As Keir Starmer surveys the wreckage of the US-Ukrainian relationship caused by the Oval Office bar-room fight, the UK prime minister is clearly intent on trying to repair the diplomatic damage, but it may be that the mood of mutual antagonism not just in the US, but in Europe, is too great.
It is not as if Starmer, to use Trump’s blunt phraseology, has many cards left to play. He had already played them, and his hand was not strong enough to prevent the US-Ukraine breakdown.
Courtesy of King Charles, he offered an unprecedented second state visit to President Trump. He had rushed through a cut in the overseas aid budget so as to be in a position to present Trump with an increase in UK defence spending, and during his meeting on Thursday he had fawned over Trump’s ability to “change the conversation over Ukraine”.
Yet despite the decent atmospherics, Starmer, in common with Emmanuel Macron earlier in the week, could not extract the one concession he wanted: a clear US commitment to provide security guarantees – principally air cover and intelligence – for a European force being prepared to oversee a ceasefire inside Ukraine. Trump continued to insist he trusted Vladimir Putin to abide by the ceasefire and focused on the concessions Ukraine was going to have to make.
There seemed to be no reserves of goodwill between the US and Europe on which Starmer could draw.
So now, when as many as 12 European leaders gather in London for a defence summit on Sunday, Starmer will have to lead a conversation on whether Trump’s mind is made up, or whether the president’s mercurial mood swings can even at this late hour lead to a reconciliation.
The prime minister will hold a meeting on Saturday afternoon with Zelenskyy, who landed in the UK this morning after the high-profile bust-up.
Everyone has their own account of the precise moment when the Zelenskyy-Trump meeting went off the rails, and whether, after 30 minutes of tense but manageable discussion, Zelenskyy should have held back from pointing out that Putin, historically, has not kept to his word – possibly the spark that Trump wanted to start the shouting match.
In retrospect, too, someone in the Zelenskyy circle could have minimised the risk of the seething resentment between the two men coming into public view by asking that Trump not repeat his relatively new practice of holding a 30-minute plus freewheeling press conference alongside his interlocutor before they sit down for formal talks. It is in these unstructured exchanges that landmines are most likely to be stepped on.
Trump sensed Zelenskyy’s vulnerability, and once he had decided to take on the role of a sneering Draco Malfoy, JD Vance was only left to play both the bullying henchmen roles of Crabbe and Goyle.
At this distance, it does not matter if it was an ambush designed to belittle Zelenskyy in the mind of Republican America, or something that evolved into a vicious takedown. What matters is that the anger reflects Trump’s true feelings towards Ukraine, his faith in Putin and his belief that Zelenskyy does not warrant his support.
In one set of judgments, it marks the end of the post-1945 world order. The US may no longer be a trusted ally, but a competitor, even a strategic threat. It leaves Europe feeling even more alone than at the end of the Munich Security Conference when Vance portrayed Europe’s leaders as a threat alongside Russia and China.
Indeed, after the trio of Oval Office meetings with Macron, Starmer and Zelenskyy, it is an illusion to think that Trump can be motivated by any sense of shared history or common values.
Shocked European leaders have rallied to support Zelenskyy. “You are not alone,” said the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy representative fresh back from Washington where the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, refused to meet her, insisted Europe would not abandon Ukraine. “We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor,” she said. “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”
Starmer has spoken to Trump and Zelenskyy, but increasingly faced with a choice between Washington and Europe, expressed “unwavering support” for Kyiv.
Zelenskyy wrote: “Thank you for your support,” in individual replies on the social media platform X to about 30 messages from European leaders.
But when representatives from more than a dozen European countries convene in the British capital on Sunday, they will have to decide whether they must work on the assumption that the US will provide no more aid to Ukraine, and if so, whether Europe can fill the gap. Some of this will bleed into yet another summit, this time being called by the EU on Thursday.
They will also have to make a brutal assessment of how long Ukraine can hold out without US support, and whether it is better to sue for peace early or late. Turkey, at the London summit, will offer to act as the venue for those talks.
Only Giorgia Meloni, now under growing domestic political pressure to break from Trump, wants to see if the relationship can be restored. The Italian prime minister said: “What is needed is an immediate summit between the United States, the European states and the allies to talk frankly about how we intend to face the great challenges of today, starting with Ukraine, which we have defended together in recent years.”
Either way, the US is determined to end the freeze in its bilateral relations with Russia. Europe is now alone in its conflict with Russia, and the US may not even play the role of a neutral bystander. Somehow, this disparate continent has to decide if it has the strength and cohesion to do what is required to force Moscow’s retreat.
For Starmer, the choice between Europe and the US – one he has sought to avoid – comes ever closer.
