03/10/2025 Eitvydas Bajarūnas
Eitvydas Bajarūnas, Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Analysis Center in Washington, Ambassador
The echoes of February 27 are still reverberating round the world. That was the day when the presidential Oval Office in Washington D.C.’s White House saw extraordinary scenes as U.S., President Donald Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance publicly disgraced visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the horror and disbelief of much of the democratic world - and the delight of Trump’s more enthusiastic partisans and of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his cronies.
To state the obvious, it was shocking, distasteful, probably an ambush and certainly in some degree deliberate:
• The leader of a nation that has been defending itself for over three years faced frequent interruptions and was spoken to in a manner that appeared dismissive. Throughout the conversation, both counterparts asserted themselves strongly, often dominating the exchange and emphasizing their expectation for respect in a way reminiscent of a forceful negotiator.
• What would normally have been a 10-minute “photo opportunity” followed by a much longer private session was replaced by almost an hour entirely open to selected journalists, allowing embarrassment to be public and prolonged.
• In the end, Zelensky’s meeting at the White House was cut short, and he was implicitly encouraged to return only when he was ready to apologize and adopt a more conciliatory approach.
So far, so nasty. But what does the incident tell us about the way U.S, foreign policy and its political context are evolving under the new president?
To answer this question, we need first to make three points about Donald Trump’s re-election in November 2024 - and its aftermath.
First, re-election was achieved with the backing of a diverse coalition, ranging from relatively casual voters influenced by “alternative”, non-“mainstream” media, through traditional Republicans, to the Trump loyalists of MAGA, the populist “Make America Great Again” movement. These last were curious bedfellows for a crowd of influential and rather useful tech billionaires - above all, the idiosyncratic Elon Musk - who rallied to Trump. The adherence of these “tech bros” was quite a new phenomenon. And also important in the voting were those who simply thought that Trump was better for the economy than his rival, Kamala Harris. All in all, Trump’s support base was broad and solid.
Second, though hardly a landslide, the victory was decisive. Not only did Trump get a clear plurality of the popular vote, as well as dominance of the electoral college. He also won majorities in both houses of Congress, adding this to a conservative majority in the Supreme Court accumulated during Trump’s last term.
Third, on taking office, the new president began exploiting it for all it was worth. He launched what can only be described as a full-scale right-wing, "MAGA" and "America First" revolution.
The rampages of Elon Musk and his “tech twenty-somethings” in the state administration are a prominent example.
So is the dismantling - demolition, rather - of USAID, the country’s Agency for International Development.
So, to take a dramatic example, is the presidential decree (or “Executive Order”) abolishing the long-established and constitutionally enshrined principle of “birthright citizenship” - the principle that, if you are born in the U.S., you’re a citizen no matter who your parents are.
And so is the unprecedented scale on which executive orders have been used - often with scant regard for legality or constitutionality, not to mention collateral damage.
How has this been possible? Well, the biggest problem is that the American political system’s checks and balances just seem to have not succeed:
• Congress isn’t providing enough checks. Its more traditional Republicans - those with reservations about Trump’s views and methods - have been silenced. And its Democrats remain passive, still traumatised by the election result and by Trump’s energy in getting things done quickly, and worrying about legality, disruption and adverse consequences later (or not at all).
• The country’s courts are to some extent challenging the administration’s actions, but they themselves face pressure, even intimidation.
• As to the country’s media, the traditional “mainstream” variety is being pushed to the sidelines, while the activities of non-traditional media reflect a situation in which deep social divisions coexist with a high degree of political engagement and with continuous transformation. Moreover, the American information space is increasingly polluted by disinformation including some really prize ones about Ukraine.
But there is a logic of policy at work here as well as one of disruption and turbulence.
It has been evident since Trump’s re-election last November that his administration’s primary foreign policy focus is China. In his geopolitical vision, containing China’s growing influence is the top priority. And that is why he seeks to resolve the "Ukraine issue" as quickly as possible. Trump and his team have made numerous statements signalling their sense of urgency about settling the war in Ukraine - exemplified in Trump’s famous (and ludicrous) claim that he would negotiate peace “within 24 hours” of taking office.
Trump and those close to him certainly don’t care about Ukraine itself, and issues like that country’s territorial integrity, its NATO membership, and the security guarantees with which it is to be provided. He doesn’t seem to care much about defending Ukraine as a bastion of democracy, probably because he doesn’t rate democracy anywhere very highly.
