European leaders are finally waking up to the “nightmare scenario” that they face on the Ukraine war — and realizing that they now have to foot the bill for their own defense thanks to President Trump’s “America First” policies, diplomats said.
After years of slacking off on defense spending, Europe now needs to rearm massively “until Trump is dead,” a European diplomat was quoted as telling Politico.
“Defense spending is becoming a fixed cost. We have switched off the sun and now we need to pay every day for the heating. Every day you need to pay for ammunition, at least for several years, until Trump is dead,” the anonymous diplomat said.
The dire assessment comes as European leaders are set to meet Thursday for a summit on the Ukraine war with the hopes of coming up with an agreement that will give them some say in a peace deal.
“The nightmare scenario is that the US announces a deal soon that accepts most of Russia’s demands and then tells Ukraine and Europe to take it or leave it,” Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Politico.
During his election campaign earlier this year, Germany’s Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz told voters that the continent is “five seconds to midnight” when it comes to its own defense. French President Emmanuel Macron said Europeans need “an incredible awakening.”
Macron spoke out in opposition to Trump’s ceasefire negotiations on Ukraine and also warned that Europe’s relationship with the US had changed, in a drastic ramping up of tensions.
Peace “cannot be achieved at any cost, under Russian dictates, or through Ukraine’s capitulation,” he told his nation in a TV address on Wednesday.
“We have to be ready if the US is no longer by our side,” he added.
Thursday’s hastily arranged summit in Brussels comes just days after separate gatherings of European chiefs in Paris and London.
They are not expected to be united affairs either, with leaders including as Hungary’s Viktor Orban expected to take a more confrontational line against Ukraine.
Differences between the UK and France over a potential one-month truce were also exposed this week.
For the EU, such focus on military matters is uncharted territory for a multinational body more used to settling agricultural policy and mandates on iPhone chargers.
“Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote to EU leaders on Tuesday, as she announced plans to unlock more than $800 billion in additional defense spending in Europe in the coming years.
“The future of a free and sovereign Ukraine — of a safe and prosperous Europe — is on the line.”
