To shift U.S. policy, the EU must pair a clear, relentless message with visible deeds: personally engage President Trump and his trusted circle to make the case that stopping Putin in Ukraine is the linchpin for preventing a U.S.–China war, while simultaneously ending purchases of Russian oil and gas (replacing where possible with U.S. supplies), tightening and enforcing sanctions, scaling military aid to Ukraine, and accelerating Europe’s own defense build-up. Credibility also means aligning with Washington on China by reducing dependencies in rare earths and other critical chains and cooperating on economic and security measures. Trump is transactional and image-driven; if he sees that robust European action advances his interests, he is far likelier to act.
This was stated in a lengthy comment to the Guildhall news agency by Pekka Toveri, a Member of the European Parliament from Finland and retired Major General of the Finnish Army.
– What specific steps can the European Union take to convey to the United States that the future of the West is being decided on the European theatre of war, and therefore the current U.S. policy of extremely limited assistance to Ukraine and largely symbolic pressure on Russia should be reconsidered?–
– This is a very difficult task. The Trump administration is manned mainly with two kinds of people. There are those who don´t understand anything about global strategies, like «Secretary of War» Hegseth. He is a former major with very limited understanding of strategic issues. He is just loyal servant who does what ever he thinks pleases the president, with out listening his military advisors. And then there are those who has limited understanding of strategic issues, but who have ideological reasons to move the US efforts from Europe, because they don´t understand long term strategic consequences of their action. Mister Colby is a good example of those people. There are lots of people both in the government, Congress and in the think thanks, many of them republicans, who understand these issues and want to support Ukraine. The key here is President Trump. If he decides to act, his loyal subordinates will react. And since the military understands that what happens in Europe is vital for US interests in the Pacific, they will act fast. But unless President Trump changes his mind, nothing happens. The knowledge is there in the USA; we just need to get the message to President Trump. It is vital that European leaders continue pushing this message to Trump. In every possible meeting. Trump is short sighted and doesn´t understand strategy, he wants to make «deals». But the latest sanctions towards Russia show, that Trump can learn, and if something, he wants to be seen as a strong leader. This message has to be told also to his subordinates and people who Trump trusts, because that will reinforce the European message. If Trump believes that it is in his interests to support Ukraine, he will do it.
– How can the European Union bring to the forefront of the international discourse the fact that preventing a U.S.–China war depends on the ability to stop Putin in Ukraine?
– I answered that in the previous answer. We need to convince President Trump in this issue, and that happens through personal messaging. EU´s role in this is both to repeat the message, but also to show that this is so important, that we will do our part. Trump has several times rightly pointed out that Europe is still buying Russian oil and gas and not supporting Ukraine adequately. Plus, Europe is not putting enough effort to bolster its defense. As long as EU is dragging its feet, Trump has a great excuse not to support Ukraine. When EU has stopped buying Russian oil, gas and other raw materials (and replaces them with US goods), supports Ukraine more and puts more sanctions to Russia, while building European defense capabilities, EU is much more credible in Trump´s eyes. This means that EU has to be credible also in its own relationship with China. EU´s message has to be, that we have a common challenger with USA in China. Therefore, EU and USA have to cooperate more closely to weaken the depencies to China in rare earth minerals and other fields. That will show that EU sees the Chinese threat clearly and is willing to cooperate with USA both in economy and military fields to bolster our long term security. And then our message is easier to «sell» to President Trump.
Guildhall, exclusively.
Только главные новости в нашем Telegram, Facebook и GoogleNews!
Tweet