President Donald Trump plans to receive his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British prime minister Keir Starmer this week on the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, meets this week with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, in a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, in which Trump transforms American foreign policy and in practice ignores European leadership while looking for a rapid end for the Russian war in Ukraine.
Trump has also made territorial demands – Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal – and about valuable rare minerals in Ukraine. Just a month after starting his second term, the president of “United States first” has projected a huge shadow on what the United States veteran diplomats and former government officials considered the reassuring presence of the United States in global stability and continuity .
Despite some notable stumbling blocks, the military, economic and moral power of the United States has dominated the era after World War II, especially after the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All that, some fear, could be lost if Trump achieves what he wants and the United States abandons the principles under which the United Nations and numerous other international organizations were founded.
“The only conclusion that can be taken is that 80 years of politics in defense against aggressors have been destroyed without any discussion or reflection,” said Ian Kelly, who was an ambassador of the United States in Georgia during the Obama government and the Trump's first mandate, and is now a professor at Northwestern University.
“I am discouraged for many reasons, but one of the reasons is that at first I had felt encouraged by repeated references to 'Peace through force,'” added Kelly. “This is not peace through force – this is peace through surrender.”
Visits begin on the anniversary of the war in Ukraine
Trump plans to receive Macron on Monday, the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, while Starmer will be in the White House on Thursday.
His visits occur after Trump recalls Europe with repeated criticism to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for not negotiating an end to war and rejecting an agreement that gave the United States access to the rare minerals of Ukraine, which could be used in the US aerospace, medical and technological industries.
European leaders were also dismayed by Trump's decision to send senior advisors for preliminary conversations with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia without the presence of Ukrainian or European officials at the table.
It is expected that there will be another shock in the UN on Monday, after the United States proposed a rival resolution that lacks the same demands as one of Ukraine and the European Union so that Moscow's forces immediately retire from the country.
On the mineral agreement, Zelenskyy initially was reluctant, saying that he lacked security guarantees for Ukraine. On Sunday he wrote in X that “we are achieving great advances,” but said that “we want a good economic agreement that is part of a true security guarantees system for Ukraine.”
Trump government officials say they hope to reach an agreement this week that more closely links the economies of the United States and Ukraine – the last thing Russia wants.
This follows a crossing of public statements in which Trump called Zelenskyy “dictator” and falsely accused kyiv of starting the war. Actually, Russia invaded its smallest and less equipped neighbor in February 2022.
Zelenskyy, who on Sunday said in response to a question that would change his position for peace or to join NATO, then enraged Trump by stating that the president of the United States lived in a “disinformation space” created by Russia. Analysts say that confronting Trump may not be the best strategy.
“The answer to President Trump does something against you is not to do something immediately. You tend to obtain this type of reaction, ”said the retired Admiral Mark Montgomery, ex -landscape of foreign policy of the late Senator John McCain and current principal investigator in the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
“This is part of a broader problem, in which I know that the government considers itself as a disruptor. I think a better term could be destabilizing. And, unfortunately, destabilization is sometimes we and our allies, ”he added.
This complicated dynamic makes this week's task even more difficult for Macron and Starmer, leaders of two of the closest allies in the United States, while trying to handle conversations with Trump.
High risk conversations between European and American leaders
Macron said he intends to tell Trump not to show weakness to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, during the negotiations led by the United States to end the war in Ukraine is in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans. He also suggested that he will argue that the way Trump manages Putin could have huge ramifications for Washington's relations with China, the most significant economic and military competitor in the United States.
“You cannot be weak against President Putin. It's not you, it's not your brand, it doesn't go in your interest, ”Macron said on social networks. “How can you be credible to China if you are weak against Putin?”
However, Trump has shown considerable respect for the Russian leader. Trump said this month that he would like to see Russia return to what is now the group of the seven main economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Trump dismissed Zelenskyy's complaints about the exclusion of Ukraine and Europe in the opening of conversations between the United States and Russia, suggesting that he has been negotiating “without letters, and you get tired of that.”
Putin, on the other hand, wants to make a deal, Trump argued on Friday. “He doesn't have to make a deal. Because if I wanted to get the whole country, ”Trump added.
The deference to Putin has worried some veteran diplomats.
“The government should consider going in a different direction because this is not going to work,” said Robert Wood, a retired career diplomat who served in multiple Republican and Democratic governments, more recently as the United States attached ambassador to the United Nations until December . “Let's not fool ourselves: Russia began this war, and trying to rewrite history will not serve the best interests of the United States or our allies.”