White House Clash Boosts Pressure on Europe to Aid Ukraine without U.S.

The Washington Post

13:09 JST, March 2, 2025

BRUSSELS – For Kyiv’s European allies, the shouting match in the Oval Office has intensified the pressure to fill gaps in U.S. military aid and face up to whether they can go it alone in arming Ukraine.

The public breakdown derailed days of European attempts to mend Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ties with President Donald Trump and jeopardized the future of U.S. aid for Ukraine.

The outburst on Friday, in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky, laid bare the deep chasm between Washington and its longtime European partners. It has left European leaders grappling with how to patch things up and whether they can split further from the United States in backing Ukraine to fight on against Russia.

After the fireworks at the White House, the continent’s leaders did a bit of both. Proclamations that the days of U.S. partnership are over were paired with diplomatic attempts at damage control.

And as the likelihood that Europe may be left to back Ukraine without U.S. help rises, European policymakers are reviewing their weapons stocks to assess how much they could step in.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, fresh off a visit to Washington, expressed “unwavering support for Ukraine” as he welcomed Zelensky on Saturday in London. His office said Starmer, who held separate calls with Trump and Zelensky after the debacle, was “doing all he can to find a path forward to a lasting peace.” French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also spoke with Zelensky, officials said.

Zelensky had traveled to Washington to finalize a deal granting the United States access to Ukraine’s natural resources, which European allies hoped would encourage Trump to bolster security guarantees for Kyiv in U.S. negotiations with Russia. But the effort ended with a blistering exchange instead of signatures.

The NATO chief on Saturday described the meeting as “unfortunate,” but said he made clear to Zelensky that it was important to “find a way to restore his relationship” with Trump and others in the administration.

Pressed in a BBC interview on whether allies could replace U.S. aid for Ukraine, Rutte demurred. “It is crucial that we stay all in this together,” he said. “We have to move beyond what happened.”

The uncertainty adds urgency to the latest meeting of European leaders, which will be hosted by Starmer on Sunday. They have gathered twice in Paris already to converge around reinforcing aid for Ukraine – including a potential postwar troop deployment – and to find billions of euros to bolster their militaries to mitigate dependence on America.

In their expressions of solidarity, European leaders largely avoided outright criticism of Trump. But while Rutte tried to calm the waters, others cast the brawl as confirmation of the U.S. president shifting alliances.

Some of the loudest warnings of a new reality were issued by officials from countries neighboring Russia, where fears of being left vulnerable are acute.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s former prime minister and a Russia hawk, vowed Europe would hike its support so that Ukraine can keep fighting. “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” she said.

Europeans have been working to mobilize a new military aid package for Ukraine expected to be worth over $20 billion, with Trump’s support for Ukraine in doubt before the blowup. Kyiv’s backers on the continent have been seeking to strengthen its leverage as Washington moves toward negotiations with Moscow over the conflict.

The plan is to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition, air defenses, drones and other weapon systems by pooling together cash or equipment.

While European countries have supplied more overall aid to Ukraine since 2022 according to the Kiel Institute, Kyiv relied heavily on U.S. military support throughout the war. European stocks don’t match the scale of the Pentagon’s, and supplies are running dry after years of dispatching equipment to Ukraine.

With enough political will, Europeans governments could backfill aid to some extent, but it would be expensive and take time, with some of the continent’s key economies struggling, officials and analysts say. It will prove difficult to sustain the flow of weapons and cash in the long run if the United States fully pivots away, and it could stretch thin European efforts to hike spending on their militaries.

Diplomats said European allies could match U.S. funding if needed, but acknowledged they would have a harder time substituting the full range of weapons that have been provided to Kyiv, especially key capabilities in which they are lagging such as air defenses. Some analysts and officials estimate that current weapons stocks could allow Ukraine to fight for several months before a crisis hits, but they also caution it will depend on the tempo of Russian attacks.

Gen. Richard Barrons, former head of the UK Joint Forces Command, said it would be feasible for Europeans to backfill U.S. aid, but added: “It’s about will.”

U.S. officials gave mixed signals about the future.

One senior administration official told The Washington Post that the Trump administration is considering ending all ongoing shipments of military aid to Ukraine after the heated encounter.

The decision, if taken, would apply to billions of dollars of radars, vehicles, ammunition and missiles awaiting shipment to Ukraine through the presidential drawdown authority, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, meanwhile, said Zelensky “has a chance to turn this” and “choices to make,” and that it “doesn’t mean [the deal] still can’t be done.”

The deterioration of Kyiv’s ties with Washington will raise the stakes of European commitments. As Trump seeks talks with Russia, European leaders have moved to demonstrate their grasp of the gravity of the moment, rallying their populations behind efforts to allocate funds for Ukraine and to upgrade their defenses at home. But Friday was hardly the continent’s first wake-up call about relying on the U.S. security umbrella.

Diverging national interests may also fray efforts to coordinate a unified response.

Moscow-friendly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was one notable exception to the chorus of support for Kyiv. Orban, who commended Trump, has previously tried to hold up E.U. aid for Ukraine.

Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for a summit between U.S. and European leaders “to talk frankly” about facing common challenges, including Ukraine. Meloni, who has staunchly backed Kyiv, has also established warm relations with Trump, and now finds herself in a delicate position.

France’s Macron, long a champion of greater autonomy, said that should be the “sole obsession” for Europeans in remarks on Saturday.

Macron’s and Starmer’s latest visits to Washington were praised for extracting at least tentative signals from Trump that he might be brought along on Ukraine. But the mood quickly soured Friday.

A European diplomat said some thought Zelensky mishandled the situation by getting baited into a shouting match. Another noted that some in Trump’s administration have long harbored deep skepticism of Zelensky. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The Trump-Zelensky dispute went to the core of Ukrainian and European reservations about the White House’s view on quickly halting the conflict. While Zelensky maintains that a settlement should contain U.S. guarantees to deter future Russian attacks, Trump has said U.S. rights to Ukraine’s mineral resources would repay U.S. aid and has cast the presence of U.S. workers to exploit them as enough security.

In recent weeks, France and Britain have sought to build U.S. support for a plan in which they would deploy forces to Ukraine, away from the front lines, as a deterrent in a future ceasefire deal. The proposal would draw on a U.S. “backstop,” with key capabilities including heavy air transport and air defenses.