And despite America’s might in comparison to the precariousness of the situation in Ukraine, there was no doubt which speech the majority of summit participants favored.
Vance’s words were met with stony faces, frosty glares and only a smattering of applause from a small claque of supporters. It was followed by a clamor of disapproval as summiteers discussed his speech in the coffee shops and lobbies of Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel. Zelenskyy’s speech got a standing ovation.
The question now is whether Europe will act on this preference. “Maybe we should thank JD Vance for so bluntly attacking Europe because Europeans got a sense that Trump is coming after them as well,” former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told POLITICO.
“In Paris, he literally said, ‘Don’t try to compete with us on AI. Embrace our companies, remove all the obstacles, and then everything will be fine.’ … Then he came here, and after attacking Europe’s economic model, he attacked its political model,” Kuleba said. “Now it’s all in the hands of the Europeans. Let’s see how they react to it.”
And that’s the real challenge. A European army was first broached in the 1950s, with interest waxing and waning ever since and no real progress made. It was so much easier just leaning on the Americans. And cash-strapped as it now is, Europe will have to make some hard choices between social spending and defense spending — a debate that will inevitably throw domestic politics into further turmoil, adding to the list of grievances the left-behind have with their political leaders.
Coming together as Zelenskyy urges isn’t so simple. There will be disruption from Trump “fifth columnists,” like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, to contend with, while Trump will, no doubt, use tariffs to cajole and target countries individually.
Nevertheless, the fight for Europe is on.
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