BRUSSELS — When it comes to support for Ukraine, a split has emerged between the European Union and its English-speaking allies. In France and Germany, the EU’s two biggest democracies, new polling shows that more respondents want their governments to scale back financial aid to Kyiv than to increase it or keep it the same. In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, respondents tilt the other way and favor maintaining material support, according to The POLITICO Poll, which surveyed more than 10,000 people across the five countries earlier this month. The findings land as European leaders prepare to meet in Brussels on Thursday for a high-stakes summit where providing financial support to Ukraine is expected to dominate the agenda. They also come as Washington seeks to mediate a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv — with German leader Friedrich Merz taking the lead among European nations on negotiating in Kyiv’s favor. Across all five countries, the most frequently cited reason for supporting continued aid to Ukraine was the belief that nations should not be allowed to seize territory by force. The most frequently cited argument against additional assistance was concerns about the cost and the pressure on the national economy.  “Much of our research has shown that the public in Europe feels the current era demands policy trade-offs, and financial support for Ukraine is no exception,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London that carried out the survey for POLITICO.  “In a time where public finances are seen as finite resources, people’s interests are increasingly domestic,” he added.  WESTERN DIVIDE Germans were the most reluctant to ramp up financial assistance, with nearly half of respondents (45 percent) in favor of cutting financial aid to Kyiv while only 20 percent wanted to increase it. In France 37 percent wanted to give less and 24 percent preferred giving more. In contrast to the growing opposition to Ukrainian aid from Europe, support remains strikingly firm in North America. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism toward Kyiv’s chances of defeating Moscow and has sent interlocutors to bargain with the Russians for peace. And yet the U.S. had the largest share of respondents (37 percent) in favor of increasing financial support, with Canada just behind at 35 percent. Support for Ukraine was driven primarily by those who backed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election in the U.S. Some 29 percent of Harris voters said one of the top three reasons the U.S. should support Ukraine was to protect democracy, compared with 17 percent of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. “The partisan split in the U.S. is now quite extreme,” Wride said. In Germany and France, opposition to assistance was especially pronounced among supporters of far-right parties — such as the Alternative for Germany and France’s National Rally — while centrists were less skeptical. “How Ukraine financing plays out in Germany in particular, as a number of European governments face populist challenges, should be a particular warning sign to other leaders,” Wride said. REFUGEE FATIGUE Support for military assistance tracked a similar divide. Nearly 40 percent of respondents in the U.S., U.K. and Canada backed higher levels of military aid, with about 20 percent opposed. In Germany 26 percent supported increased military aid to Ukraine while 39 percent opposed it. In France opinions were evenly split, with 31 percent favoring an increase and 30 percent favoring cuts. Germany was also the only country where a majority of respondents said their government should accept fewer Ukrainians displaced by the war.  In a country that has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, 50 percent of Germans said Berlin should admit fewer.  Half of respondents also said Germany should reduce support for Ukrainians already settled in the country — a sign that public fatigue is extending beyond weapons and budgets to the broader social and political pressures of the conflict. The softer support for Ukraine in France and Germany does not appear to reflect warmer feelings toward Moscow, however. Voters in all five countries backed sanctions against Russia, suggesting that even where publics want to pare back aid they remain broadly aligned around punishing the aggressor and limiting Russia’s ability to finance the war. This edition of The POLITICO Poll was conducted from Dec. 5 to Dec. 9 and surveyed 10,510 adults online, with at least 2,000 respondents each from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France and Germany. The results for each country were weighted to be representative in terms of age, gender and geography, and have an overall margin of sampling error of ±2 percentage points for each country. Smaller subgroups have higher margins of error. The survey is an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas. You can find new surveys and analysis each month at politico.com/poll. Have questions or comments? Ideas for future surveys? Email us at poll@politico.com.

LONDON — The U.K.’s top military brass are not pulling their punches with a flurry of interventions in recent weeks, warning just how stark the threat from Russia is for Europe, well beyond Ukraine’s borders. British military chiefs have been hammering home just what is at stake as European leaders gather in Berlin for the latest round of talks, hoping to break the stalemate in peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. They have also been speaking out as the Ministry of Defence and U.K. Treasury hammer out the details of a landmark investment plan for defense. Here are 5 of the most striking warnings about the threats from Russia. 1. RUSSIA’S ‘EXPORT OF CHAOS’ WILL CONTINUE Intelligence chief Blaise Metreweli called out the acute threat posed by an “aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist” Russia in a speech on Monday.   “The export of chaos is a feature not a bug in the Russian approach to international engagement; and we should be ready for this to continue until Putin is forced to change his calculus,” the new boss of MI6 said.  That warning also comes with some fighting talk. “Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine’s behalf will be sustained,” Metreweli added. 2. BRITAIN WON’T RULE THE WAVES WITHOUT WORKING FOR IT Navy boss Gwyn Jenkins used a conference in London last week to draw attention to the rising threat of underwater attack. “The advantage that we have enjoyed in the Atlantic since the end of the Cold War, the Second World War, is at risk. We are holding on, but not by much,” Britain’s top sea lord said. In what appeared to be a message to spendthrift ministers, he warned: “There is no room for complacency. Our would-be opponents are investing billions. We have to step up or we will lose that advantage. We cannot let that happen.” 3. SPY GAMES EVERYWHERE U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey called reporters to Downing Street last month to condemn the “deeply dangerous” entry of the Russian spy ship — the Yantar — into U.K. waters.  Britain deployed a Royal Navy frigate and Royal Air Force P8 planes to monitor and track the vessel, Healey said. After detailing the incursion, the U.K. Cabinet minister described it as a “stark reminder” of the “new era of threat.”  “Our world is changing. It is less predictable, more dangerous,” he said.   4. NO WAY OUT Healey’s deputy, Al Carns, followed up with his own warning last week that Europe must be prepared for war on its doorstep.   Europe is not facing “wars of choice” anymore, but “wars of necessity” which will come with a high human cost, Carns said, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example. He was speaking at the launch of the U.K.’s new British Military Intelligence Service, which will bring together units from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force in a bid to speed up information sharing. 5. EVERYONE’S GOT TO BE READY TO STEP UP U.K. Chief of Defence Staff Richard Knighton is set to call on Monday for the “whole nation” to step up as the Russian threat to NATO intensifies. “The war in Ukraine shows Putin’s willingness to target neighboring states, including their civilian populations, potentially with such novel and destructive weapons, threatens the whole of NATO, including the UK,” Knighton is due to say at the defense think tank RUSI on Monday evening, according to prepared remarks. “The situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career and the response requires more than simply strengthening our armed forces. A new era for defense doesn’t just mean our military and government stepping up — as we are — it means our whole nation stepping up,” he’ll also note.

