The White House Ukraine summit was a humiliation for Europe

The leaders of Ukraine’s European allies certainly seemed to enjoy their big day out at the White House. Having excitedly undertaken the trip to Washington, DC, following President Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday, they got to spend a few hours on Monday acting like world statesmen in the East Room. And they did so in front of The Donald himself.

It was quite a performance on the part of British prime minister Keir Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and a few others. In between offering praise and thanks to Trump for his efforts to end the war in Ukraine, they talked of the importance of maintaining European security, and of the necessity, in Starmer’s words, of achieving a ‘lasting peace’.

All fine sentiments, no doubt. But if the purpose of this borderline weird spectacle was to demonstrate Europe’s strength, to publicly affirm Britain, France and Germany’s willingness to stand by Ukraine in the face of unceasing Russian aggression, it did not succeed.

This is hardly a surprise. In the very act of heading to the White House to secure America’s protection of Ukraine, the likes of Starmer, Macron, Merz et al merely demonstrated Western Europe’s weakness. They played the role of willing supplicants – nations dependent on the good grace of America for their own and Ukraine’s future security.

Of course, Europe talks tough on Russia. Its leaders promise to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. They’ve drawn up plans to form a so-called coalition of the willing to defend the future borders of Europe’s eastern-most nation.

But it’s all just so much cant, a form of self-righteous, geopolitical pantomime. Over the course of the past three-and-a-half years of war, they haven’t exactly rallied to Ukraine’s side. Yes, they’ve sent arms, but only reluctantly and slowly. And the financial aid they’ve wired to Kyiv may be in the billions. But it’s been dwarfed by the amount they’re still spending on Russian fossil fuels. Last year, EU member states spent €21.9 billion on Russian oil and gas while allocating just €18.7 billion to Ukraine in financial aid.

As everyone surely now knows, European nations are barely capable of defending themselves, let alone defending Ukraine against Russia. Decades of military disarmament, of self-imposed deindustrialisation, of deathless managerialism have deprived European nations of the capacity and the will to fight even a limited war.

Hence the key objective of their trip to the White House was to beg America to continue to shoulder the burden of Europe’s defence – as it has done for decades, even after the end of the Cold War. That’s why Monday’s discussion between Trump and Ukraine’s allies seemed to focus so much on the so-called security guarantees the US could offer Ukraine after the war’s end. They were desperate for the US to continue to play a key role in deterring future Russian aggression, to continue to play its decades-long role of Europe’s protector.

To an extent, they succeeded. Trump said on Monday that European nations will have to form the first line of defence, ‘but we’re going to help them out also, we’ll be involved’ – although that won’t involve ‘boots on the ground’. The original aim of NATO, that archetypal Cold War institution, was to keep the Americans in Europe and the Soviet Union out, to paraphrase its first secretary general, Lord Ismay. It seems the aim of Europe in a potential postwar Ukraine is similar – to keep the US invested in Europe’s protection while deterring an irredentist Kremlin.

The extent and nature of the US’s commitment to Ukraine’s future security may for now be unclear. The respective parties also seem to have dodged other key issues around ending the war. The question of ceding territory. Of the return of stolen children. Of potential Russian reparations. All seem to have been avoided at Monday’s meeting.

The refusal to face up to the serious obstacles standing in the way of progressing peace negotiations is itself another testament to the weakness of Europe. Europe’s leaders know Trump is understandably desperate to bring an end to the war. They know, too, especially after Friday’s summit with Putin, that the US is prepared to give ground to Russia, whatever the cost to Ukraine.

On Friday afternoon in Anchorage, Alaska, there was open talk of ‘land swaps’, as if Trump and Putin were negotiating a real-estate deal rather than carving up a sovereign nation. Putin wants Ukraine to give up the Donbas region in its entirety, even the parts Russia has not won on the battlefield. Yet so fearful are Europe’s leaders of angering their protector and benefactor that they seemingly did not dare broach this issue at the White House summit. In the interests of preserving the semblance of Western unity, indeed in the interests of keeping Trump onside, they buried the very real points of contention and animosity between Ukraine and Russia beneath platitudes and pleasantries.

The result was a summit lacking in real substance. A summit that didn’t set potential negotiations between the US, Ukraine and Russia back, but didn’t advance them either.

The stage is now being set for a possible summit between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin – or more likely between higher-level representatives, as a Russian spokesman put it, from the two warring nations. After all, Putin still refuses to recognise the legitimacy of Zelensky’s presidency. If this goes ahead, there will be no avoiding the substance of the war, its ‘root causes’, as Putin had it.

Before entertaining Europe’s leaders, Trump called Putin for a catch-up. After they had departed, Trump called the Russian leader again to give him an update. It was a telling moment. Europe was treated as a child to be placated and patronised, while the grown-ups got on with the serious business of geopolitics.

This was a hastily arranged summit designed to showcase Europe’s power and influence. Instead, it exposed the opposite.

Tim Black is associate editor of spiked.