TRUMP STRIKES, EUROPE FOLDS…

In the space of just a few days, an entire world has collapsed before the stunned and panicked eyes of Europe’s leaders: the world of free American protection and of NATO itself.

The 2025 National Security Strategy, personally introduced by Trump, lays out an America focused first and foremost on itself (MAGA) and on its own “hemisphere”, openly reclaiming the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Europe, by contrast, is mentioned on barely two and a half pages (out of 33), written in a tone of sheer hostility. Fiercely criticised for its economic and technological decline, as well as for its poor and allegedly undemocratic governance, Europe is above all portrayed as being overwhelmed by uncontrolled immigration, to the point of becoming unrecognisable and risking what the document calls its “civilisational erasure”. A diagnosis that is, regrettably, not far from reality…

Two days later, in an interview with Politico, Trump went further still, admitting that he no longer recognises either Paris or London as he once knew them, and condemning European leaders he deems misguided and incompetent.

At the same time, Trump-style diplomacy—led by two millionaire businessmen (his friend Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner)—has accelerated: contacts with Putin in Moscow, followed by a blunt “reading of the small print” session with the Ukrainians in Florida, all while carefully sidelining the European trio (Starmer, Macron, Merz). Undeterred, the trio continues to try to assert itself by shoring up Zelensky in London against American pressure.

The pieces of the puzzle are now becoming clear.

The end of the war would be set out in three documents: one covering the peace agreement itself, a second dealing with security guarantees, and a third on Ukraine’s economic reconstruction.

The handover of northern Donbas, demanded by Putin and already accepted by Trump, remains a major sticking point for Zelensky, who has suggested holding a referendum on the issue. Under pressure from Trump (and Putin), Zelensky has also announced his readiness to hold a presidential election.

The security guarantee would be modelled on NATO’s Article 5. However, given the announced American disengagement, the credibility of such a guarantee appears fragile at best.

As for reconstruction, it would be financed by the EU, which is expected to admit Ukraine as early as 2027 (without having been consulted). For its part, America intends to appropriate roughly half of the Russian sovereign assets frozen in Belgium at Euroclear, for the benefit of its own companies: some $100 billion, to which BlackRock could add a further $400 billion. Another novelty: the vast Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would be managed by Americans.

How Putin will respond to such a “package” remains to be seen. Yet here too the businessmen have been busy, working closely with their Russian counterpart Dmitriev, himself trained at Harvard and Goldman Sachs: the lifting of sanctions, Russia’s readmission to the G7, and above all the reopening of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline, combined with joint exploitation of the Arctic.

As I anticipated in my book Engrenages, this agreement—aligned with the balance of power on the ground—is disastrous for Ukraine and for Europe, and of course far worse than the deal that was nearly concluded between Russians and Ukrainians in April 2022, before being torpedoed by Biden and Boris Johnson, who were convinced they could defeat Russia militarily.

Such an agreement will fuel deep resentment, especially in western Ukraine, and maintaining a demilitarised buffer zone between the two sides will be anything but easy. As for security guarantees, Ukraine will not benefit from the 60,000 US troops and American nuclear weapons that have been stationed in South Korea for the past 70 years.

Europe, meanwhile, having failed to define its own strategy during the war, is just as incapable of defining one for the peace. As usual, it is cultivating denial: denial of a NATO that is steadily fading away, and denial of the need to relearn how to ensure its own defence after 80 years of Pax Americana on the continent.

At present, Europe has neither the financial means nor the military-industrial capacity to “carry on the war effort”, as Emmanuel Macron proclaims—hence no credible Plan B to counter Trump. And it still hesitates over seizing Russian assets (a decision expected on 19 December).

With characteristic malice, the Anglo-Saxon press points out that France continues—without saying so—to import Russian gas until 2027, while some major French banks still hold €18 billion in Russian sovereign funds… a subject no one seems keen to discuss.

By Pierre Lellouche

11 December 2025