Trump and Europe: to Dissimulate or Not?

President Macron was in Washington yesterday, calling Trump his friend and pushing repeatedly, at their joint press conference, for US security guarantees for any Ukraine peace deal. Keir Starmer has his turn with Trump on Thursday. Meanwhile, Germany’s incoming Chancellor, Friedrich Merz - after his weak but clear election victory - called, on Sunday evening, for independence from the US in combative remarks – entirely understandable after Trump’s acolytes, including Elon Musk, backed the far-right AfD.

This all raises one fundamental question in dealing with the US administration which is whether to dissimulate or not? How much can or should European and other democratic leaders around the world be cautious, concealing or disguising their real views around Trump?

President Macron did correct Trump yesterday when he said all the EU’s assistance to Ukraine was in the form of loans, which is false. But Macron was clearly trying to play the friendship and working together card too – all in the crucial aim of achieving credible security guarantees from the US. We can expect more cautious dissimulation from Starmer on Thursday.

Starmer said yesterday that President Trump had “changed the global conversation…and created an opportunity [for Ukraine]”. When pressed, Starmer’s spokesman told journalists that Trump had changed the conversation: “absolutely for the better.” At least, on the stronger side, the spokesman also said there could be no role for Russia in the G7/G8 while its troops are in Ukraine. We will see if Starmer sticks to this as events unfold. It’s a litmus test.

And we will see, too, whether Merz tones down his language or not in the coming days, weeks and months. But in a week where the US voted with Russia and China to pass a UN Security Council resolution on Ukraine which failed to mention Russia’s role as the invader – and where France and the UK abstained rather than veto the resolution – the extraordinary geopolitical shifts, and the US abandonment of ‘the West’ under Trump, couldn’t be clearer.

A UN General Assembly resolution on Ukraine, that did identify Russia as the aggressor, was also passed yesterday. Ninety-three countries backed this – with just 18 against including the US and Russia in that 18. China was amongst those who abstained. The UK, France, Japan and others all supported the resolution. As Philip Stephens argues trenchantly, the US has made its choice and there is a moment when other countries have to face this clearly. There is no going back.

Dissimulation for results or as appeasement

What did Macron get for his friendly but still demanding approach to Trump yesterday? Very little. Trump did say, on security guarantees, at their joint press conference: “We will have a backing of some kind. Obviously, European countries are going to be involved. I don’t think you’re going to need much backing.”

This couldn’t be weaker. And, as Trump continues to demand a rare earth minerals deal from Ukraine, while talking about an economic and political rapprochement with Russia, it would be brave to think any minimal US security guarantees will be reliable. But, given the urgency of achieving an acceptable peace deal for Ukraine – in the face of the Trump push for a weak deal – then Macron and Starmer’s efforts, and Zelensky’s discussion of Ukraine’s minerals, are all understandable. Whether they will work, or work enough, is the open and fundamental question for Ukraine in the coming days and weeks.

What Next for Europe and the UK?

The EU’s leaders are to hold an extraordinary summit on defence – on support for Ukraine, security guarantees and European defence in just over a week on Thursday, 6^th March. This is a European Council meeting so it seems, for now, unlikely the UK will be invited. The EU has to move forward, remain as united as possible (give or take Hungary and Slovakia), and take both short term and longer term, strong and strategic decisions both for Ukraine and for European security.

Individual leaders have, of course, to deal with their own domestic political constraints. In Germany, the far right AfD and the left party die Linke now have the numbers to block constitutional change, so the question of how to reform Germany’s debt brake, which will get in the way of increasing defence spending, is the core question. In Brussels, Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is looking for any ways to allow more defence spending as a case of emergency flexibility in EU fiscal rules.

But in the UK, today, Keir Starmer has moved, without flexibility, to increase defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. Shamefully, that funding will come wholly from the UK’s international aid budget which will shrink from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%. This year is the 20^th anniversary of the 2005 ‘Make poverty history’ campaign where the wealthier nations committed, at Gleneagles in Scotland, to increase aid to 0.7% of their national income – something Germany and France have achieved.

This UK move is both morally shocking and makes no sense in security terms – supporting development, building strong international alliances and keeping fundamental promises on international poverty are all part of the UK’s security. Starmer smashed all that today – in a move which takes him closer to Trump than to the UK’s allies today in the EU and G7. And the UK is going to need these allies, that is clear.

And there is a link here, too, to Brexit and its negative, enduring impacts on both UK growth and UK politics. Starmer’s government is obsessed with growth, though failing to achieve it so far. Growth comes before net zero, we’ve been told. But, on the other hand, sticking to Brexit, and to the several, previous Tory governments red lines, comes before growth that would be achieved by rejoining the EU or its single market and before keeping our aid commitments.

This is another form of dissimulation where the possibility of reversing Brexit is not admitted, where the continuing costs of Brexit are glossed over. And it’s a UK politics that has been, and remains, polluted and weakened by the lies and propaganda that Brexit’s proponents spread. This Brexit populism has direct links to Trumpian propaganda, even while British democracy has not been assaulted in the way that Trump is crushing US democracy almost overnight.

New World

Call the European approach diplomacy, dissimulation or appeasement. What is clear is that the US is changing rapidly and destructively for the worse, in its domestic and international behaviour. The US is no longer an ally of Europe or the wider ‘west’. Attempting to get an acceptable and enduring peace for Ukraine is central but deeply challenging.

But European and other democracies will have to face up to the need, in this new world, to call out US human rights abuses, democratic failings and failures to respect international institutions, abandonment of climate treaties, and more, just as they do – or should do – with states including Russia, China and North Korea. Dissimulation in an attempt to control Trump will not take the EU or UK very far, for very long. More assertive geopolitics is the order of the day for Europe too.