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      Trump is tearing up the transatlantic alliance. Can Starmer’s US visit change the weather?

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      In November 1940, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to Franklin Roosevelt expressing relief both at the US president’s re-election and the victory of his anti-appeasement policy. “Things are afoot which will be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe, and in expressing the comfort I feel that the people of the United States have once again cast these great burdens upon you, I must now avow my sure faith that the lights by which we steer will bring us safely to anchor,” he wrote.As Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron prepare to meet a very different US president, things are once again afoot that will live long in the memory – but this time the lights seem to be going out on a ship adrift in a sea of chaos.In his Arsenal of Democracy speech, Roosevelt spurned those who asked to “throw the US weight on the scale in favour of a dictated peace”. He also saw past Nazi Germany’s “parade of pious purpose” to observe “in the background the concentration camps and ‘servants of God’ in chains”.View image in fullscreenDonald Trump, by contrast, glories in the prospect of a US-dictated peace and in Russia he sees no gulags.Starmer’s nightmare is that the transatlantic alliance forged in the second world war is crumbling before his eyes. The inconceivable has become not just possible, but probable, or as Macron put it on Wednesday: “Do not think that the unthinkable cannot happen, including the worst.”If the central tenets of the postwar order are disintegrating, one of the casualties is likely to be Britain’s self-appointed role as the US’s bridge to Europe. There is a macabre circularity that France and the UK feel it necessary to plead with Trump to recall the US’s history as the generous country that kept the flame of freedom alive in Europe.Margaret MacMillan, a professor of international history at Oxford, fears Trump will not listen to their case. “Never underestimate the importance of individuals in history, especially if they wield a great deal of power, and Donald Trump has got his hands on the levers of the most powerful country in the world. He is not controllable by anyone … He does not have a clear set of policies, but a set of likes and dislikes. Decisions are based on emotion and whim and last moment ideas,” she said.“Even great powers need allies – and yet he is turning on his allies.”Europe was braced psychologically for Trump to refuse further military aid to Ukraine on the basis the US had dispensed enough, and the killing had become a senseless stalemate. But it was never foreseen that in turning off the tap he would parrot Russian propaganda, baselessly accusing Ukraine’s leadership of starting the war, and falsely describing Volodymr Zelenskyy as a “dictator”.View image in fullscreenSuch language risks in effect Trump’s America swapping sides in the war. How does Europe react?The necessary first response, out of self-respect, was to reject the US president’s framing of the war, as did the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, when he described Trump’s words as “an unprecedented distortion of reality and extremely dangerous”.The second step has been to appeal to those with sense in the US that their leader is taking them down a disastrous path. But Trump long ago cleansed the current Republican party of politicians that challenged his rule. Republicans have discovered challenging Trump was not a profitable career path.Trump’s chief consideration in assembling his foreign policy team has been loyalty, not talent. It leaves foreign diplomats with few pressure points to exploit.H R McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, insisted there were still ways to talk Trump around. “He is reflexively contrarian – if you go to him and say everybody agrees on this Mr President, he will do the opposite just to spite you. The technique I would use is to say: ‘This is what Vladimir Putin wants you to say, and this is why he wants you to say it.’ I would show to him what is happening in Russian markets and say: ‘You have just given this psychological gift to the Russians who are celebrating.’“The Europeans need to come out with a clear message: ‘Whatever you do, do not give Putin what he wants upfront.’ What does he want upfront? Sanctions relief. Keep him backed into the damned corner.”Kim Darroch, the former UK ambassador to Washington, suggested Macron and Starmer force Trump to focus on the details, such as how he intends to apply pressure on Putin – something that is absent from his current discourse.View image in fullscreenAlexander Stubb, the Finnish president, suggested Trump simply did not understand what might be at stake for the US. He said: “We have to convince the US that Ukraine’s future is a decisive question not only for Ukraine, but also for European security, the international system and the US’s status as a great power. Our duty is to make clear what the consequences would be if Putin gets what he wants.”Macron and Starmer know Europe’s hand badly needs strengthening, especially since it became clear that Europe was not only going to be sidelined in talks between Russia and the US, but would still be expected to police any settlement – without any help from the Americans.In Paris, first with the major European leaders in person, and then by video with the smaller EU countries, Macron tried to adopt the role of convener in chief. In the words of the former French defence official Camille Grand, the aim was to show Europe “deserved to be at the table but not on the menu”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was a first attempt to show that if indeed the US expects Europe to provide a peacekeeping/reassurance force inside Ukraine, it could respond so long as preconditions were met – including US logistical support.But with little time to prepare, the Paris meeting did not go well. Scholz, facing federal elections this weekend, left early describing discussion of troops as premature, and insisting nothing could be done without US support. Giorgia Meloni arrived late, and was suspicious that the US was being undermined. Smaller nations were nervous of an electoral backlash.Only Starmer, after four hours of talks with British defence officials, went public with a firm if imprecise offer of troops – contingent on a US “backstop” since without its air, logistics and communications support, the operation would not be safe. It was a bold move by the normally cautious Starmer, but he was nervous of the corrosive impact Trump’s remarks would have on Ukrainian troop morale. Macron characterised it as a “dissuasion” force, saying “if there is no such dissuasion, Russia will not keep its word”.Western officials added that the purpose of the US backstop would be to make sure a European landforce would not be challenged by Russia – which would require air support and efforts to make the Black Sea safe international waters.The landforce would not need to be as high as 30,000, since the US backstop – probably US aircraft based in Romania and Lask airbase in Poland – would be ready to respond if the ceasefire was about to be breached.The European landforce would provide confidence to Ukrainians, undertaking protection tasks, and in the process encouraging Ukrainians abroad to return to their homeland.So the kernel of the talks in Washington will be persuasive and probing. Trump will be asked to drop his objection to a US backstop, and to lay out clearly how and on what terms he expects Putin permanently to end the war.But Trump’s vicious dismissal of the “minor comic” Zelenskyy and the US refusal to describe Russia as the aggressor in planned UN and G7 statements do not bode well for a ceasefire – let alone a peace treaty.Such comments show how Trump’s apparent personal grudge against Zelenskyy has become hard policy, and reflect his framing of the conflict in which Ukraine is not the victim, but the aggressor – and so does not deserve a seat at the negotiating table.As Richard Haass, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations, said from the US perspective: “The phase in which Vladimir Putin is treated as a pariah is over.”Opposition to Russian aggression has been the centrepiece of UK foreign policy since Ernest Bevin was the foreign secretary. As recently as 2023, the Strategic Defence Review described Russia as the most acute threat to the UK’s security. And last September, the directors of MI6 and the CIA issued a rare joint statement warning that Russian intelligence was waging a campaign of sabotage across Europe and “[using] technology to spread lies and disinformation to drive wedges between us”.Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, warned in 2010 that the UK would be in danger of sliding into irrelevance “if we have neither the strong transatlantic relationship or a strong role in Europe”.Powell urged the UK to stay close to US presidents, even when things get tough because they will remember it and reward the UK by letting its officials give counsel to the world’s only superpower. The necessary price for such influence was discretion and domestic accusations of being the US’s poodle.Fifteen years later that strategy is under intolerable strain.Brexit has happened and if Trump continues on its current path towards Russia, the UK faces the unenviable choice of distancing itself from its most important postwar partner – or renouncing all that it has ever believed about Russia. More

