Trump's pivot on Ukraine still leaves the onus on Europe

AllAfrica

5 days ago

Everything that President Donald Trump says is unreliable, simply because he says so much and because he has succeeded in politics by making image and sensation his priority, rather than substance.
So if we want to decide how seriously to take his sudden reversal of position on helping Ukraine, the right people to listen to are the Ukrainians themselves and their opponents, the Russians. Neither has shown signs that they consider this American reversal to be truly game-changing.
President Volodymr Zelensky, of course, welcomed Trump's new promises to supply more weapons and missile-defense systems, contradicting a decision by the US Department of Defense just a week earlier, but Zelensky also promptly got on the phone to European leaders asking them to supply more weapons too, and urgently.
If you are fighting a war for national survival, the only weapons that truly count are the ones that actually arrive in the hands of your soldiers.
Until that happens, and with still no clear information about when American weapons will arrive, Trump's promise has some value in terms of the message it sends to Ukraine's invader, Vladimir Putin, but that value is strictly temporary until new things are said in the White House, and it saves no lives directly.
On his side, Putin has continued his army's 'summer offensive' to try to seize more Ukrainian territory, has continued to bombard Ukrainian cities, and has stuck to the uncompromising list of conditions he says he requires before any serious ceasefire talks can occur.
In fact, in one important sense, Trump's announcement may have even relaxed the pressure on Putin to stop the fighting. While the decision to resume weapons deliveries was obviously important, an equally important decision may have been the one to set a 50-day deadline before any new economic sanctions will be imposed on Russia by the United States.
This gives Putin an incentive to try to achieve as much as he can on the battlefield between now and mid-September, at which point he will most likely try to resume talks with the United States so as to persuade Trump to delay the sanctions deadline even further.
This really is as perfect a situation as Putin could have hoped for, short of a complete alignment by America with his war aims. The summer offensive is not going well for Russia, but there is still time for progress to be made.
Unless nearby European countries choose to send weapons and missile-defense systems immediately, Ukraine's military will remain at a disadvantage, valiant and innovative though it certainly is.
Under the scenario now laid out for him by Trump, Putin does not really need to think hard about the future of his war until after the summer. By that time, Putin will be thinking, Trump may have changed his mind and his message multiple times.
And Putin may well have seen recent political arguments taking place inside Ukraine about President Zelensky's cabinet reshuffle and claims about corruption as being encouraging signs that the Ukrainian government is itself becoming vulnerable to political pressure and criticism.
For these reasons, Trump's latest change of mind still leaves the true initiative in the hands of European governments. His decision to resume weapons deliveries is predicated on those weapons being paid for by European countries, so if weapons are to arrive soon those payments had better be agreed upon and made soon.
Moreover, all talks about those purchases will take place against the background of the European Union's negotiations with the United States over trade tariffs, which risks handing more bargaining power to the Americans for as long as those talks continue.
This may mean until the recently announced deadline of August 1, or it may mean the date hinted at by the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent of September 1.
That highly contentious background could complicate the process of getting purchases agreed and weapons delivered. After all, the EU trade negotiators have this week been briefing the media about how they are preparing retaliatory tariffs and controls on US services exports to the EU, which mainly means by the big technology platforms, if the Americans stick to Trump's latest threat of a 30% tariff on EU goods.
A transatlantic trade war would not be a happy or helpful scenario against which to carry out the urgent task of helping Ukraine withstand the real war inflicted on it by Russia.
Above all, the four European countries leading Europe's defense efforts —Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Poland —must maintain a strict focus on Ukraine's daily needs and not become complacent by Trump's apparent reversal on US weapons deliveries. The countries with the weapons stocks and production lines that are best able to help Ukraine emerge from the summer feeling strong are these European ones.
In the long term, Europe wants to buy defense equipment and materials mainly from European producers rather than from the United States. That need not preclude purchases from America in the short term, if supplies are available, but it does mean that the sooner that long-term orders can be placed with European suppliers to allow them to invest and plan ahead, the better.
It also means that Ukraine's now large, innovative and highly cost-competitive defense industry promises to become a big future asset for Europe, making the protection of it from Russian attacks even more important.
In the tense atmosphere of this fourth summer of Russia's war in Ukraine, risks are going to have to be taken by those leading European governments in order to prevent a worsening of the security situation for the whole of Europe.
Trump's reversal could offer some reassurance that weapons will be available from America in future months and in 2026, making it easier for Europeans to hand over their own critical missile-defense systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks and, ideally, the long-range missiles that the Ukrainians need to hurt and deter Russia.
The time for worrying about escalating the conflict with Russia has long passed. President Putin is the one who has been doing the escalation. If Ukraine and the rest of Europe are to deter him and even push him back, the Europeans will have to send some clear messages of their own, not in words but in actions.
Formerly editor-in-chief of The Economist, Bill Emmott is currently chairman of the Japan Society of the UK, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Trade Institute.
This is the English original of an article published in Italian by La Stampa and in English on the Substack Bill Emmott's Global View. It is republished here with kind permission.