No, all that sort of stuff is secondary at best - and maybe just irrelevant. The primary things are speed and results.
In “Team Trump”’s strategic thinking, three reasons for ending the war, and ending it quickly, appear to loom large:
• First, it would free up diplomatic and military resources for the Indo-Pacific region, where competition with China is intensifying.
• Second, it would reduce U.S. commitments to Europe and push America’s NATO allies to shoulder a greater burden in both the alliance’s defence generally and its support for Ukraine specifically.
• Third, it would be a way of drawing Russia closer to the U.S., thus forcing and encouraging Moscow to distance itself from Beijing - an approach known as the "anti-Kissinger strategy."
So far, so logical. However, there are issues of style, method and outlook to be considered, as well as those of policy.
Understanding Trump’s approach to securing peace in Ukraine requires an appreciation of his unique negotiation style. His methods have always been direct, unpredictable, and highly results oriented. He prizes swift deal-making as a method, rather than schemes that involve long-term foreign commitments.
Indeed, it is a fundamental principle of his foreign policy that such commitments are to be avoided or minimised. He has been quite consistent in arguing that prolonged U.S. involvement in overseas conflicts does not serve American interests. So, his goal with regard to Ukraine is to find a resolution to the crisis with minimal financial and geopolitical costs.
Moreover:
• Trump sees himself as a strongman and likes other strongmen. So, he has no compunction about dealing with the likes of Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, giving them the benefit of the doubt - and perhaps even (we’ll see) suspending his normal hard-headedness in his negotiations with them.
• He sees international relations as a matter of the strong pushing the weak around - regardless of principle and alignment - and has no problem with this state of affairs. He also seems to have no problem with the idea of “spheres of influence”.
• He’s not averse, if it’s compatible with high-priority goals, to the US (or his friends and supporters) making material profits from difficult situations. In the case of Ukraine, that means that U.S. support will have a clearly stated price - preferential access to Ukrainian rare earths and, if Europe is so keen on defending Ukraine, lucrative sales opportunities for US defence firms.
All of which explains a good deal about the April 27 meeting. Originally conceived as a strategic discussion on U.S.-Ukraine cooperation, with prominent topics including a proposed agreement on rare earth metals and possible ceasefire terms between Ukraine and Russia, it failed signally and publicly because there was very little common ground - and perhaps because the American side had a determination to show in no uncertain terms and quite openly who was boss, Against the background of bilateral Russian-U.S. talks - both Ukraine and European states - Zelensky repeated his key (and long-standing) demand that there could be no deal with Russia without security guarantees for his country. A ceasefire with Russia would be meaningless without such guarantees, Zelensky insisted.
It was a point that was bound to be raised, and had to be raised, and so it was too with quite legitimate concerns about the one-sidedness of U.S. demands about rare earth metals, extensive future rights to which were all of a sudden figuring as payment for past military supplies to Ukraine during the war.
This, however, was quickly overwhelmed in an escalating and heated verbal confrontation, in which lack of respect, failure to say ,“thank you”, and lack of realism on Ukraine’s part as to what it could expect were raised by the deep mistrust toward Zelensky.
Vance, increasingly a leading voice in the administration’s isolationist policies, was direct and withering in his confrontation with Zelensky. And Trump reminded everyone that the U.S. had already provided substantial military and economic aid and could not be "the sponsor of an endless war." Belittling Zelensky, Trump accused Ukraine of expecting too much from America and stated that it was “not the United States’ responsibility to win other nations’ wars." Patently false statements - notable that Ukraine had started the war - passed largely unchallenged in a context in which Zelensky, though angry, was visibly trying to minimise offence to a vengeful and arbitrary man who held the fate of Ukraine in his hands.
It was not pretty or edifying. And sometimes explicit and never far from the surface, was the key proposition: that Ukraine was in an extremely weak position and that Zelensky would be well advised to shut up.
The shape of things to come
It was hard to avoid the impression that Trump’s administration was reshaping U.S. foreign policy, reducing its commitments to Europe, and refocusing its strategic priorities. But the question remains: does this signify a complete withdrawal of U.S. support for Ukraine, or is it merely a negotiation tactic for securing more favorable terms?
Well, many things are not clear at present, though some will become clearer soon enough.
