The Trump-Putin Pact will be disastrous, say Baltics, again

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Two weeks have passed since the Munich Security Conference, an opportunity which the United States took to declare, in no uncertain terms, that Europe must take responsibility for its own defence. Not only that, but the U.S. signalled a realignment of interests with those of Russia.

After the conference I predicted that President Trump’s decision to negotiate with Russia without Europe and Ukraine at the table would have detrimental consequences for us all. I warned that the only way forward is for Europe to build its own strength—financially, militarily, and diplomatically—so that we can offer our own terms for peace and have the means to enforce them. I was certainly not the only one stressing this point.

Two weeks later, we saw a major falling out, culminating in the now-infamous ambush of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. But what I saw there worries me much less than the messages of wide-eyed surprise coming from Brussels. Were those two weeks not long enough to let the implications of Vance’s Munich speech sink in?

Two weeks that could have been spent making decisions to support Ukraine, to confiscate Russian assets, to strengthen Europe’s defense industry. Instead, those weeks were spent writing and rewriting “don’t panic” tweets, searching for hope between the lines of the messages coming from Washington.

“Maybe they don’t mean it, maybe it’s just a tactic to push us into action, maybe everything is still fine,” I heard.

Well, they did mean it. And no, it will not magically be “fine.” We must get up off the chair and start putting out the fire.

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