbrella, independent of the US influence which was woven – with good reason – into NATO. It needs to ensure that any peace process seats Kyiv at the table. The outcome must also serve wider European security and geopolitical interests.
One example is trade. Tariff talks actually give the EU leverage, especially if the UK resists the temptation to seek a separate deal with the US – driving a wedge between the EU and the UK is evidently a goal of the Trump administration. Coordination is also needed with NATO allies such as Canada that have also found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s sucker punches.
Yesterday’s surreal display – a failed attempt by Trump & Co to assert dominance over a besieged, valiant erstwhile ally – delivered a lesson of existential import to a Europe already reeling from the messaging it heard at the Munich Security Conference. Ukraine must be defended for wider European security.
Acting on that lesson will require the EU and other allies to leave their comfort zones in radical ways, discarding prior boilerplate presumptions, deviating from established practice, confronting entrenched interests, and building the popular constituencies to sustain these moves for survival.
34 years ago, “The Hour of Europe” was declared in response to the unfolding war following the disintegration of Yugoslavia; this proved to be a moment of hubris for a Union which proved unequal to the task of stopping (and preventing) a series of wars which killed 130,000 over ten years. Today, the EU faces an aggressor which does not hide that it actively wishes to change the very operating system of European democracy – its values – from the east (Russia), west (the US under Trump), and within.
European defense begins with the front in Ukraine, but extends to the home front, both with illiberal governments inside the EU such as Hungary and Slovakia and those in the political space of other members who espouse reactionary values. It therefore is not just a political and military (and therefore economic) struggle, but a societal one.
A long road lies ahead; tomorrow’s London meeting may be decisive in embarking on the path to European and democratic security – whether this can truly be the Hour of Europe after all.