The possible second Trump term that Europe was anxiously anticipating at last year’s gathering of the Munich Security Conference is now firmly underway, and the hundreds of high-profile attendees descending on the German city today are bracing for what the new administration has in store for Ukraine, Europe, and NATO this time around.
Ahead of the conference, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put the continent’s dozens of U.S. allies on notice. Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth said Ukrainian membership in the alliance is not a “realistic” outcome of a negotiated end to the war and pushed Europe to take on more of the burden for ensuring Ukraine’s (and the continent’s) defense, echoing Trump.
The possible second Trump term that Europe was anxiously anticipating at last year’s gathering of the Munich Security Conference is now firmly underway, and the hundreds of high-profile attendees descending on the German city today are bracing for what the new administration has in store for Ukraine, Europe, and NATO this time around.
Ahead of the conference, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put the continent’s dozens of U.S. allies on notice. Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth said Ukrainian membership in the alliance is not a “realistic” outcome of a negotiated end to the war and pushed Europe to take on more of the burden for ensuring Ukraine’s (and the continent’s) defense, echoing Trump.
However, during a Thursday press conference in Brussels, Hegseth appeared to walk back his comments from the previous day, saying that “everything is on the table” when it comes to negotiating an end to the war.
The SecDef’s statements will no doubt linger over the Munich Security Conference, where he will join Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance—along with several lawmakers—as part of a U.S. delegation. Vance, a longtime skeptic of Ukraine funding, is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.
Yet Hegseth’s Wednesday comments, while a marked departure from the U.S. position on supporting Ukraine under former President Joe Biden, are less controversial today than they once might have been. “Europe needs to do more, it’s obvious,” Jan Lipavsky, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, told a small group of reporters in Washington last week.
Read more in today’s Situation Report: Munich Braces for Team Trump, and sign up for the newsletter to follow along at the Munich Security Conference on Friday and Saturday.
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration. Follow along here.
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