Both good news and bad news is relative, and since Trump took office the line has become increasingly blurred. Today’s silver lining is that if the US indeed gives up its peace plan for Ukraine, of all the possible bad outcomes that may be the least bad one. If the US admits defeat, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio just basically did in his remarks, it is much better for Europe and Ukraine than a smarter play by the US, blaming the failure on Europe. Luckily, Russia has made that play much harder by producing evidence to the contrary. Even Trump would have a hard time blaming Russian missile attacks on civilians, such as the recent one on Kryvyi Rih, on Europe.

From a European perspective, Trump’s trade war and other efforts to alienate allies and undermine the American position in the world in every possible way are hard to make sense of. Seen from China’s perspective, however, everything is basically falling into place very conveniently. The US isolating itself from the rest of the West and forcing its allies to look for other options is great for China:

• Japan and South Korea have already resumed talks on cooperation with China.

• China could generate a lot of goodwill in Europe by expressing a wish to protect free trade and to preserve some rules based elements of the international order. This would be a dream come true for Germany, France would also likely immediate jump on it. Furthermore, Spain is fashioning itself as an envoy between Europe and China, and in Sweden, there are voices in the public debate suggesting to “give China a new chance”.

• Finally, having Russia as a vassal state is very convenient for China. For now, letting the war go on and keeping Russia and Europe busy in Ukraine, neither winning nor losing the war, is a good play. China would be wise not to empower Russia too much, even if the US ends sanctions on Russia.

• All in all, China has a good chance to have Russia, Europe, and its Asian neighbours where it wants them. Navigating this and making sure Europe does not lose all its leverage will be hard, as European countries tend to seek bilateral relations and deals with China rather than identify common interests. Europeans are also much less likely to align with the US on China now.

At the same time, it is hard to see how the US under Trump is going to profit from all this in any way - especially if there still is an agreement in Washington that China is the main challenge to US power.

Pedro Sánchez attends the welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People | Photo: Pool Moncloa / Borja Puig de la Bellacasa, September 2024.

For Russia, it seems that the sudden friendliness of the US administration is somewhat overwhelming. Having built a siege mentality on the narrative that NATO only exists to screw Russia (like Trump claimed that the EU only exists to screw the US), it requires quite the adaptation to suddenly see NATO’s main power and guarantor flip. Again, one should be careful what one wishes for - NATO has been a useful foe for the Kremlin and it will be potentially hard to spin the narrative to justify massive militarisation if the main threat is now supposed to be Europe, the decadent and impotent continent of the past. As I discussed with Benjamin Wittes on Dog Shirt TV, it was probably better for Putin to have a weak Europe militarily dependent on the US as a neighbour, as there always was a question mark hovering over the US commitment to Europe even during NATO’s best days. If Europe is empowered as a result of the US self-sabotage shenanigans, the situation may well turn out much less convenient for Russia.

Finally, for further reading:

• For Internationale Politik Quarterly, I argued that Europe is going to succeed not despite, but because the challenges are so enormous and because there are so few alternatives.

• In my debut commentary for Chatham House, I wrote that Norway is facing a similar moment of truth regarding EU membership as Finland and Sweden did with regard to NATO three years ago. With Trump’s trade war increasing the stakes, I recommend to make the “situationship” official.

• And, a compelling piece by Silvia Merler for Bruegel, arguing that Europe should seize the moment by issuing EU bonds to satisfy the demand for safe assets that has emerged after the US bonds started wavering. EU defence bonds would thus be a win-win for Europe: they would mobilise necessary funding for defence investment and at the same time enable Europe to fill the void left by the US in the global financial system.

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