What we all saw on our mobile phones a few days ago was not just the publicly-televised humiliation of the head of state of a sovereign state inside the White House, it was a message to the rest of the world that the certain strategic relationships that used to dominate the world – such as the one between the US and Europe – were not going to be the same, and certainly not for the next four years while Donald Trump is US president.
What happened to the president of Ukraine happens when you are weak and depend on others too much. Of course, one could easily say that Zelenskyy doesn’t have a choice but to depend on others because his country was invaded by a much larger and more powerful country – and so he turned to the other powerful countries in the world as well as the EU.
But the second Trump presidency has turned the model of America and the EU being on the same page on just about everything—and in this particular case, Russia—on its head. He has made it clear he wants to make peace with Russia—he doesn’t care what the EU thinks about that because (as he says repeatedly) America has spent far more helping Ukraine than all of Europe combined, and what Europe has spent is in the form of loans.
So Trump wants peace and he wants it so that American companies can have access to mine Ukraine’s rare earth and critical minerals which include nickel, manganese, titanium, and uranium. He also wants the war in Ukraine to stop and make peace with Russia (which to many is appeasement) so that China can be countered. Trump sees China as America’s biggest competitor and it leads in the mining of rare Earth and critical minerals which are used in AI technologies. Zelenskyy was scolded and told by Trump “You’ve spoken enough” because he was trying to tell America how to run diplomacy - and because America is no longer interested in supporting him at the expense of antagonising Russia - which it sees as a possible partner and bulwark against China.
Several European leaders have publicly said that they stand by Ukraine and that Russia invaded it and is the aggressor
Also, Zelenskyy kept saying that Russia was evil and Putin could not be trusted and that didn’t seem to go down well with Trump either, who seemed more interested in a negotiated settlement between two sides who may have much to gain if the fighting and killing stops. To him, the issue was not about “good versus evil”, a narrative that the US has often used for its benefit in the past but which is outdated and not of much use to a president who has been a businessman much of his professional life.
The minerals deal that Trump and Zelenskyy were to sign—and which the former eagerly wanted so that America could recoup some of the money it had given to Ukraine—didn’t materialise. Trump angrily said that the Ukrainian president could come back when he wanted peace, which meant that he could come back when he wanted to sign the deal and also be assured of US security guarantees.
As expected, following this disastrous and publicly televised exchange, the Ukraine president left for Europe where he was warmly welcomed by the UK prime minister who made it a point to say that he was “always welcome at Downing Street”. Europe now clearly has to step up if it doesn’t agree with what the US is planning on doing in terms of engaging with Russia and Putin. Several European leaders have publicly said that they stand by Ukraine and that Russia invaded it and is the aggressor. The UK has also halved its overseas development aid budget from 0.6% of GDP to 0.3% of GDP and has said this will be used to boost and expand defence spending - which presumably will be used on defending Ukraine and possibly sending British soldiers there.
Other European countries like Germany and France are expected to follow suit, especially since Ukraine and its war with Russia is right in their backyard and unlike the US they don’t have the luxury of an expansive ocean separating them from any country on the east and west.
It’s going to be a rocky four years for Europe-America ties, and that’s putting it mildly.