The prospect of a second U.S. presidency for Donald Trump, and what that means for the defense of Ukraine against Russian aggression is hanging over a major gathering of European leaders on the other side of the Atlantic.
Trump — who’s been at best lukewarm in his commitment to European defense — leads U.S. President Joe Biden in polling ahead of November’s U.S. election, and did little to allay European concerns by naming J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vance told Bloomberg earlier this week that while Russia’s war in Ukraine is “tragic,” the U.S. “doesn’t have the interest to respond to every tragedy that exists in the world.”
The pairing is pushing European leaders to cooperate more closely on security, a topic that dominates the European Political Community meeting on Thursday at Blenheim Palace in the English countryside near Oxford.
U.S. events “could of course also have an impact on the security in Europe,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told reporters at the summit. “For me the lesson is that the E.U. and European countries should stand more on their own legs than ever.”
The assassination attempt on Trump at the weekend and his defiant response have cemented his position as the clear favorite to win the presidency in the eyes of some European officials. Concerns about Biden’s mental acuity and health — the U.S. president this week contracted COVID-19 — add to that sense.
And while Biden has been full-throated in his defense of Ukraine, Trump has continued his criticisms of NATO that were a constant theme of his 2017-2021 presidency. Earlier this year, he said the U.S. paid a disproportionate share of the cost for the military alliance, adding that the U.S. had a “nice big, beautiful ocean” separating it from Europe’s problems.
“My task and the task of my colleagues will be to convince — if that will be the new administration in the United States — to continue this policy of transatlantic bond because it’s very important for the security of Europe,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters at Blenheim Palace.
Other leaders were more circumspect: in separate press conferences at Blenheim Palace, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron all declined to be drawn on the outcome of the U.S. election or its implications for European defense.
Without naming countries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for his part, beseeched leaders at the summit to “convince your partners around the globe that they also have to be brave.”
Often a contrarian in European politics, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who met with Trump in Florida after last week’s NATO summit, struck a more upbeat tone on the prospect of a return to power for Trump.
“That’s good news; he’s a man of peace,” Orban said. With regard to the war in Ukraine he added that there would be “no solution of this conflict on the battlefield.”
Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that while Trump hasn’t come up in formal EPC meetings, “of course when we have coffee in between, people discuss what happens in the world.”
“American presidential elections are very important to most European countries because it affects alliances and what we do together on security,” Store said. He added that while Europeans have to “demonstrate to the U.S. and to others” that they’re doing more on defense, he didn’t accept the premise that the U.S. may withdraw support from Ukraine.
To be sure, European nations have been stepping up military expenditure, with most now meeting a NATO target to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. In 2024, 23 out of 32 allies will meet the commitment, up from just three in 2014.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that a promised NATO command center to help coordinate the alliance’s assistance to Ukraine will start operating in September, from facilities in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Nauseda said “the issue of the war in Ukraine is overshadowing all the other issues” and that allies “are not able to deliver” on commitments to defending Ukraine.
“We take the decisions but unfortunately the deliveries come much later,” he said. “Ukraine badly needs air ammunition, air defense systems right now. This is the reason why we should support Ukraine more if we really want Ukraine to win this war.”
That sentiment was echoed by Starmer, hosting the summit after just two weeks in office.
“This is the moment for us all to do more,” Starmer said at the opening of the summit. “We stand together, we guard Europe’s frontiers and now we must find new, more ambitious ways of working together.”
