Europe and Ukraine: Until What End?

I don’t know who advised the Ukrainian Prime Minister for his meeting with Donald Trump last Friday. But seeing his behavior throughout the 50 minutes that were broadcast live, I suspect that if it wasn’t Hillary Clinton herself, it must have been some of Obama’s team experts, because he could not have arrived worse prepared.

 

Zelensky, like the rest of NATO’s European allies, perfectly demonstrated that he lives in a bubble. Trump’s personal animosity was a given since Zelensky refused to launch an investigation into Biden’s son’s financial dealings in Ukraine. Still, the American president started the meeting without foaming at the mouth, despite what Spanish media—left, center, and right—report here. Trump became exasperated with Zelensky not because he repeatedly thanked the Europeans for their efforts and aid without mentioning the assistance provided by the United States (which, understandably, enraged a predisposed Vance). Trump was annoyed that Zelensky neither listened to nor understood his administration’s position and outright rejected his offer of a ceasefire.

The Trump administration’s policy regarding Ukraine is clear and unanimous, including from the previously admired Marco Rubio, champion of freedom according to our self-proclaimed centrists and liberals. Like Biden, Trump rejects any direct American military intervention for fear of an escalation that could lead, rationally or irrationally, by calculation or mistake, to a Third World War. Something that the Europeans have constantly stirred up to justify the aid given to Ukraine.

 

Like Biden, the new administration believes that this war, as it is currently fought, cannot be won. But unlike the previous team, Trump wants to stop the bloodshed and destruction as soon as possible. Those who see him as a predator argue that his interest stems from a desire to seize Ukraine’s mineral wealth (a claim incompatible with having dismissed Zelensky from the White House without signing the rare earth agreement). Those who focus on his business mindset claim he wants to lift sanctions on Russia to restore lucrative trade between the two nations (but so far, the bilateral working group has produced none of that). Those who paint him as a new Hitler explain his contempt for Zelensky as a product of his disregard for norms and laws, his disdain for democracies, and his admiration for dictators and tyrants (as if our own countries weren’t entangled with the likes of Maduro, Obiang, Erdo?an, Xi, or Mohamed). But if Trump embodied everything bad that is attributed to him, he wouldn’t have had to receive the Ukrainian leader, he would have halted all aid to Ukraine, and he would have already signed an armistice with Putin. Something he might eventually do if Zelensky continues to reject a ceasefire, and Europeans keep promising their support “until the end.”

 

Unlike Biden, however, the new administration keeps its distance from its European partners and allies. Trump does not come from the Atlanticist elites formed during the Cold War, nor from the university and intellectual elite nurtured in the shared values of the West. He comes from the hard world of real estate business, where negotiation is often a zero-sum game, where transactions and concessions are as relevant as values—if not more—and where land—geography, in this case—is crucial. To Trump, Ukraine is a headache, an obstacle to his plans, not a strategic objective. And Europe is an appendage of the vast Eurasian landmass, as my childhood Atlas Salinas taught me.

 

Trump does not aspire to be the sheriff of the world. Not even the guardian of the West. He is content with ruling over his continent and his direct sphere of influence. But that does not make him a traitor or someone who undermines the international order. Let’s not forget that the West accelerated its own disintegration in 2002 when NATO split over the invasion of Iraq. And when Trump looks at Europe, what he sees is a continent that, as his vice president said in Munich, is moving away from the core values of the West—respect for the individual and freedom of opinion, belief, and initiative. Instead, Europe has built its recent prosperity on three pillars: security paid for by the Americans, cheap Russian energy, and the Chinese market. And he has grown tired of what he sees as an unbalanced and unfair relationship with America.

 

The reaction in Europe to Trump’s victory was, undeniably, one of unease. But the response to last Friday’s Oval Office fiasco has been pure hysteria. Hysteria that has infected and united everyone alike: Sánchez, leading the anti-Trump rally, alongside Macron, who dreams of being the true president of Europe, and Starmer, who above all wants to preserve what little remains of the UK’s special relationship with Washington. Each for their own peculiar reasons, but all in unison in supporting Ukraine. Even though Zelensky himself admitted to Trump that European aid is not enough and that what he seeks are security guarantees that only the United States can provide.

 

Gathering urgently in London this Sunday, 18 European leaders, including Zelensky, reiterated their commitment to Ukraine’s defense and declared—once again—that they are willing to go “until the end” in their fight against the Russian invader. However, Starmer’s plan to deploy troops and aircraft in Ukrainian territory to ensure a stable peace did not receive a majority consensus, nor did the French president’s proposal to initiate a ceasefire.

No matter what is said, Europe is not currently capable of replacing American military aid. Because it is not just about giving more money, but about producing and deploying many weapons systems that we do not have—or that we need to acquire from the United States. With an angry White House, it is doubtful that the Americans would agree to provide us with these weapons without restrictions on their use.

 

Europe could have promoted its own defense years ago, but it settled for declarations and statements, choosing instead to spend its money on matterssuch as the much-touted green transition and sustaining a welfare state for Europeans and the millions of immigrants who came to our lands after Merkel’s open-door policy, widely applauded by the left.

 

And if maintaining the welfare state and open borders is already difficult, having everything at once and on an urgent basis is entirely impossible. This time, for us, it truly is a choice between guns or butter.

Even worse, in the short term, our leaders still haven’t resolved the issue of what kind of peace they are pursuing for Ukraine. We know what Zelensky wants: the 1991 borders with no Russians on Ukrainian soil and NATO membership as a security guarantee. But Ukrainian troops have failed to push Russian forces out of the East—let alone Crimea. How do Europeans plan to achieve this? Or are they not planning to, and their ultimate support simply means accepting the reality of Russian control over parts of Ukraine? Someone should clarify this if they are going to ask us to send our young people into this conflict.

 

Perhaps the Spanish PM, Pedro Sánchez, is the only one truly interested in Trump’s plans failing, so he can portray himself as the only statesman standing against this new Hitler and his far-right international movement, as he likes to say in his rallies. But for all those committed to the narrative of standing with the Ukrainians “until the end,” I offer my reading of what this London mini-summit really was: a show for Zelensky, with the sole aim of convincing Trump that we are seriously considering action, so he doesn’t abandon us to the Kremlin’s tenant.

 

But Europeans are walking a fine line: if they continue their unconditional promises to Zelensky, he will cling to his maximalist demands and refuse to yield to American pressure for a ceasefire. And if Trump believes that Europeans have fueled this intransigence and are trying to trap him, we will only accelerate the worst-case scenario: that America abandons Ukraine—and Europe.

 

Europe has sold its citizens the idea that we are fighting for freedom, democracy, and the international order. But in reality, it is the Ukrainians, defending their country, who are in the trenches. Opening a second front, this time against the United States, is simply suicidal. Until the end. Of Ukraine—and of Europe.