There are already some signs of Trump back-tracking and partially mending fences with Zelensky, A distinctly softer tone was detectable in his State of the Union address to Congress a few days later, on March 4. Trump announced that he had received a letter from Zelensky expressing a willingness to return to negotiations and sign the minerals agreement between the US and Ukraine. That’s a positive development (though far from meaning that the damage has been undone).
The change in Trump’s tone might be a tacit recognition that the double act of brutality in the Oval Office had been overdone. Or it might be a response to substantive concessions and symbolic submission on Zelensky’s part. Quite possibly it’s both. It will be interesting to see how far it goes in the next couple of months. One key thing to watch will be U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine: will the recent suspension be a temporary gesture or more durable? The latter could become a serious natter quite quickly.
Trump’s attitude to Putin could also be more complicated than the current “bromance” would suggest. Admiring remarks and refusal to say that Putin is a “dictator” - which Zelensky apparently is - could reflect Trump’s actual beliefs and instincts, but they could also be a tactic to bring the Russians to the negotiating table, and then actually to negotiate hard rather than capitulate and tell the Ukrainians to grin and bear it. Personally, I’m not optimistic. But if I’m wrong, we’ll begin to see signs of it fairly soon.
Longer term, there are several questions.
1. One is whether, after his dynamic start, Trump’s heterogeneous coalition will hold together and deliver more than it destroys. There are a good many reasons for thinking that it won’t:
• “Tech bro” billionaires hungry for foreign talent are uneasy partners for hardline MAGA populists.
• Elon Musk’s antics at his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may disrupt some benefits and services that are quite basic to ordinary people, including some at present well-disposed to Trump.
• No clash of egos between Musk and Trump is evident yet, but the potential is certainly there. Nor are these the only oversized egos on the scene.
• Trump’s infatuation with tariffs may have inflationary consequences that will offend those who voted for him because they were concerned at prices rather than culture wars.
• Traditional Republicans are probably more scared of primaries than they agree with Trump’s line on Russia - and may become less scared eventually, in some circumstances.
And so on. How quickly this potential for division and discontent is realised, and how deep the divisions go, remains to be seen. But there’s a prima facie case that Trump could run into quite serious trouble quite quickly.
2. Mid-term elections due in 2026 could be a serious test - especially as the Democratic Party is unlikely to remain stunned by its 2024 defeat indefinitely. Relatively small shifts in voting in certain states could alter the balance in one or both houses of Congress and complicate Trump’s ability to impose his will. And likely policy failures could be a reason for this to happen.
3. Public opinion on Ukraine, Putin and Zelensky could be a constraint too. The issue isn’t salient for very much of the U.S. public. But it’s striking that recent polls - before the Oval Office press conference - showed precisely the same percentage approving of Zelensky as supporting Trump, namely 47%. Trump’s ratings, moreover, are generally reckoned to be in decline. How the Ukrainian leader’s shabby treatment has altered things remains to be seen, but - until new polls are published - some “sympathy vote” is surely a fair guess. Policy apart, too, Zelensky and Ukraine generally have won respect for brave resistance against the odds.
As to Putin, his support among Americans remains low. The latest data shows that only 12% of Americans view Putin favourably, while 63% see him negatively. And a Gallup poll in February 2025 confirmed that 63% of Americans consider Russia a threat, while only 17% hold a positive opinion of it. And, by way of a personal observation, I’ve spent a good deal of time in the U.S. recently, and I have yet to meet a single American who admires Putin!
We should not oversimplify. The fact that few like Putin and many like Zelensky doesn’t automatically translate into a widespread view that supporting Ukraine is a priority. The country has long been split between those who view Ukraine as a bastion of democracy that must be defended against Russian aggression, on the one hand, and, on the other, those who see the war as a European problem that should not concern the U.S.
But this is not a stable division. Recent Pew Research Centerpolls show that American attitudes have shifted over the past few years. While a majority supported Ukraine in 2022, now 30% believe that U.S. aid has been excessive, while 22% feel that it has not been sufficient. These figures suggest that Trump’s position enjoys strong backing, particularly among Republicans and the MAGA movement’s supporters.
All this said, it’s possible that public opinion, though shifting gradually against Ukraine, may still impose limits to the degree and suddenness of the betrayal that is politically acceptable. And these could be practically important limits.
