President Trump seems to have grasped that Russia will not stop its war in Ukraine until it is too costly to continue. Selling sophisticated American weapons to aid Ukraine will help Kyiv defend itself, European officials and analysts say, and is an important shift, at least for now, in Mr. Trump’s thinking about Russian aggression.
The president has come around on Europe, too. He has decided, as he said on Monday, that “having a strong Europe is a very good thing.” He declared that “Europe has a lot of spirit for this war,” a view he said he did not share until recently.
Indeed, NATO’s more active role in arming Ukraine is the latest sign that European countries are adopting a more aggressive approach to their security after decades of reliance on the United States. Even if Mr. Trump is newly criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, European leaders have signaled that they cannot count on the president to back them unreservedly.
“People want to believe he’s hardening his position,” said Daniela Schwarzer, a German foreign policy analyst and executive board member of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a nonprofit institute devoted to civic participation, “and there may be a bit of wishful thinking, but people don’t think he’ll solve the problem for us.”
Some European officials see Mr. Trump’s threat to punish Russia economically within 50 days unless it agrees to a cease-fire as unlikely to change the mind of Mr. Putin, who believes he will outlast the West and win the war.
Mr. Trump’s threat of tariffs on Russia is considered hollow, since there is little trade with Moscow. His threat of “secondary tariffs,” as he called them, on Russia’s energy customers, is vague. Fifty days allows Mr. Putin to continue the war as he pleases. And Mr. Trump is famously flexible about his deadlines.
“Why would Putin change his tack in the next 50 days when he has chosen to stay the course for the last three years, let alone the first six months of the Trump administration?” asked Torrey Taussig, a former Europe affairs director at the National Security Council now at the Atlantic Council.
As important, even a 30-day cease-fire is not a strategy to end the war, and truces are easily broken amid mutual recriminations, as Israel and Hamas have shown.
The Kremlin refrained from making a definitive comment about Mr. Trump’s announcement. Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that Ukraine had interpreted it as “a signal to continue the war.” The Kremlin has repeatedly tried to shift the blame to Kyiv for the stalled peace process.
Mr. Trump’s frustration with Mr. Putin “tapping me along,” as Mr. Trump once said, is real. “It cannot be counted on to last, but it gives a bit of hope,” Ms. Schwarzer said.
But Europeans are smiling through gritted teeth, infuriated by Mr. Trump’s nearly simultaneous threat to them to raise base tariffs to 30 percent on all goods coming from the European Union starting on Aug. 1.
“There is true disillusion with Trump and the trans-Atlantic relationship,” she said, “and the tariff decision has added to that.”
So for European politicians and parliaments, Ms. Schwarzer said, “it’s easier to back saving Ukraine, because there is no alternative now to stepping up support.”
Europeans have significantly increased aid to Ukraine, having understood for months that Mr. Trump would not provide any further American financial or military assistance beyond the about $61 billion appropriation approved under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But they also want and need to keep Mr. Trump and the Americans on board, particularly to continue the crucial cooperation with Kyiv on operational intelligence. It helps Ukraine know about Russian troop maneuvers and incoming missile and drone attacks.
The new European effort to purchase key American weaponry, like the Patriot missile defense system, is vital to Ukraine’s ability to continue defending itself. American weapons supplied to Ukraine from existing European sources will be replaced by new European purchases, even if they take months or years to arrive, and those purchases will count toward NATO’s new core military spending requirements.
In the past few weeks alone, Europeans supported higher military spending at the NATO summit in The Hague and underscored their backing for Kyiv. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France, reaffirmed their leadership of a “coalition of the willing” European countries to back Ukraine with aid and troops once a settlement is reached.
And together, as Europe’s two nuclear powers, they signed an agreement to coordinate their nuclear arsenals if allies in Europe come under extreme threat. While each will retain control over its arsenal, they will work together on policy and more closely align their nuclear doctrines.
Mr. Macron, while politically weak at home and under pressure to decrease France’s budget deficit, nonetheless announced on Sunday a modest increase in military spending of 6.5 billion euros, or $7.6 billion, over the next two years. That is merely 0.2 percent of national income, noted François Heisbourg, a French defense expert. It will bring France’s spending to only 2 percent of national income, far below the new NATO goal of 5 percent.
More important, Mr. Heisbourg said, was Mr. Macron’s statement that Europe must be ready to confront an aggressive, militarized Russia in the next three to four years. Other countries have made similar conclusions, he said, including the Netherlands, Poland, Germany and the Baltic nations.
Mr. Macron sees the trans-Atlantic relationship as increasingly hollow. “You have to be feared in this world,” Mr. Macron said. “And to be feared, you have to be strong.” He added that “American disengagement” left Europe with no choice but to defend itself. And that meant ensuring that Russia does not defeat Ukraine.
But Mr. Trump left that goal unsaid. “Trump’s rationale is not to please the Europeans or because he’s truly upset at what’s happening in Ukraine, but he is angry with Putin,” said Zaki Laïdi, a professor at Sciences Po and an adviser to the French prime minister. “Trump wanted to broker a cease-fire on Russian terms — but Putin was not even ready for that.”
Mr. Trump’s new attitude “might be good news, but good news for how long and under what conditions?” Mr. Laïdi asked. “It does nothing to solve the problems of the trans-Atlantic relationship.”
A new influx of weapons will aid the Ukrainians, but “will only slightly modify the situation on the ground,” he said. “This war won’t end through military means. In one way or another, we have to work for a political solution.”
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from Tbilisi, Georgia.
Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union.
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