By Jeanna Smialek
European leaders have dealt with President Donald Trump’s return to office by trying to keep him cooperating on Ukraine while pushing to ramp up their own defense spending so they are less reliant on an increasingly fickle America.
But Friday’s meeting in the Oval Office, in which Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, underscored for European leaders that they might need to come up with more concrete plans — and fast.
Following the heated exchange, a visibly annoyed Trump canceled a news conference with the Ukrainian leader and posted on social media that Zelenskyy was “not ready for peace” so long as he has American backing.
His anger — and his threat that the United States could stop supporting Ukraine if it did not accept any U.S.-brokered peace deal — was just the latest sign that Trump was pivoting U.S. foreign policy away from traditional allies in Europe and toward Russia.
“The scene at the White House yesterday took my breath away,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told DPA, a German news agency, on Saturday. “I would never have believed that we would ever have to defend Ukraine from the United States.”
The stark shift in American strategy has left the continent’s leaders reeling. Many worry that if the war ends with a weak deal for Ukraine, it would embolden Russia, making it a greater threat to the rest of Europe. And the change in tone makes achieving greater self-reliance more urgent than ever, even if the European leaders face the same daunting challenges as before.
It would take years to build the weapons systems and capabilities that Europe would need to be truly independent militarily. And supporting Ukraine while building homegrown defenses could take the type of rapid action and united political will that the European Union often struggles to achieve.
“Everything relies on Europe today: The question is, how do they step up?” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, acting president of the German Marshall Fund. “They have no alternative.”
European leaders had been debating how they could help to guarantee security in Ukraine if a peace deal were struck, what terms they would find acceptable, and what they might give Ukraine in their next aid package.
In fact, top officials are poised to meet this coming week to discuss defense, first in London on Sunday at a gathering organized by Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, then in Brussels on Thursday at a special summit of the European Council, which brings together EU leaders.
Representatives from the bloc’s 27 member countries met Friday afternoon to come up with a draft of ideas for the meeting in Brussels. The plan included calls to beef up EU defenses faster than previously expected, and to more clearly define possible security guarantees for Ukraine, according to an EU official briefed on the matter.
And that was before Friday’s exchange between Trump and Zelenskyy.
The flare-up spurred an immediate outpouring of public support for Ukraine from many European officials.
“You will never be alone, dear President,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU’s executive arm, wrote in Ukrainian on social platform X on Friday night, in a joint post with other European leaders.
It also prompted calls for fast action, with some European diplomats and leaders hoping that even countries that have been reluctant to increase spending on defense and support for Ukraine will now get on board with a more ambitious approach.
“A powerful Europe, we need it more than ever,” President Emmanuel Macron of France posted on social media. “The surge is now.”
Yet for all of the bracing pronouncements, speeding up Europe’s transition to greater autonomy on defense will be no easy task.
For starters, shouldering a greater part of the financial burden for aiding Ukraine is likely to be expensive. The United States alone has spent about $114 billion on military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine over the past three years, according to one frequently used tracker, compared with Europe’s $132 billion.
Plus, when it comes to European defense more broadly, America provides critical weapons systems and other military equipment that would be near impossible to replace quickly.
“We still do need the U.S.,” said Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of the Brussels-based research group Bruegel.
European officials had been discussing a future aid package for Ukraine, one that could total tens of billions of euros. By Friday night, countries that have been pushing for more ambitious sums were hoping that Trump’s tone during the Zelenskyy meeting would help to prod European laggards to open their pocketbooks, according to one diplomat familiar with discussions.
But Hungary is expected to oppose the new aid package for Ukraine, which could force the EU into a time-consuming effort of cobbling together contributions from member states, rather than passing a package at the level of the bloc, since the latter would require unanimity.
In a clear sign of the disunity, Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, stood apart from many other European leaders, thanking Trump for his exchange with Zelenskyy. He wrote on social media that the U.S. leader “stood bravely for peace” even if “it was difficult for many to digest.”
European officials have also been considering whether, when and how to put European peacekeeping forces on the ground in Ukraine if a deal is reached to stop the war. Britain has expressed a willingness to send troops to Ukraine, as has France. Discussions on that are expected to continue this coming week.
But in light of Friday’s exchange, some say the time for slow-moving deliberation may be over. While officials had just begun to talk about what security guarantees for Ukraine might look like, they may need to begin to quickly think about how to implement them, de Hoop Scheffer said. “This is a time for Europe to very, very seriously step up,” she said.
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