Trump has called Europe and Ukraine’s bluff

Pic.: CBC

Has Donald Trump just announced the most consequential foreign policy reversal of his presidency? – ‘The Spectator’ puts a question.

In the mother of all flip-flops, Trump on Wednesday posted on Truth Social that ‘Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.’ That’s a position that even Joe Biden, in his most optimistic moments, never dared to take. To add insult to injury, Trump also called Russia a ‘paper tiger’ that had been ‘fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a war that should have taken a real military power less than a week to win’.

Trump also went out of his way to praise Zelensky at a civil sit-down meeting at the United Nations. ‘Frankly, Ukraine is doing a very good job of stopping this very large army,’ Trump said. ‘It’s pretty amazing.’ That’s a very far cry from Trump’s confrontational ‘you have no cards’ speech to Zelensky in the Oval Office in February.

On the face of it, Zelensky got exactly what he wanted from Trump, pushing the line that “Moscow faces economic collapse” and that “Ukraine has a realistic chance of expelling Russian forces from its territory.”But in truth Trump’s announcement is terrible news for Kyiv and the future of its war effort.

Trump’s statement is not a declaration of support for Ukraine, it’s Trump’s resignation from further participation in the peace process. And the sting in the tail of Trump’s announcement is a crystal-clear declaration that he now considers the Ukraine war Europe’s responsibility. A Ukrainian victory is possible ‘with the support of the European Union’, he wrote. All it will take is ‘time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO’.

Except, crucially, that Trump clearly refers to NATO as something distinct from the US, promising that Washington ‘will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them’. Note the weasel word ‘they’.

To be fair to Trump, walking away from trying to make peace in Ukraine was always on the cards. Back on 18 April, Trump told reporters at the White House that he wanted to get a peace deal ‘quickly’. But he also warned that ‘if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, “you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people”, and we’re going to just take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that.’

There is possibly another, more calculating hypothesis behind Trump’s reversal. It’s been clear for a while now that the peace process with Putin is dead in the water – which means no great oil and gas deals or multi-billion dollar mineral rights that will help make America great again. So it’s time to open the shop doors wide and allow Europeans to buy hundreds of billions of high-end weapons from the US for use by Ukraine.

The bill just for Patriot missiles of the kind that Ukraine says it needs to create an Iron Dome-like air defence system is $100 billion (£75 billion) for that system alone. That way the US economy gets a different kind of boost, while Trump washes his hands of any political downside.

If there’s one thing Trump hates more than disrespect, it’s to be seen to fail. With his peace initiative floundering on Putin’s intransigence, small wonder that Trump chose to walk away from the coming train wreck and leave European allies to sort out the mess – and foot the bill.

Essentially, Trump has called Europe and Zelensky’s bluff. You say you can defeat Putin? You go for it, buddy. You say you won’t allow aggression to be rewarded in Europe? Sure, guys, knock yourselves out.

Trump also made it clear that he’s walking away from sanctions, too, by pointing out the painfully obvious fact that it’s Europe, not just China and India, which remains a major importer of Russian energy and therefore one of the biggest funders of the Kremlin’s war machine.

Trump told the Europeans he would not sanction Russia further until they stopped importing Putin’s oil and gas – which the EU can’t and won’t do, despite all their fighting talk.

For the whole duration of the war European leaders have been making fine-sounding promises to Ukraine that it expects the US to pay for. That includes Macron and Sir Keir Starmer’s latest idea of creating a ‘coalition of the willing’ which proposes a ‘reassurance force’ on the ground in Ukraine – just as long as it’s backed by US air-power.

With his flip-flop on Ukraine, Trump has clearly signalled that Uncle Sucker isn’t going to play that game any more. Trump may still be willing to defend its NATO allies – but when it comes to Ukraine, Europe is on its own, militarily and diplomatically. By the same token, the White House is through with listening to any more of Putin’s bull-crap. In the rich Russian phrase, Putin doprygalsya – literally, jumped himself into a bunch of trouble.

European officials fear Trump is preparing to blame them for Ukraine failure.
Photo: Sky News

US president sets bloc ‘impossible’ condition to secure more Washington support for Kyiv, ‘Financial Times’ states.

European officials fear Donald Trump’s latest rhetoric on Ukraine aims to set them an impossible mission that will allow the US president to shift blame away from Washington if Kyiv falters in the war or runs short of cash.

After months of pressing Ukraine to settle with Moscow and give up Russian-occupied territory, the US president stunned European capitals on Tuesday by declaring on social media that Kyiv could “fight and win” all its land “with the help of the EU”.

While Trump’s new stance was welcomed in some quarters, several European officials concluded he was handing them responsibility for Ukraine’s defence with expectations that Europe would find hard to meet.

Trump has also taken a stronger position on sanctions, calling on the EU to halt purchases of Russian oil and hit China and India with tariffs — steps that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally, has long said he would block.

“This is the start of a blame game,” one official said of Trump’s abrupt change of heart. “The US knew that the China and India tariffs would be impossible” for the EU to accept.

Trump “is building the off ramp” so he can blame Europe when and if he needs to, a European government aide said. The shift was “spectacular” and “generally good”, but Trump was “setting a very high bar,” a German official noted.

One European official pointed to the Trump’s “Good luck to all!” sign-off on his Truth Social post as tantamount to a handover note.

Another European official said: “Everyone sees he is disengaging.”

EU leaders have concluded that Trump is no longer a reliable ally, officials said.

Since his Alaska summit with Putin, Trump has increased the pressure on European countries to take responsibility for ending the conflict.

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