Anyone who thought the Oval Office spat was just a Trump tantrum, and that the US president would calm down over the weekend, will have woken today to the rustle of the US security rug being pulled from under the European allies and Ukraine.
Donald Trump gave them three days to try to rustle up a reaction to his row with Volodymyr Zelensky. When the “coalition of the willing” summit in London revealed differences about what exactly the members would do, and how to pay for it – and after Trump was enraged by the Ukrainian president saying the end of the war was “very, very far away”, he moved to pour salt into the wounds. “America will not put up with it for much longer,” he declared in a post on Truth Social.
But this is more than another Trumpian war of words.
The new 25 per cent tariffs on Canada not only show his displeasure with the terms of trade with his northern neighbour, it is also a reminder to Washington’s European allies that if they step out of line – like Justin Trudeau has done over Ukraine – there will be an economic price.
Everyone in Europe has been making promises to raise defence spending quickly in response to Trump’s threats to abandon Ukraine to its fate, and maybe East Europeans like the Baltics to their “tough neighbourhood”. The problem is that reviving defence production in Europe, and here, will take years. Tariffs would hit our economies much more quickly.
The Kremlin can sit back and enjoy the war of words between Washington, Brussels and London. The morale of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine can only be boosted if high-tech American weapons and munitions stop flowing to their enemies. Trump’s military aid cut is an unequivocal indication of Washington’s direction of travel – a clear message that will only embolden Putin.
The Kremlin has been quick to welcome the US pause in military aid to its rival, calling it “probably the best contribution to the cause of peace” – as, so its thinking goes, it will edge Kyiv closer to the negotiating table. The suggestion that the US is also entertaining possible sanctions relief for Russia will only offer succour to Putin.
Europe, even if it carries on with its own supplies to Ukraine, cannot hope to fill the munitions gap. Donald Trump exaggerates the monetary value of the aid donated by his country to Ukraine. But much of the weaponry and ammunition donated by European allies and the Canadian military is imported from the US.
If Washington wanted to get really rough with Ukraine, it could ban the supply of Dutch or Canadian F-16s, or limit the supply of vital spare parts.
Insecurity about its supply chain means that Kyiv can’t continue to put the same number of Western weapons into the field just because (as optimists insist) it has around six months supply in stock. If Trump persists in his “pause” over several months, the Ukrainian military will face a battlefield crunch in the summer. The impact of pulling the rug from under Ukraine is not just on the supply chain but, worse still, on Ukrainian morale.
It is one thing for Ukrainians to have fought bravely for three years to thwart Russia’s massive attack, knowing the West was united behind them with money and weapons. Fighting against the odds when your principal backer seems to be shifting not just to a neutral position but giving credit to your enemy’s propaganda can only be demoralising.
The Ukrainian internet echoes with defiance against Trump’s pressure on them to concede the mineral deal, Putin’s demands for territory and, in effect, regime change in Kyiv. What the trenches think is less clear.
When Donald Trump gives his joint session address to the US Congress, world leaders will be hanging on his words. Despite his personal landslide in last November’s elections, the Republicans’ House majority is wafer thin, at its narrowest in Congress history. There is a chance that Trump’s overturning of three years’ of US backing for Ukraine, coupled with his overtures to Putin, could inspire an act of resistance.
And yet the speed with which former vocal Ukraine-backers such as Senator Lindsay Graham turned on Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday suggests that the president’s base may have fallen in with Trump’s geopolitical somersaulting.
Everything now depends on whether Trump’s pressure on his allies and Kyiv can be eased up – before Ukrainian resolve cracks.
Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford
