Did the Trump Administration’s Demeaning Anti-Europe Rhetoric Awaken a Sleeping Giant?
The European Union appears to be on the verge of doing the bravest thing anyone could do in this moment of escalating and ever-more blatant pro-Kremlin machinations by the White House, namely taking their collective security into their own hands the way one must do when one finally comes to terms with the fact that one has been abandoned by one’s strongest ally. Specifically, against all previous plausibility, the EU is at the precipice of making what may be their most momentous decision in generations: using the Russian assets they have frozen since Vladimir Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine as a long-term, zero-interest loan to Ukraine. (Read the Euronews article about the plan here. And listen to Charlie Sykes’ interview with Ed Luce, who outlines the significance and plausibility of this plan, here.)
Two hundred billion dollars suddenly available to pay for Ukraine’s defense needs well into the foreseeable future would utterly alter the trajectory of the war by cutting Putin off at the knees in his current American-backed efforts to squeeze the Ukrainian government into a self-annihilating “peace plan” that would amount to a full and permanent surrender for them, and a giant cash grab for Donald Trump and his cronies. It would send the clearest possible signal that Europe understands the dire threat to the West that a Ukrainian defeat would represent. And it would be a de facto declaration of European acknowledgment that The United States of America is no longer a true ally, certainly not to be trusted, but that in fact America has shown itself willing to defy a century of precedent and principle in order to become an outright partner for profit of the Kremlin’s last-ditch effort to subdue its mortal enemy — the liberal democratic West itself, including, above all, the United States — once and for all.
Of course, there is opposition within the EU, both from the current Putin sympathizer faction and from the traditional “fear of escalation” faction. Some of the EU leadership, however, has finally reached the understanding that this moment is the escalation they all feared, and that one cannot quell an imminent threat by submitting to it. Moreover, once again, and most significantly, the EU leadership is coming to terms at last with the reality that America is no longer a genuine ally to be relied upon and trusted, but merely a strategic business partner that would just as happily sell them — and the civilization they once shared — to the highest bidder in a New York minute, especially if the highest bidder happened to be an authoritarian strongman of the white “Christian” nationalist sort that wee-man pseudo-Americans like Donald Trump and J. D. Vance admire most.
Needless to say, as is noted in the article linked above, the Trump Administration is actively pressuring EU countries to reject this plan to use Russian assets to support Ukraine’s defense. Naturally, and of course their useful idiots will explain this effort as being part of their push for lasting peace. No. It is a desperate attempt, the most overt attempt imaginable, to save Putin’s fading military from the danger of a better-armed Ukraine, as well as to save their own hopes of cashing in with the “best deals” on Putin’s annexation of Ukraine and its resources.
Of course the Trump-Vance effort to undermine Europe (and their own country’s future) might still succeed in the end. Cold feet are a chronic European ailment in times of crisis, and the combined might of Russia and America is a formidable force to stand up to, to be sure. The combined might of Russia and America. Get used to that phrase. For that is exactly what America is, at present, eagerly seeking to establish. In the name of…well, some things are better left unspoken.