4. While this is too large a topic to discuss at present, the question of how things are in Russia itself, and how long it is sustainable, is an important one. Putin’s policy of a thoroughgoing war economy has worked so far. But:
• industry is overstrained;
• antique weapons stockpiles are being exhausted;
• labour shortages are rife;
• military manpower is increasingly an issue;
• the budget is heavily burdened by military spending and the lavish payments to living soldiers (and the relatives of dead ones) needed to maintain motivation;
• interest rates are sky-high;
• so is inflation; and finally
• sanctions, though much less effective than had originally been hoped, are taking a steady toll (while tightening them has been one of the few specific threats that The Donald has levelled against his good buddy Vladimir recently.
The question is not simply how long this can go on before something gives. It’s also whether Trump - not noted for playing fair - will see in all this an opportunity to extract a deal that is less favourable to Putin, and less discreditable to himself.
5. A connected question is how the situation on the battlefield evolves. Russia appears to be making territorial gains, but at a glacial speed and at incredible cost in lives. Putin doesn’t seem worried by the latter. But another angle should be considered. By withholding supplies, making them available or regulating their pace, Trump has the ability to affect the battlefield situation. How he does so remain to be seen. But presumably it won’t be to his own disadvantage.
One final, and somewhat philosophical, point may be made before we cross the Atlantic and consider Europe.
Said point is that the U.S. is a contradictory country. Let’s say at the outset that it has always been - and remains - a democracy. But it is also a country of stark contrasts.
On the one hand, as the proverbial “City on a Hill”, it embodies a commitment in both theory and practice to some pretty lofty values and to democracy. Witness, for example, its support for national self-determination after World War I, as set out in the Wilson Doctrine. Witness also its massive aid to the democratic reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II, via the Marshall Plan.
However, it also has a darker history. Remember slavery and the position of Blacks for almost a century after the Civil War’s end. Remember the Vietnam War. And more recently, there has been the grimness of the Guantanamo Bay prison.
The point is not that one or other of these has been the “real America”. Rather, it is that the U.S, has always been a contradictory, dynamic, and constantly changing nation. And will continue to be so.
What conclusion to draw from this, I’m not sure. Perhaps none, for present purposes. Whether any of the “alternative Americas” will get much of a look in during the crucial next couple of years is another matter.
Across the Pond
So where does all this leave Ukraine’s European allies? Nowhere very pleasant. And it should probably be noted that medium-term contingencies like many of those cited above involve a time horizon that is too distant for them to be a consolation.
• If U.S. weapons deliveries cease and this leads to a military collapse of Ukraine, a rally of American public opinion and Democrat gains in the mid-terms won’t be relevant. It will be too late.
• Similarly, if Trump uses his current momentum to impose a disgracefully pro-Putin peace or freezing of the conflict, it will take more than a political reversal back in the U.S, to reopen the “Ukraine file”
• If Putin’s war economy is heading for collapse, will it get there soon enough to make a difference?
And the importance of this is, not least, that Europe has to decide what to do now - and follow that decision through. Nice things may happen, or they may not. We just don’t know. But it’s rational to assume the worst, act accordingly—and then be pleasantly surprised if the worst doesn’t happen.
However, things aren’t unreservedly gloomy. So far, Europeans have been showing a surprising (and gratifying) amount of resolve.
There’s overwhelming support for Ukraine and it’s translating into a sense that it is urgent for Europe to act decisively and swiftly. That was the sense of the European leaders' meeting in London that followed the Oval Office row, together with the decisions made there, And the same can be said of the somewhat later European Council meeting in Brussels. That’s promising. So is the fact that Zelensky has been feted rather than sacrificed. Otherwise, at present, the European haven’t got much choice but to:
• Avoid offending Trump (an achievement while simultaneously being civil to Zelensky);
• Move towards self-reliance as quickly as they can; and
• Do what they can to head off a really bad deal for Ukraine;
• Hope things get better for some reason soon - or even eventually.
Meanwhile, the key tasks are to:
• Move quickly to bigger defence budgets
• Agree quickly on a European approach on the peace plan proposed by others to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
There seems to be a pleasing sense of urgency among key European leaders. But it remains to be seen how strong and how long-lasting the old continent’s new resolve proves to be. And there are a lot of reasons to suppose that - in terms of military spending and “boots on the ground” - it might be neither.
One consolation about the fracas in the Oval Office is that it may have stiffened European resolve by showing just what Europe is up against. The reality is nasty. And the appropriate conclusion may be that, in the Age of Trump, Europe needs to assume that it’s on its own.
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