President Trump’s sudden decision to present his peace plan for Ukraine without any preparatory congressional hearings — as happened before the 2003 Iraq War, preparing public opinion both at home and overseas — can only mean that he wanted to shock European allies into finally taking the conflict seriously. It is true, of course, that formal hearings take time to arrange: but there is always the alternative of releasing a well-informed “leak”, with lots of insider details to affirm its credibility.
This time, however, there was only silence until the full 28-point plan appeared. The effect was compounded by the extremely tight deadline. Volodymyr Zelensky and his government were allowed a mere seven days — until 27 November — to accept or refuse the proposal: just one of whose requirements, Ukraine’s withdrawal from active battlefields where its troops are even now fighting the Russian advance, would justify prolonged deliberations to say the least.
The very first official European reaction to Trump’s plan only made matters worse. Taking time out of a pointless G20 summit in failing South Africa — without American, Chinese, or Russian leaders present — Ursula von der Leyen reminded the US that since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, now 1,000 days ago, Europe had donated a total of €181 billion, including grossly over-priced weapons, to help Ukraine. That happens to amount to less than 1% of the €19.99 trillion that makes up the combined annual GDP of the European Union.
As against that, the US has spent a combined total of $175 billion on Ukraine since the start of the war, while concurrently devoting a great deal to defend China’s Asian neighbours — from Japan and Taiwan, to scattered island republics in the Pacific — from non-stop provocations. These include everything from the 500-boat intrusions of Chinese “fishing militias” to outright aggressions by Beijing’s rapidly expanding armed forces.
The Europeans constantly forget, just as the Americans constantly remember, that the world does not start or end in Europe, and that China not only presents a direct military threat to US allies — recall those frequent naval intrusions — but is also the opportunistic hotel burglar of our age. It does not smash its way into countries, but tries to open every door as it goes down the corridors of the world, with promises, gifts, loans, or bribes, before suddenly presenting the geopolitical bill. Consider what happened in Sri Lanka, where Beijing tried to convert a harbour-construction loan into a Chinese naval base, sited to threaten both Indian coasts.
“The Europeans constantly forget that the world does not start or end in Europe”
To understand Trump’s abrupt 20 November announcement, alongside that shockingly sudden 27 November ultimatum, it is also necessary to invoke yet another date: 6 May, 2025. This was the day when the President, returning from the Persian Gulf, received a full US Navy briefing about the fight with the Shi’a Houthi rebels in Yemen, which he promptly called off, once he heard the essential facts.
Funded by Iran and armed with many anti-ship drones — as well as anti-ship and ballistic missiles sent by Iran — the Houthis quickly joined Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel: attacking ships in the Red Sea, coming or going to the Suez Canal.
In theory, the Houthis were supposed to attack Israeli ships, or ships sailing to Israel, but in practice Israel receives very little sea freight via the Red Sea, and sends even less: almost all its exports consist of high-end electronics, pharmaceuticals and polished diamonds, all much too valuable to be sent by anything slower than air freight. Israel’s only bulk import — oil from its ally Azerbaijan — comes via the Mediterranean. So the Houthis used their Iranian drones and missiles to attack other ships, damaging many and sinking some.
Because the world’s shipping insurance companies promptly raised their rates, shipping via the Red Sea and Suez Canal fell steeply, as more and more ships to and from Asia avoided the danger by going all the way round the Cape of Good Hope and the great bulge of West Africa. Thus the most important of commercial routes, from Shanghai to Rotterdam, was extended by some 4,900 nautical miles, adding roughly 12 extra days to the average journey.
For some trades, the extra costs were easily absorbed, and for others they were fatal. But the losses to Europe’s Mediterranean ports and the cities that depend on them — Barcelona, Marseille, Genoa and Gioia Tauro among others — caused by the loss of traffic was absolute: Europe’s freight now arrived in Rotterdam or Antwerp and continued to French, Italian and Spanish cities by rail, leaving the Mediterranean ports bereft of Asian traffic.
By then, Trump had heard that the fight with the Houthis was extremely expensive for the US Navy. Its destroyers, built to defend its multi-billion aircraft carriers from Russian and Chinese anti-ship missiles, only had $2.5-million “standard missiles” to attack Iran’s cheap drones and crude anti-ship missiles, themselves copied from older Chinese designs.
It was at that point in the US Navy briefing that Trump asked about European navies and their role in fighting the Houthis. When he heard that just the Mediterranean navies of France, Italy and Spain — had some 200 combat vessels including aircraft carriers, he naturally asked how many of their ships were fighting the Houthis. And he was genuinely shocked by the answer: almost none.
All three countries had refused to join the suggestively named Anglo-American “Prosperity Guardian” mission because it involved some air attacks against Houthi weapon depots. This reticence disregarded the fact that the Houthis were not Yemen’s government but merely rebels. Either way, after doing nothing, the EU navies stationed two small ships in the upper Red Sea under the hugely over-publicised “Aspides” mission, which intercepted a total of four Houthi ballistic missiles, alongside 18 drones. Compare this to the 400 drones and missiles intercepted by the US Navy, all at 100 times the cost.
Upon receiving this information, Trump did not ask his National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, who is also the Secretary of State, to convene a meeting to discuss US options: he simply ordered the US Navy to immediately abandon the Prosperity Guardian fight against the Houthis, supposedly employing some choice language about the idiocy of exhausting US naval missile stocks to safeguard the commercial freight of Nato Mediterranean countries: whose own warships lolled idly by instead of defending their commerce.
All this set the stage for Trump’s new approach to the Ukraine war. America had just helped Israel defeat Iran — as well as its proxies, the Assad regime of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas — with a total military aid budget of $3.8 billion: or less than 0.5% of total US military spending. The Israelis, for their part, had immediately mobilised 700,000 active-duty troops and reservists after the war started on October 7, out of a total of 7.7 million Israeli Jews and Druze subject to military service.
As for Ukraine, its population still exceeds 36 million. Yet its army has never exceeded a million soldiers. Millions of Ukrainians of military age have not served a day in uniform, with some having bought exemptions and others having fled to Poland, Germany or as far afield as Thailand. Yet all this pales in comparison with Ukraine’s EU allies. Despite including 450 million inhabitants, or 5.5% of the world’s population, it has just 1.5 million men in uniform. That number reaches 1.9 million counting paramilitary forces, every one of whom eats three meals a day in their camps, barracks, bases and ships at sea — but none of whom are available to fight.
And the number of EU troops sent to Ukraine? Zero. That is ultimately why the Trump plan has made its concessions to Putin. It is not a pretty spectacle to see Washington replacing unconditional support for Ukraine with an ultimatum to end the war or else. But it really must focus on the global Chinese threat, especially when the Europeans have proved such unreliable partners.
Besides the EU, or more likely a compact of major European countries, could easily take full control of the situation if they wished: by simply sending troops to help Ukraine, if only for logistical support and equipment repair well behind the front. This would pose very little risk to themselves, while releasing Ukrainians for combat roles and immediately changing attitudes to the EU — or at least to the contributing nations — in the White House and in the US Congress.
If even that is too much, the EU’s entire machinery of pretended military strength will be exposed as a fraud, and so will its claim to challenge White House priorities, shaped by global rather than just European realities.