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      Stop criticising Trump and sign $500bn mineral deal, US official advises Kyiv

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      White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should “tone down” his criticism of the US and take a “hard look” at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas.Waltz said Kyiv was wrong to push back against the US president’s approach to peace talks with Moscow, given everything the US had done for Ukraine. He denied accusations the US had snubbed Ukraine and America’s European allies by excluding them from talks earlier this week with Russia. This was routine “shuttle diplomacy”, he said.“Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv … and insults to president Trump were unacceptable,” Waltz later told reporters at the White House.“President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with president Zelenskyy, the fact that he hasn’t come to the table, that he hasn’t been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered.”On Wednesday, Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator” who refused to hold elections and blamed Ukraine for the war. Zelenskyy, for his part, said Trump was living in a Kremlin “disinformation bubble” and that he wished Trump’s team were “more truthful”.The US’s rapid dumping of Zelenskyy as an ally was underlined when Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, cancelled a press conference in Kyiv. Journalists were summoned to the presidential palace to ask questions after his meeting with Zelenskyy but were stood down.Later Zelenskyy said he had a “good discussion” with Kellogg. It covered the battlefield situation, how to return Ukrainian prisoners of war, and “effective security guarantees”. He said he was grateful to the US for its assistance and bipartisan support, adding: “It’s important for us – and for the entire free world – that American strength is felt.”Kellogg is seen as the most pro-Ukrainian of Trump’s entourage. He did not take part in a meeting earlier this week between the US and Russia in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. One Ukrainian official said Kellogg had been sidelined from the peace talks, adding that Zelenskyy was in an “engaged” frame of mind and “highly motivated”.The envoy is due to leave Kyiv on Friday after a three-day trip. It was unclear if he would take up Zelenskyy’s proposal that they visit the frontline and talk to senior commanders, who are fending off a superior and advancing Russian force in the war-torn east.Ukrainians are sceptical any deal with Moscow will stick and believe Vladimir Putin’s original war goals – to conquer as much territory as possible – are unchanged. The US vice-president, JD Vance, said on Thursday that talks with Russia were making progress. “I really believe we are on the cusp of peace in Europe for the first time in three years,” he said, adding that Trump was determined to stop the war.Vance told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland: “I think with president Trump, what makes him such an effective negotiator, and I have seen this in private, is that he does not take anything off the table … Everything is on the table. And of course that makes the heads explode in America because they say: ‘Why are you talking to Russia?’”There were further signs that the Trump administration now considers Ukraine an adversary, and is working against it on a diplomatic level.According to Reuters, the US was refusing to co-sponsor a draft UN resolution to mark the third anniversary on Monday of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. The resolution condemns Russian aggression and reaffirms Ukraine’s sovereignty and pre-2014 international borders, before Russia annexed Crimea and started a covert military takeover of the eastern Donbas region.This is the first time since the war started that the US has failed to back the resolution. About 50 countries are likely to support it, including the UK and most EU governments, it is understood.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House was blocking a similar statement from the G7 group of countries blaming Russia for the conflict, the Financial Times reported. It said US envoys had objected to the phrase “Russian aggression” and had not signed off on a plan to allow Zelenskyy to address G7 leaders by video.Meanwhile, the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the White House could be willing to lift sanctions on Russia, or increase them, depending on Moscow’s readiness to negotiate. Bessent visited Kyiv this week, presenting Zelenskyy with the demand for minerals and saying it was “payback” for previous US military assistance.Bessent said he had received assurances Ukraine would sign the deal. On Wednesday, however, Zelenskyy said the US had provided $69.2bn in assistance under the Biden administration – far less than the figure the new White House is demanding. He said an agreement depended on the US giving security guarantees for a postwar settlement.European leaders have offered support to Ukraine, including Britain’s Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron. Zelenskyy said he spoke on Thursday to Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. “We deeply appreciate Denmark’s clear stance on a true peace – the peace we all strive for, that must be securely guaranteed,” he wrote on social media.The Kremlin has reacted with jubilation to Trump’s unprecedented attacks on Ukraine and to his false claim Zelenskyy has a 4% popularity rating. The actual figure is 57%, according to the latest opinion polls. “The rhetoric of Zelenskyy and many representatives of the Kyiv regime leaves much to be desired,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said.Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said he was stunned at how quickly Trump’s stance on Ukraine had evolved. “‘A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Medvedev posted on X.He added in English: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud. Trump is 200 percent right.” More

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      Hold your breath and look to Germany: its election could decide the fate of Europe – and the UK | Martin Kettle

