Republicans who served under President Ronald Reagan during the cold war have condemned Donald Trump’s move to soften relations with Russia and undermine the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance.
European leaders were left reeling last week when the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that the greatest danger facing Europe was “the threat from within” and the “retreat from fundamental values”.
Fears are also growing that a meeting of the US and Russia’s top diplomats in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, with no seat at the table for Ukrainian or European officials, paves the way for a capitulation to Moscow.
“It makes me sick what’s going on right now,” said Ken Adelman, a former US ambassador to the United Nations. “The Trump administration has no regard for the 80 years of Atlantic cooperation and the sovereignty of Ukraine.”
Adelman served as arms control director for Reagan, accompanying him on three superpower summits with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He reflected: “We’re in the opposite position right now because Ronald Reagan said, ‘Tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachev,’ and Trump is saying you can do whatever the hell you want to, Mr Putin.
“[Reagan] believed that you should support friends and stand up to enemies. It seems like the Trump administration is for opposing friends and supporting enemies.”
For years hardline anti-communism was the Republican brand, culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the cold war. The US continues to have tens of thousands of troops stationed across mostly western Europe, long seen as a guarantee of democratic stability.
But ever since he ran for president in 2015, Trump has embraced nationalist-populism and been strikingly reluctant to condemn the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Much of the rest of the party has fallen in line while Reaganite hawks such as Mike Pence, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been purged.
Adelman commented: “I’m amazed that the Republican party has abandoned the principles of the party for all those years and just gone over to an America First position that was discredited by 1942.
“It’s not over on Ukraine yet. There’s still some hope that reason will prevail. There’s still some hope that Republicans will stand up and say, ‘what do we stand for?’”
As in the domestic sphere, Trump has begun his second term with fewer guardrails and has taken a scorched earth approach to foreign policy. Whereas eight years ago in Munich, he was represented by vice-president Mike Pence and Jim Mattis, his defense secretary – who both sought to nurture the transatlantic relationship – Vance and the current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, were bulls in a diplomatic china shop.
Vance accused European leaders of failing to stop illegal migration, suppressing free speech and fearing their own voters. He criticised German mainstream parties’ commitment not to collaborate with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in remarks that were strongly rebuffed by Berlin. Longtime national security officials in America were also dismayed.
Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director, said: “For God’s sakes, the United States and Europe fought a world war to make sure Nazism would not be able to dominate that part of the world.
“To imply that somehow Germany, which understands this problem probably better than anybody, should not try to deal with that issue is not smart. It’s not trying to build a stronger relationship. It’s being disruptive and frankly there’s enough disruption right now to go around.”
Panetta is a Democrat who served under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But the silence from Republicans was again deafening.
Panetta added: “The Republicans have basically taken a walk. This is not the party that used to be strong on national defence and national security. They’ve basically made the decision to keep their mouth shut and to go along and that’s unfortunate because, frankly, that’s not what they were elected to do.”
Vance also gave mixed signals on support for Ukraine and suggested Europe would not be involved in the negotiations. By stressing America’s differences with Europe, rather than their shared values, he left diplomats stunned and speaking of a likely divorce.
John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said: “I’m sure they sat around his office and said, what can we say that will shock the Europeans? It’s part of a trope in the Trump administration to slap your friends around in public. They don’t slap the Russians and the Chinese around in public.
“Maybe that’s the way Trump did his real estate business but it has long-term consequences for the United States when you treat your friends and allies badly. There’s a way to engage on these questions and a way not to engage – and Vance chose the publicity-getting route and he got his share of publicity, that’s for sure.”
On a separate visit to Nato last week, Hegseth said the US would not support Ukraine’s membership and it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to demand a return to its borders before Russia invaded in 2014. Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, called it a “rookie mistake”, telling the Politico website: “I don’t know who wrote the speech – it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.”
It was a rare Republican rebuke that implied there were others in the party who dissent from Trump’s position but are wary of speaking out, mindful that he commands overwhelming support from Republican voters and could pursue a vendetta against anyone who opposes him.
Bolton added: “The good news is that I don’t think a majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate want to see Russia come out of this with advantages. The bad news is they’re afraid to say it publicly.”
France called an emergency European summit in Paris after the Munich conference. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has insisted that Kyiv will never accept a deal done behind its back. But in a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, Trump seemed to blame Ukraine for not ending the war sooner – another breach in the western alliance.
Bill Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together and a former official in the Reagan and George HW Bush administrations, commented via email: “Reagan would have said, Nato and the US commitment to Europe has kept the European peace for 80 years. It’s foolish and reckless to put that at risk. And for what? To get along with Putin?”
