The dangerous tension in Europe’s response to Trump

FOUR DAYS after being accused of rejecting peace with Russia and ejected from the White House, Volodymyr Zelensky bent the knee before Donald Trump on March 4th with a mollifying letter: “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

The Ukrainian president’s genuflexion brought him no respite. Mr Trump did not restart deliveries of weapons, halted on March 3rd. Instead he intensified the punishment. American battlefield intelligence stopped reaching Ukraine around 2pm local time on March 5th. “If Mr Trump wants a thank you, we will be writing it on the gravestones of dead Ukrainian soldiers,” seethed one Ukrainian officer.

Such brutal pressure in wartime is a warning that America may abandon Ukraine permanently and, more broadly, undo the decades-old NATO alliance. Shocked European allies are scrambling to help Ukraine on their own, strengthen their defences and present Mr Trump with their own peace plan, one that, unlike Mr Trump’s, avoids capitulation to Russia.

The administration of Joe Biden, which had supported Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion three years ago, pushed through large amounts of weaponry to keep it fighting for months, albeit with weakening air defences. The interruption of intelligence has more immediate and serious consequences. Ukrainian sources say America has stopped an intelligence link used to communicate alerts about suspicious Russian activity as well as targeting data for HIMARS rockets and real-time information for long-range drones. Other feeds controlled by NATO remain operative, at least for now. Ukraine is presumably still able to hit large static Russian targets, such as oil refineries. But finding and destroying fleeting “dynamic” targets, such as mobile air-defence systems, may prove more difficult.

Mike Waltz, America’s national security adviser, said America was “pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship”. He described Mr Zelensky’s letter as “a positive step forward” and predicted that, depending on progress in planned shuttle diplomacy and unspecified “confidence-building measures”, America would “take a hard look at lifting this pause”.

Even so, having got Mr Zelensky to jump, Mr Trump now seems to be ignoring him. There was no invitation for Mr Zelensky or anyone else to conclude a framework deal with America to extract Ukraine’s rare-earth and other minerals, which was supposed to have been signed at the ill-starred White House meeting. Nor has the Trump administration responded to Mr Zelensky’s call for a partial ceasefire, including the release of prisoners and a “truce in the sky”—ie, a ban on strikes by missiles and long-range drones, and on attacks against energy facilities and other civilian infrastructure. He also proposed a “truce in the sea”.

In the name of “peace”, the Trump administration is applying intense military and political pressure on Ukraine, the victim, but seemingly none on Russia, the aggressor. In his address to Congress on March 4th Mr Trump declared that Russia had sent “strong signals that they are ready for peace”, but offered no evidence.

All this raises questions about whether America is negotiating in good faith. But Ukraine and its European allies have little choice but to give Mr Trump the benefit of the doubt. At the same time they have to hedge against the prospect that America will stop underwriting European security or, worse, become a hostile power. Suspicions are all the deeper given Mr Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries and his vice-president’s denunciation of European democracy and support for hard-right parties.

Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, rejected accusations that America had become an unreliable ally. He has spoken with Mr Trump repeatedly since meeting him at the White House on February 27th, seeking to bridge the divide with Ukraine.

Achieving a decent peace depends increasingly on the response of European allies, who support Ukraine’s demand for security guarantees to ensure that a ceasefire does not allow Russia to re-arm for another assault. Britain and France, Europe’s biggest military powers, have hosted separate European summits to draw up a coherent response, but their efforts do not always seem fully joined up. France’s call for a one-month ceasefire, for instance, appeared to catch Britain by surprise.

A four-point plan issued by a summit in London on March 2nd was long on principles but short on action. It said military aid should continue flowing into Ukraine, and economic pressure on Russia should increase; Ukraine must be at the negotiations and any deal must preserve its sovereignty and security; Europe will boost Ukraine’s future defence capabilities; and a European force would deploy to Ukraine to help deter Russian aggression. Britain says the “reassurance” force—a coalition of the willing expected to number some 20,000 to 30,000 troops behind Ukrainian frontline units—would need a strong American “backstop” to deter Russia. Mr Trump has demurred.

On March 5th Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was set to host Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister and a staunch Russian ally, to urge him not to block moves by a European summit the following day to boost European defence, not least by setting up a €150bn facility to help buy weapons. “We are now in a new era,” Mr Macron said in an address to the French nation.

In Germany, meanwhile, the conservatives of Friedrich Merz, who is likely to be the next chancellor, agreed with Social Democrats on March 4th to create a €500bn infrastructure fund and to reform the constitutional “debt brake” to remove restraints on defence spending. The expected fiscal boost pushed up the DAX index by 3.4% and the shares of Rheinmetall, a defence firm, by 7.2%. German 10-year bond yields jumped by 30 basis points in expectation of higher borrowing.

Yet there is a dangerous tension in Europe’s response. It seeks to show it is pulling its weight by strengthening Ukraine and keeping it fighting if necessary, whereas Mr Trump wants to bend it to his will and end the war. In trying to stop the rift with America, Europe may hasten it. ■