Mere weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump‘s message for Europe is clear—and unpalatably delivered for many of Washington’s continental allies.
Few officials in Europe, gathered in southern Germany for the Munich Security Conference this weekend, anticipated the words Vice President JD Vance had for those sat in his eyeline as he delivered a speech directly to the faces of those he sought to dress down.
Europe’s greatest foe, he said at arguably the year’s most important security summit, was not Russia, China, North Korea or Iran, but an enemy “within.” Vance painted a vivid picture of a continent with free speech and democracy under siege but steered largely clear of the conference’s main topics of Ukraine and defense spending.
“Genuine shock” flashed through the audience, Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, told Newsweek, despite some attempts among senior figures to brush off the unexpected rhetoric.
For Americans, Vance’s words were familiar, argued Joshua Walker, a former State and Defense Department official who now heads up the Japan Society nonprofit. “I just don’t think the Europeans knew what hit them,” he told Newsweek, labelling many attendees as “distraught.”
“They’re going to be writing about this weekend in the history books,” Bill Browder, a financier and campaigner who is a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Newsweek.
He added: “This is red meat for their base in Indiana and Arkansas. It wasn’t to win the hearts and minds of Europeans.”
In a handful of days, a number of Trump’s most prominent officials laid out the U.S.’s new foreign policy agenda. As widely expected, the White House has run out of patience for Europe’s reliance on Washington to carry the bulk of the burden with defense spending. There was no shying away from this from European officials, nor a desire too—there was a universal acceptance, privately and publicly, that the continent has been lamentably lax.
The U.S. is right to now demand this, officials agreed, and Europe needs to immediately up its military spending far beyond the North American Treaty Organization’s (NATO) current benchmark of 2 percent of a member state’s gross domestic product (GDP).
What is less clear, however, is Trump’s vision for a ceasefire in Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia, much to the chagrin and bafflement of European officials. While some incumbent Ukrainian and European officials suggested the conference has been productive, it is also clear some had higher hopes for the outcome of days of networking and negotiation.
The weekend has been a “cold shower for Europeans here,” Goncharenko said. “They realized how much is at stake.”
Confusion Over Ukraine
Notably absent in Vance’s polemic was any reference to Ukraine, a key focus of the conference.
“We got very clearly what the U.S. administration wants, but it wasn’t in the war on Ukraine,” former Spanish foreign affairs minister, Arancha González Laya, told Newsweek.
“There were no specifics,” standing stark against the expectation many had that he would have something “substantive” to offer up to Ukraine and its European backers at the conference, Walker said.
“We all expected he will say something, but he didn’t say anything about that,” Estonia’s foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, told Newsweek.
Trump pledged to end the nearly three years of war in Ukraine in just a day. Widely understood to be unrealistic, the promise was taken as a firm commitment to stop Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II. Attendees at Munich over the weekend once again expressed this belief.
What has not yet emerged is a roadmap showing how the president intends to achieve this.
European officials have fretted that they could be cut out of the process, something Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired U.S. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, appeared to confirm on Saturday.
Speaking during a side event packed with Ukrainians and several European leaders, Kellogg said European representatives would not have a seat at the negotiating table alongside Washington, Kyiv and Moscow, while insisting their “interests” would be represented.
The comments were poorly received by current and former European officials. But there is some speculation that the remarks could be deliberately pitched to unite a disjointed Europe, the continent’s relevance hinging on each country putting their money where their mouth is with defense spending.
“You can’t misinterpret what’s being said,” Walker said. “It’s either step up, or you can’t be a leader.”
Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, reportedly said Kellogg had offered up an explanation to a “circle of European allies” on how the U.S. planned to negotiate a ceasefire, dubbing the tactics “unorthodox” but declined to offer further details.
The U.S. has appeared to have ruled out Ukrainian membership to NATO, which Kyiv has strongly lobbied for, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a visit to Brussels in recent days that Ukraine regaining control up to its pre-2014 borders was “unrealistic.”
Washington has also moved away from the suggestion of putting American soldiers on the ground to enforce a ceasefire.
With the heavy implication that European troops would police a possible ceasefire, officials in Europe have questioned how the U.S. could realistically carve the continent out of upcoming talks.
Negotiations will take place in Saudi Arabia, staffed on the U.S. side by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who Kellogg said on Saturday was speaking with Russian teams, as well as national security adviser Mike Waltz.
European officials, including British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, are meeting in Paris on Monday for alternative talks on Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron, writing on social media, said on Sunday he had spoken with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss “the role Saudi Arabia could play in fostering a solid and lasting peace, with Europeans at the center of the process.”
There is some confusion over whether Ukraine will attend talks in Saudi Arabia, after Yulia Svyrydenko, Kyiv’s economy minister, posted images to social media she described as showing a Ukrainian delegation in preparation for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s arrival. Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, separately said on Telegram that there were “no meetings” planned with Russia.
For some, the conference marked a somber weekend for U.S. support for Kyiv. The summit was the “moment that America basically threw Ukraine under the bus,” Browder said.
He added it was looking increasingly likely that Trump will ink a deal with Putin, with the Kremlin leader pledging to keep promises he has no intention of keeping. Zelensky has repeatedly said he believed the Kremlin would not honor the terms of a ceasefire, demanding security guarantees from its backers.
Trump announced earlier this month that he had spoken with Putin in what he termed a “lengthy and highly productive phone call.” Trump also said on Wednesday he and the Kremlin leader had agreed to start negotiations on ending the war “immediately,” adding they would “begin by calling” Zelensky to “inform him” of the developments.
Zelensky has said he will refuse to accept a deal brokered without Ukrainian involvement.
“They’re dancing the jig in the Kremlin right now,” Browder said. It is “an unbelievable turnaround for Putin and handed him on a silver platter by Trump.”
Defense Spending Hikes
The more familiar terrain for many of the delegates in Munich was the emphasis on European defense spending increases.
Hegseth and Trump had slapped Europe with a new goal—each country needs to funnel 5 percent of their GDP on defense. The current NATO target sits at 2 percent, with several member states still falling short of this.
Officials in Munich sought to distance themselves from the specifics of this number, while fervently nodding that surges in defense spending must be steep. Prominent politicians felt more comfortable insisting that the hikes should remedy the gaping holes Europe currently has in capability, rather than fixating on a percentage.
Air defense, long-range missiles and personnel are among the most pressing concerns. “There are huge gaps,” Tsahkna said.
When prodded on the 5 percent figure in a side event, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he was “not committed to a number,” but it would be “considerably more than three percent.”
When asked by Newsweek whether all of Europe will be able to reach 5 percent, Tsahkna quickly responded: “No.”
It should be possible across the board, he said, but it is not.
Meanwhile, parts of Europe have stormed ahead in committing to spending more than 3 percent on defense, like the Baltic states of Estonia and Lithuania.
Tsahkna rejected the idea, though, that the countries snaking down NATO’s eastern flank, bordering Russia, should be the only ones to take the brunt of the spending increases.
“It’s not about the Baltics—it’s about Europe,” he said.
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