Trump is making Europe squirm to force true peace in Ukraine

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a team of negotiators met Tuesday with their Russian counterparts in Riyadh, unthawing US-Russian relations in a dramatic diplomatic turnabout and kicking off talks on the war in Ukraine.

Conspicuously absent were representatives from Europe.

That meeting capped off a dizzying week of transatlantic diplomacy by the United States, punctuated by Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference that mentioned Ukraine only twice, and only in passing.

Vance said he avoided publicly outlining a Ukraine peace strategy to “preserve the president’s negotiating leverage,” and to set no red lines ahead of the meetings in Saudi Arabia.

But Vance’s choice can also be seen as a move designed to shock Europe into action — a perspective consistent with President Trump’s own views on transatlantic relations and military burden-shifting.

To be sure, Vance’s planting of a rhetorical MAGA flag in Europe channels a belief held by many Trump supporters that European elites, especially in Germany, are allied outright with progressives in the United States.

But the VP’s speech was also a new twist on a time-tested Trump specialty: exposing US allies to the specter of a threat from a hostile power — in this case Russia — to prod them into sharing responsibility for their own security.

Vance administered this push in a way that will be remembered for years to come — not because of anything he said about NATO’s security guarantee or the future of Ukraine, but for his remarks questioning Europe’s commitment to democracy itself.

When he lamented “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” progressives who believe their own values must dictate foreign relations no doubt blanched.

When he argued, “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” more than a few EU officials felt a pang of anxiety for the future of relations between Washington and Brussels.

And when Vance ended his speech with the lukewarm peroration, “Good luck to you all,” many even-keeled, sober-minded analysts raced to the grim conclusion that Europe would be forced to face Russia alone.

The meetings in Riyadh caused those fears to metastasize into outright alarm.

To the Trump administration, however, Europe’s collective handwringing is proof of concept rather than a sign of any misstep.

Vance’s speech was intended to make Europe squirm — and to push it into action: If Europe wishes to shape US strategy toward Russia, it will have to field a level of military capabilities commensurate with its economic power.

Perhaps the past week can serve as the wake-up call that will finally rouse Europe from its slumber.

On Sunday, ahead of an emergency meeting of major European powers in Paris, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he is “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”

On Monday, as the flash summit convened, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared that many European states are “wanting to put troops in Ukraine post a peace deal” — perhaps in reference to comments from Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, who told reporters that such a move “is absolutely a possibility.”

For his part, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on X, “If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defense now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war.”

Europe should expect more pressure from the Trump team in the months to come as Washington searches for a path to settle the war in Ukraine, where the situation is dire.

Regardless of how its talks with Russia unfold, the Trump administration will expect Europe to take the lead in supporting Kyiv — and will remind them of the consequences of holding back.

“An underlying principle here is that the Europeans have to own this conflict going forward,” as National Security Adviser Mike Waltz stated earlier this month.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reinforced that point at his first meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels last week when he declared that “as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine” — and, more broadly, that America would no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe.”

Liberals may argue that playing hardball with Europe will only antagonize US allies and embolden Vladimir Putin. But Trump and Vance are willing to run those risks.

If Europe does not get its act together — their not-so-subtle message — the US will simply ignore it.

Trump and the rest of the administration reason the Kremlin is far likelier to respect an alliance that wields power through its military than through anodyne summit declarations.

For all his swagger, Putin is not immune to the logic of deterrence. The Europeans shouldn’t be either.

Acting on that fact is the key to their getting a seat at the table.

Peter Rough is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe at Hudson Institute.