{"id":355651,"date":"2025-08-19T02:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355651\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T02:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:10:11","slug":"trump-falls-for-europes-charm-offensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355651\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Falls For Europe\u2019s Charm Offensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME\u2019s politics newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to get stories like this sent to your inbox.<\/p>\n

The Europeans made the pilgrimage to Washington on a moment\u2019s notice. They flattered their host, President Donald Trump, with praise for his ability to convene an impromptu peace summit with their Ukrainian counterpart, who in turn updated<\/a> his fashion choices to fall in line with what White House officials expect from visitors. Above all, they made Trump feel every bit like the most powerful person on the planet. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Trump took their bait.<\/p>\n

From the moment a week ago that Trump announced<\/a> that he would meet that Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, European leaders have come together with an Avengers-like unity to have the back of Ukrainian President counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, whose nation was invaded more than three years ago by Putin\u2019s forces. The leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Finland, plus the heads of the European Commission and NATO, took part in a largely harmonious charm offensive<\/a> meant to guide Trump back to a footing of support for the U.S. ally facing Russian belligerence. They heaped compliments on Trump in what can only be described as a diplomatic plea for a ceasefire that just days ago Trump walked away from. In turn, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. forces<\/a> to help defend Ukraine. For the Europeans, things seemed to go as well as they could have imagined. In fact, it almost seemed the most unlikely of qualities in Trump\u2019s Washington: normal.<\/p>\n

Unlike Zelensky\u2019s first trip back to Trump\u2019s White House this term, there was none of the made-for-TV stage fighting. In February, with the world watching, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance ambushed<\/a> Zelensky in the Oval Office and proceeded to kick him and his delegation out. It made for drama but it left the wartime President unsure if Washington would keep in Kyiv\u2019s column of supporters. Since then, Trump has softened slightly toward Zelensky, as Trump has grown frustrated that his charisma alone has not delivered an offramp for a brutal battle that has continued without pause, even amid Trump\u2019s meetings with Putin and Zelensky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump is famously fickle and famously susceptible to shameless praise, even when it seems to most outside observers as feigned. Sycophancy is a survival skill in the President\u2019s orbit, and survivors know its currency. Cabinet meetings with Trump are ultimately a tour of department chiefs, each of whom knows to come ready with lavish compliments for their boss. Trump, as expected, responds with a wide grin.<\/p>\n

Zelensky, having learned his lesson after a disastrous visit in February, returned on Monday with gratitude being shoveled in spades. Not only that, he traded in the military wardrobe he\u2019s favored since Russia\u2019s invasion in 2022 for one of an all-black field jacket and buttoned-up dress shirt. It set the stage for a warmer welcome from Trump, who from the start seemed pleased to have forced a wardrobe update based on his whims.<\/p>\n

To be clear: This is not how the United States\u2014or any rational government, really\u2014should be deciding on strategy. It is obviously in the United States\u2019 security interests to side with European nations standing with ally Ukraine against Russia, which now occupies about one-fifth of its neighbor. Europeans rightly worry an expanding Russia that is indifferent to sovereign borders is a threat to post-Cold War norms. A strong NATO alliance that includes the United States remains crucial for keeping a creeping post-Soviet Russia from metastasizing.<\/p>\n

But those global currents matter less to Trump than his fragile ego. So the Europeans traded geopolitical arguments over decades of curbing Moscow\u2019s ambitions for cheap praise. For the moment, it seems to have worked as Trump returned to the prospect of a trilateral summit with Ukraine and Russia, and himself as the arbiter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone around this table wants peace,\u201d French President Emmanuel Macron told Trump. Like others, Macron said Trump has a unique ability to convene a session where that peace may be scored\u2014the latest example of Macron\u2019s unique ability among European leaders to be their Trump whisperer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Europeans clearly had coordinated their approach and were speaking with one message if in eight different voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next steps ahead are the more complicated ones,\u2019\u2019 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, being upfront with his host. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine the next meeting will take place without a ceasefire,\u201d he told Trump. But Trump has said a ceasefire was not necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can get a cease-fire, great,\u2019\u2019 Trump responded. He also said that it would be up to Zelensky and Putin to negotiate any such pause to the fighting. \u201cAs of this moment it\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, it returns to a sequencing order: which comes first, a ceasefire or a trilateral meeting? That\u2019s the question that seemed to persist even as the meetings unfolded across the White House\u2019s campus. But one thing was clear: he who gives Trump the biggest ego boost is likely to come out ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he wants to make a deal with me\u2014you understand that?\u2014as crazy as it sounds,\u201d Trump was heard on a hot mic making small talk ahead of that one-way praise fest. It remains a matter of debate, though, if Trump is correct or just projecting there. Given the opportunity to press their luck, the Europeans instead decided to push laudatory comments that would not draw any backlash. Ultimately, that strategy may preserve Ukraine and settle the borders of Europe\u2019s map.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME\u2019s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[32,2000,299,5187,125412],"class_list":{"0":"post-355651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-the-d-c-brief"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115053004297294096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}