Wednesday’s meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels was, on paper, about coordinating military aid for Ukraine and welcoming the new US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth into the international fold.
In practice, it was a day that saw the Trump administration upend the alliance’s approach to this almost 3-year-old war, lay out a vision that seemed to deliver some of Moscow’s key demands, and leave NATO allies fighting to avoid the appearance of disunity.
There were, of course, clear signs this was not going to be smooth sailing. US President Donald Trump fired the starting gun on this critical week of diplomacy by pouring cold water on Ukraine’s hopes of a favorable peace deal.
But coordinating with allies may not be a top priority for the Trump administration. Overnight it has lurched the NATO alliance from a stated policy that Ukraine was on an “irreversible path” to membership, to Hegseth’s blunt statement: “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
“The US is quite happy to march to its own beat and leave Europe and Ukraine to pick up the pieces,” said Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank.
“European countries have to get with the mood music… If they think any US official or politician is going to stick their neck out for Europe, on Europe’s behalf, they are kidding themselves.”
Read the full analysis on how NATO allies are scrambling for direction here.