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      Even in less stressed times, Britain always pays too much attention to the US and too little to Germany. In today’s torrid circumstances, that imbalance is perhaps excusable. After all, Donald Trump, it now turns out, really means it. He is more interested in US plunder and profit from places like Gaza, Ukraine and Greenland than in upholding a just peace or good order.Even so, the inattention towards Germany needs to end. Britain’s politicians, like German politicians, are rewiring their worldviews amid a political gale. But Germany, though no longer a great power, is nevertheless a great nation. Indeed, it may be more than ever the essential European nation now, after the Trump administration’s very public trashing of the entire Atlantic alliance seemed to leave Europe to its own devices.The German general election, this coming Sunday, is an event with consequences. Primarily, of course, those consequences will be felt in Germany itself, with its extended economic stagnation, its anxieties about migration and borders, its traditional fears about borrowing, its nervousness about military commitments, and its sudden lurching anxiety that the US is ready to allow Russia to threaten the lands on its eastern frontier.Germany’s inherent importance, though, means the election will also help determine whether Europe – not just the EU – is able to cope with Trump’s second term. Will that Europe be able to deliver the defence and security to protect not merely Ukraine, a daunting enough task, but the Baltic republics, Poland and the other former Soviet satellite states too? Can it reform its faltering economic model? These are reverberations that Britain cannot avoid, even if it wants to.Needless to say, the German election has received only a fraction of the attention that this country’s political class lavishes on a US election. Equally predictably, much of that very limited amount of attention is absorbed by a fixation – one that is shared to a degree by the German media – with the populist anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. As a result, however, the likely victor on Sunday, the centre-right CDU-CSU coalition under the probable next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has barely been scrutinised at all.This contest is occurring against a backdrop of economic failure, not success. The German economy shrank in 2023 and again in 2024. It seems likely to stay in recession again this year. It adds up to the longest period of economic stagnation since the fall of Hitler in 1945. Whoever emerges as chancellor after Sunday will face choices very similar to those confronting Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.The reasons for Germany’s decline are not hard to understand. Germany’s dependence on Russian energy meant prices soared after the invasion of Ukraine. Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government, in power since 2021, has scaled back that dependence – renewables now produce 60% of German energy – but not eliminated it. German car exports have become more expensive, while China has surged ahead in the production of cheaper electric vehicles. A tariff war with the US now looms.All this has provided a system shock to a country still strongly conditioned by its craving for postwar stability. “We have used up our old success, and not invested in new things,” the commentator Theo Koll told the UK in a Changing Europe podcast this week. “We have for a long time lived in a kind of ‘Gore-Tex republic’ … we wanted it nice and cosy inside and all the unpleasant things had to be outside.”The rise of the AfD, amid the perception that irregular migration is out of control, is the single most visible sign that the old political era has ended. It has been quickened by violent killings where migrants are suspects during the election campaign in Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and, last week, Munich. The latest Politico poll of polls puts the AfD on 21%, double what it secured in the previous federal election in 2021, running second to the CDU-CSU on 29%, but ahead of Scholz’s SPD on 16% and the Greens on 13%.By that token, though, a victory for Merz’s CDU-CSU on 23 February would be genuinely significant. It would be significant even though 29% would be a decline from the 42% that the parties took under Angela Merkel in 2013. It would show, in Europe’s heartland, that the line can be held against populism of the right. This is not a trivial lesson, especially after the debacle of the French assembly election last year.It would also be a vote of confidence, albeit a relatively weak one, for one of Europe’s few remaining big parties of the centre right. Once-powerful parties like the French Gaullists can only look on with frustration and envy – to say nothing of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives. Not least, it would also be a rebuke to those like Elon Musk and JD Vance who have actively promoted the AfD from abroad.Yet it would also pose two big questions. The first, and more immediate, would be the coalition that Merz would construct and the content of its programme. Everything here depends on which parties qualify for the Bundestag and on how many seats each wins. Merz has repeatedly ruled out governing with the AfD, so his main coalition partner could be Scholz’s diminished SPD or, less likely in view of Merz’s commitment to growth, the Greens.If the polls are right, however, whatever Merz comes up with is likely to be a weak coalition. This would give him relatively little leeway to drive reforms of the kind he advocates – familiar themes to UK readers, like benefit cuts, ending business red tape and raising defence spending. He is, though, open to loosening the constitutionally enshrined “debt brake”, which is blocking much-needed public investment. It is likely to take until Easter before we know the full coalition picture.The other, intimately related, question would be about Germany’s borders. Merz triggered huge protests when the AfD backed his bill allowing Germany to turn asylum seekers and other migrants back at the border. This prompted a rare rebuke from Merkel, that Merz had abandoned a historically resonant firewall against far-right support. Yet border controls matter for any state that seeks to ensure the security, including the social welfare, of its citizens, and Germany is not the only country where voters are demanding greater effectiveness.Sunday’s election is a critical European moment, and would be even if Trump did not exist. The key question is not, at least at this stage, about the rise of the extreme right. It is about the continuing viability of the centre right, or the adaptability of what Merkel, from early in her career as party leader, dubbed “the new social capitalism”. The current recession has put this vision to an unforgiving test. Merz will be judged by the outcome, if he wins power. It is a moment that matters for Germany – but also for us.

      Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist More

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      in Elections

      Kremlin Message to Trump: There’s Money to Be Made in Russia

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      Russian officials are arguing that American companies stand to make billions of dollars by re-entering Russia. The White House is listening.The Russian government’s top investment manager, who has Harvard and McKinsey credentials and fluent English, brought a simple printout to Tuesday’s talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia.Its message: By pulling out of Russia in outrage over the invasion of Ukraine, American companies had walked away from piles of cold, hard cash.“Losses of U.S. companies by industry,” read the document, which Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, showed to a New York Times reporter. “Total losses,” one of the columns said. The sum at the bottom: $324 billion.In appealing to President Trump, the Kremlin has zeroed in on his desire to make a profit. President Vladimir V. Putin said last month that the two leaders “have a lot to talk about” when it comes to energy and the economy. Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said after Tuesday’s meeting that “there was great interest” in the room “in removing artificial barriers to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation” — an apparent reference to lifting American sanctions.Remarkably, the Trump administration appears to be engaging with Russia’s message without demanding payment up front. After Ukraine suggested the possibility of natural resource deals to Mr. Trump, his treasury secretary pushed to have the country sign away half its mineral wealth. And Mr. Trump continues to portray American allies as freeloaders, threatening more tariffs and demanding they pay more for their own defense.With Russia, by contrast, the administration seems to be signaling that the one thing Mr. Putin has to do to pave the way for a full reset in Moscow’s relationship with Washington is end the war in Ukraine. Many Europeans and Ukrainians fear Mr. Trump will seek a peace deal on Russia’s terms, especially after the American president suggested on Tuesday that Ukraine was to blame for the Russian invasion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Is Russia Open for Business — and at What Cost?

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      Investors seem open to the prospect of peace talks, but Western companies face a dilemma just three years after many retreated from the country.The return of Western businesses would be an enormous lift to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But would they dare risk it?Pool photo by Mikhail MetzelWe’re taking a look at President Trump’s plans to consolidate control over many of the agencies that oversee business, including the S.E.C., the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.For years, industry has complained about the alphabet soup of agencies, which often compete with one another. Some officials argue that is a feature, not a bug, while others have called for a complete rethinking of the regulatory apparatus in the country. What do you think?Meanwhile, President Trump is expected to speak on Wednesday at the Saudi-hosted FII Priority conference in Miami Beach, the event that’s increasingly a gathering of power players including Ken Griffin of Citadel, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber and Masa Son of SoftBank. DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch will be reporting on the ground there and we’ll bring you the latest Thursday morning.“Incredible opportunities” Frozen out of potential Russia-Ukraine peace talks, European leaders are either feeling dazed or are fuming. But investors are feeling increasingly optimistic about the prospects of the nearly three-year war ending, especially as President Trump indicates he may meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia this month.One big question is how corporate leaders feel about U.S. and Russian officials signaling that Russia may reopen to Western businesses. Concerns like the future of Western sanctions on Moscow remain unresolved, while companies may still feel burned by their hasty and costly exodus from the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine’s Equation

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      The West has fractured, and Putin knows it.For Ukraine, a peace deal with Russia is not just about stopping the war. A deal should also prevent the next one — by convincing Russia that its invasion was a costly failure.In that context, the past week brought a lot of bad news for Ukraine. American officials conceded that Ukraine would not reclaim all of its territory or join NATO. They also said that U.S. troops would not help protect Ukraine’s borders after the war.Maybe a truce would have eventually included those conditions. But by granting them now, the concessions push a peace deal in Russia’s favor — and may get Vladimir Putin to think that, after all of this, the war was worth the costs. “The United States is intent on ending this war,” said my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers international security. “And ending it quickly likely means trying to end it on Russia’s terms.”Today’s newsletter looks at why Ukraine is increasingly concerned about a future Russian invasion.Imposing costsSince the beginning of the war, Ukraine has worried that an eventual cease-fire will simply give Russia time to rebuild and come back. So Ukraine and its allies have tried to prevent this scenario through two approaches.First, they have tried to make the war as costly as possible for Russia. On the diplomatic front, Ukraine’s allies have imposed economic sanctions on Russia. On the battlefield, Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers to death and injuries. At the same time, Ukraine has tried to retake as much territory as possible. If Russia ended the war with an economy in ruins, a colossal death toll and little new territory, it would likely look at the invasion as a mistake.Sources: The Institute for the Study of War | Map is as of Feb. 18. | By The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More