The lesson from Trump’s Ukrainian weapons freeze

In America foreign policy works on a simple formula: with Donald Trump in the White House, dependence leads to maltreatment. That is the lesson the world should take from a devastating week, which culminated in an announcement on March 3rd that America is pausing all military aid to Ukraine until it accepts Mr Trump’s terms for peace with Russia. It is as if Ukraine were in an abusive relationship.

Bitter as it must have been, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, was right to respond by promising to do what he must to salvage as much American help as he can. Do not imagine that the outcome will be good for Ukraine, Europe or even America. It will just be less awful than what would follow from Mr Zelensky’s continued defiance of a president who so fundamentally miscalculates his own country’s interests.

Mr Trump argues that his tactics are justified because he is working for peace. He shares the Biden administration’s fears that a proxy conflict with nuclear-armed Russia could end up dragging America into “world war three”. He says he is providing security guarantees in the form of mining investments, because Russia would not dare invade Ukraine if that meant seizing American assets or killing American mine-workers.

Mr Trump has described his own plan as “genius”. In fact, it is incoherent. The last nationwide minerals survey of Ukraine was back in the 1960s: nobody knows how much mining would take place or how soon. Even if American citizens were present, they would not offer Ukraine much extra security. Russia could simply bypass the mines, while guaranteeing their ownership and the safety of their personnel. If Western security fails in Ukraine, then Russia will be emboldened to threaten and harm other countries, including the Baltic states. World war three would be closer, not further away.

Mr Trump argues that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, would never cross him. But why not? Mr Trump has just demonstrated that he does not think Ukraine is worth fighting for—and underlined this by mauling Mr Zelensky in the Oval Office. Even if Mr Putin holds back out of respect for Mr Trump, he may not feel bound to keep the peace after 2029.

For all these reasons Mr Zelensky is justified in asking for American security guarantees. But he is unlikely to get them. Neither may Britain and France, which have pleaded for American backup for any troops they put into Ukraine to safeguard a ceasefire. The choice for Mr Zelensky is therefore a bad minerals deal without security guarantees, but with the possibility of at least some American support and with a European military presence; or no deal and no American support.

The time was when America’s allies could count on it to stand by them in a crisis, despite differences over policy. These days, by contrast, America’s allies have to prepare for the worst. Mr Trump says he is merely “pausing” the supply of weapons, but Ukraine’s allies have to behave as if the freeze is permanent. On March 5th, after the original weapons freeze, America also stopped sharing intelligence. That will make it harder for Ukraine to identify Russian targets.

Europeans should back Mr Zelensky and champion Ukrainians’ right to self-determination, even if that irks Mr Trump. They should also seize Russian state assets in Europe and use them to pay for Ukraine’s defence. They need to finance Ukraine’s own arms producers. They need to increase Europe’s own production of weapons and buy American arms for Ukraine, supposing Mr Trump will agree to it.

NATO has been the most successful military alliance in history. But as Mr Trump continues to see his allies’ dependence as a vulnerability to exploit, so Europe must prepare for abandonment or extortion, even if that risks accelerating the very collapse of NATO that Europe most wants to avoid. That is the tragedy of Mr Trump’s strong-arming of America’s friends.