Europe’s Nightmare Is Here: They Have to Fight Putin Without the US

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(Bloomberg)-European leaders face the worst scenario of the worst cases: they may really deal with volatile Russia alone.

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When the United States lined up alongside Russia and North Korea earlier this week to oppose the United Nations proposal condemning Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, some European officials knew that the relationship via Atlantic was in a deep trouble. Then they watched in horror while Donald Trump gave Volodimir Zelinski to wear the audience in the oval office and something erupted.

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In interviews with Bloomberg, it was a reaction more than Disaneh from the officials who maintained their composure through wars and financial crises whose reaction was to the outbreak. For them, the scene showed the confidence and values ​​that linked Europe and the United States together since the end of World War II are no longer joint.

“President Trump and his administration have sparked a more fundamental challenge to the Atlantic alliance, which he faced for many decades,” said Graham Alison, a government professor at Harvard University, who studied with Henry Kissinger and served in each of the Clinton and Rigan administrations.

French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister CARE will have dates and European Commission President Ursula von der Lin described this moment as a defiance of generations for the continent. They will meet with Zelenskiy and other European leaders in London on Sunday to unify what their next step should be.

The European Union aims to follow up on the emergency package of 20 billion euros (21 billion dollars) as military aid to Ukraine at the emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. But this is just a batch offered to hundreds of billions that they will need to fill in order to defend in the coming months if they want to take responsibility for their security from the United States for the first time in 80 years.

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After years of manual retreat and discussions about the problems of the European Union and its and its etc., this will require this forging a political will that does not have a few precedents in the history of the mass.

“While I would like to imagine that Europe will escalate to fill the gap, and do so at the appropriate time, I bet 3-1 against it,” Alison said, adding that he expects Ukraine to accept a bitter peace settlement by the end of the summer.

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The relationship through the Atlantic, and the broader alliance network of the United States, was unique in the post -war world because common values ​​and trust allowed countries to exchange secrets and rely on each other in critical moments. The foundations of that relationship were laid during World War II and deepened when the Eastern European countries were welcomed in NATO and the European Union after the fall of the iron curtain.

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It is this date that makes the current crisis very painful.

Many European diplomats grew up during the Cold War – some spent their childhood in the Soviet bloc or under occupation. When they read the atrocities that I committed on Ukraine – the massacres in places like Boch, thousands of children were deported to Russia, and air attacks on civilians – they see echoes for their families.

Despite all the irony of parts of the West and the South, the United States was really a symbol of freedom for Eastern Europe and looked at the principles that pass through American policy.

Certainly, the United States sometimes persuaded the allies to do things they do not want to do. But Republicans, Trump, are the Ronald Reagan party, the president who asked the Soviet Union “demolishing” the Berlin Wall in the name of Freedom. Now they line up with the attempts of the Russian aggressors to deprive the Ukrainians of their lives and freedom.

After a quarrel on Friday at the Oval Office, the leaders of the European Union lined up to express their support to Zelinski and clarify on their part. Many officials said that Trump puts Europeans in a position that must choose between the United States and Ukraine, and most of them, if not everyone, would choose Ukraine. For Europe, it is my existence.

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“It has started a new era of barbarism,” German Foreign Minister Analina Perbuk said on Saturday in a statement to reporters in Berlin. “He must defend the barbaric era, which must defend the international system based on rules and the rule of law more than ever against the power of strong.”

@Zeenskyyua, Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.

DonaldTusk February 28, 2025

Going alone will be an unprecedented challenge for European countries, but it is also possible to harm American prosperity and security as well.

The commercial relationship between the United States and the European Union is the most important in the world, reaching 1.6 trillion euros in 2023, according to the European Commission, while companies in the European Union and American companies have 5.3 trillion euros of investing in each other's markets. The European Commission is already preparing goods lists that target if Trump continues by threatening to impose fees on European Union exports.

Moreover, the alliance between Europe and the United States – and a lot of American global power – continued for a long time because it was relied on confidence and the allies chose the truth of its purchase. The allies were mainly voluntary and Trump broke the confidence it pushed.

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Now the European Union is working to enhance relations with similar countries in thinking like Canada, which is also targeted by Trump and will seek new trade relations with countries in Asia and Latin America. The mass can be less willing to work with the United States in China and other places in the Far East. Many other American allies will wonder if they could be after that.

The crisis with the United States has also placed closer to the European Union again, after years of bitterness on Britain's exit from the European Union. On Tuesday, the British Prime Minister said that the changing geopolitical scene means a “new alliance” between the United Kingdom and Europe will be necessary.

Starmer was in close contact with other European leaders to coordinate their approach in Trump and Ukraine, as well as strengthening the broader security engineering on the continent.

To do this, European Union countries must increase the defense budgets to at least 3 % of GDP as soon as possible next year. They added in the maximum scenarios that may have to an increase of up to 7 %.

In the short term, there are holes in the potential of Europe that is connected by the United States. Even if they can mobilize money and the ability to supply Ukraine, the American ability in areas such as intelligence, area and battlefield connections will be difficult if it is not impossible to repeat if Trump closes all support.

For this reason, some leaders, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called for a summit with the United States to try to save the relationship and that experts argue that European officials should do everything in their power over the next four years to work with their similar counterparts in thinking to maintain the Atlantic alliance alive.

But although it will continue to communicate with Trump, Europe's concentration turns into what it can do without the United States.

– With the help of Anya Nossabum and Alex Wakeham.

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