Western opinion makers frothing at the mouth in recent weeks over “America’s betrayal” and “Trump’s alliance with Russia” will have been dumbfounded by the policy twist which occurred this Tuesday in Jeddah. In a joint statement with Ukraine, the United States announced not only its decision to back a complete ceasefire along the front line – going over and above what even the hard-line Europeans had proposed – but also to reinstate both military aid and intelligence support for Kyiv’s forces.
This was not supposed to be even conceivable anymore. Since the Oval Office debacle on 28th February we’ve been insistently told by frenzied Trump detractors that America is now working with the enemy. Indeed, an FT columnist has even said that now the US is literally the enemy. The subsequent US suspension of security assistance and then intelligence sharing with Ukraine – on 3rd and 5th March, respectively – was read across Europe as a pivotal point, a “definitive” break-up of the transatlantic alliance. It’s a new era, we’ve been told, and Europe must really wake up to the fact that it has to face the world – and especially the Russian bear – “alone”.
Some of Europe’s bona fide Atlanticists may genuinely regret this situation and understand the danger of losing vital US defence support – especially nuclear – and indeed the danger of antagonising America outright. But for a great section of the continent’s elites, and certainly for the hardcore integrationists, this is a golden opportunity to push forward with “more Europe”. It is this, much more than “defence” for its own sake, that drives European policy decision-making.
The US Administration’s actions at the beginning of March have actually been quite liberating for most of Europe’s reigning regimes. Trump has now given them full licence to do what they really wanted to do for a long time, but couldn’t. The continent’s dependency on US military protection via NATO has always stood in the way of the old dream (shared by Oswald Mosley) of a fully autonomous, fully integrated, “United States of Europe” that can assert itself on the world stage as a coherent, single geopolitical centre of power – rather than a collection of individual nations.
But this vision has always been kept at bay by a variety of other forces keen, to different degrees, on conserving power at a national level while trying to maximise the benefits of EU-level integration. Progress towards that final end-State has thus been difficult, given that it requires, eventually, things like the creation of a pan-European military – the long-discussed “EU Army” – and of supra-national tax powers controlled by Brussels. Britain rejected this path in 2016. In Europe, however, the Project carries on.
This is the context in which Ursula von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz rushed out their vast defence-related announcements on 4th March. The European Commission president unveiled an €800 billion European “defence package”, while the German Chancellor-in-waiting seemed to commit over €400 billion for defence (together with €500 billion for infrastructure), at least as reported by the mainstream media.
The purpose of these big – but fake – headline numbers was largely political: to bounce European governments into accepting the end of America’s defence role in Europe as a fait accompli, and to lock-in the idea that Europe not only must stand on its own feet militarily, but, crucially, that it can do it.
The European atmosphere over these past weeks has thus been reminiscent of the days of Angela Merkel’s notorious Wir schaffen das, i.e. We can do this – the former German Chancellor’s slogan that is now forever associated with flinging the gates of Europe wide open to millions of “refugees” in 2015. And look how that turned out.
In the present case, there was no objective need to jump to definitive conclusions before even the news cycle on Trump’s Ukraine aid suspension decisions had closed, but of course none of this is about a policy response. Rather, Leyen and Merz tried to seize the moment during a general panic and create a new political reality in Europe, one in which there could be no future for US influence on the continent as an exclusively-European “defence” would take shape.
Another way of telling that the Leyen-Merz “packages” were just stunts and political opportunism is that they are effectively lies. There is no “€800 billion for defence”: Leyen’s fake number is made of an EU plan to borrow €150 billion, plus a purely theoretical €650 billion that would be raised if EU member states were to raise their defence spending by 1.5 per cent of GDP.
As for Merz, he never actually committed to any specific number for defence (only €500 billion for infrastructure). He only talked about not counting defence spending over 1 per cent of GDP towards the federal debt, which other economists estimated that it could be worth €400 billion for defence. But all of this depends on changing Germany’s constitution, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag. For a variety of political reasons, this is very unlikely to happen.
All this being said, there is a genuinely serious turn in Europe on the question of defence spending. No leader can now ignore the need for national rearmament. But beyond this basic point, we get into the additional political games and agendas now in play across Europe. In the chaos, when things move fast, driven by hyperbolic – and often, self-serving – narratives, fatal mistakes can be made.
The political dilemma in Europe boils down to a binary choice. Either cut America off completely and bet on Europe getting its act together very quickly, at huge scale and cost, to build its own and completely autonomous defences, including nuclear. Or prioritise the preservation of a transatlantic link and as strong an American role in Europe as possible, even at the expense of hurt European pride, while seriously rearming as much as possible.
The second option is especially important to countries on NATO’s eastern flank, whose defence policies – including major equipment programmes – and postures are heavily dependent on their bilateral strategic partnerships with the United States. The UK also has a deep interest in salvaging as much as possible from the US relationship and posture in Europe. It is much too early to give up on that, and to give in to political tricksters who want to use the crisis to fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy of a complete break with the US.
There is no doubt that the current US Administration has very little regard for Europe (or rather, the EU) and its current politicians, and wants to reduce its commitments in this region. Trump has been crystal clear about that. So, European rearmament is essential in any scenario. The question, again, is what shall remain from that US commitment; this is still far from being determined.
And as regards Ukraine, again, Trump has made his approach very clear for those willing to listen rather than freak out, which is not many. The way to get to any peace deal, in Trump’s view (which is US policy), is for the US to intermediate an agreement, because only the US has leverage on both parties to the conflict and can bring them to the table. Europe cannot play that role, both because it is not strong enough and because it is also not willing to assume a somewhat equidistant position between the warring parties, which what the intermediating power seriously intent on achieving results should be doing.
The Trump approach has been interpreted in Europe as “hostile”, or even as doing Russia’s bidding. His pressure on Zelensky has further played into this narrative, which, as explained above, has been embraced and weaponised for political purposes by European politicians. But the results from Jeddah – particularly the US proposal of a full ceasefire – shows that Trump’s actions were a negotiating tactic and that the US president is also willing to press the Russians. Of course, the coming days will show quite how far this approach will stretch, but no one seems to have a better – and realistic – plan for how to pursue peace negotiations. All the other alternatives involve only more war, with potential outcomes ranging from uncertain to catastrophic.
The outcome of the Jeddah meeting has pulled the rug out from underneath the recent narrative of a massive “betrayal” by the United States, but the effects will play out differently across different audiences. The American volte-face on military aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine is not likely to change many minds in Europe with respect to what they now think of the US as an ally, certainly not while Trump is president.
Much of the expert community is already set in the belief that America is not dependable anymore – for example, with respect to NATO Article 5 – and that it cannot be trusted. But this is merely opinion based on conjecture, at this stage. The very fact that in only ten days – with intense diplomatic work behind the scenes by Britain and France – we have traversed a major crisis in allied relations sparked by the Oval Office dust-up, to arrive at the unexpectedly strong Jeddah agreement – shows there is considerable room for dialogue with the US administration, and that that we should not rush to definitive judgements about the future of US-European relations.
The Jeddah proposal – and American U-turn – is also bound to have important political consequences in Europe. Many will give a sigh of relief that the US is “back”. It may be premature, but nonetheless, for now the apparent roll-back of Trump’s hard stance of Ukraine will soothe the nerves of those who never wanted to believe the nightmare of a US retreat, especially in Eastern Europe.
More broadly, the Jeddah outcome creates political breathing room for European leaders and parties wary of the EU’s power grab and of the Franco-German push to railroad the continent into an inflationary defence spending spree set to benefit – who else – primarily the French and German defence industries.
All this has been fuelled by Trump-related hysteria – amplified by acute cases of Musk Derangement Syndrome – but now the ceasefire proposal suddenly inserts doubt into the “standard narrative”. And if Trump’s gamble does pay off and a ceasefire does take hold eventually – after more back-and-forth with the Russians – then resistance against the integrationist agenda spearheaded by von der Leyen with assistance from Merz and Macron will grow. Euro-defence champagne-corks may have popped too soon.
There has been plenty of silliness on display in recent weeks, from all quarters. And, as always in periods of flux and chaos, opportunists try their (political) luck as well. Wiser statesmen, however, strive to be realistic, to keep a sense of proportion, and to put pragmatic interests before emotional reactions and other ideological agendas. In Europe, this must mean, first of all, seeking to stabilise relations with the US and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Hard!
Europe still has no realistic plan on Ukraine