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that EU governments are already asking Brussels to create a second edition of the bloc’s SAFE defense financing scheme, even before the first one has begun distributing money. Speaking at the POLITICO 28 event, von der Leyen said the EU’s flagship Security Action for Europe loans-for-weapons program has become the runaway success of the bloc’s rearmament push.  “I think the most successful is the €150 billion of the SAFE instrument,” she said. “It is so oversubscribed by the member states that some are calling for a second SAFE instrument.” SAFE is designed to help countries jointly buy arms and ammunition from European industry financed by low interest loans. Countries had to file national procurement plans this fall, and demand has exceeded available funds, the Commission president said. The Commission chief used the appearance to argue that the past year has reshaped the EU’s defense role at unprecedented speed.  “If you look at the last year when it comes to defense, more has happened than during the last decades in the European Union,” she said, pointing to the creation of the EU’s first full-time defense commissioner and the publication of its first defense readiness plan. She contrasted the bloc’s limited defense spending in the previous decade, when only €8 billion was invested in defense on the European level, with the surge now underway. “During the last year, we enabled an investment … of €800 billion till 2030,” she said. Von der Leyen’s acknowledgment that capitals want a “second SAFE” is part of an ongoing push to continue ramping up defensing spending. That is likely to create a major political clash for 2026, when countries will reopen negotiations over the next long-term EU budget as there are calls for defense spending to be 10 times larger than under the current budget. Any effort for countries to borrow jointly to fund defense will also spark pushback from frugal capitals.

NATO Chief Mark Rutte urged member countries to do more to prepare for the possibility of large-scale war, warning that Russia may be ready to attack the alliance within five years. “We are Russia’s next target. And we are already in harm’s way,” Rutte said on Thursday during a speech in Berlin. “Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured.” Although he welcomed the decision by NATO members to increase overall military spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product annually by 2035, Rutte argued more needed to be done, saying alliance members must shift to a “wartime mindset.” “This is not the time for self-congratulation,” Rutte said. “I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don’t feel the urgency. And too many believe that time is on our side. It is not. The time for action is now.” Rutte warned Russia may be strong enough to attack NATO territory sooner than many assume. “NATO’s own defenses can hold for now, but with its economy dedicated to war, Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years,” he said. Rutte underscored his plea for urgency by arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already exhibited a willingness to sacrifice the lives of Russian soldiers in large numbers, claiming that over one million Russian troops had been killed since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “Putin is paying for his pride with the blood of his own people,” Rutte said. “And if he is prepared to sacrifice ordinary Russians in this way, what is he prepared to do to us?” Rutte also said the Kremlin would not be able to sustain its war on Ukraine without help from China. “China is Russia’s lifeline,” he said. “Without China’s support, Russia could not continue to wage this war,” he said, “About 80 percent of critical electronic components in Russian drones and other systems are made in China. So, when civilians die in Kyiv or Kharkiv, Chinese technology is often inside the weapons that kill them.”

PARIS — Far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has criticized France’s participation in European defense programs, arguing they’re a waste of money that should be spent on the country’s military instead. “[French President Emmanuel] Macron has consistently encouraged European institutions to interfere in our defense policy,” she told French lawmakers on Wednesday. Slamming the European Defence Fund and the European Peace Facility — two EU-level defense funding and coordination initiatives — and industrial defense projects between France and Germany, she said: “A great deal of public money has been wasted and precious years have been lost, for our manufacturers, for our armed forces and for the French people.” Le Pen was speaking in the National Assembly during a debate about boosting France’s defense budget. Some 411 MPs of the 522 lawmakers present voted in favor of increasing military expenditures — although the Greens and the Socialists warned they won’t let social spending suffer as a result. The far-right National Rally has an anti-EU agenda and is wary of defense industrial cooperation with Germany. Le Pen criticized Macron’s proposal this past summer to enter into a strategic dialogue with European countries on how France’s nuclear deterrent could contribute to Europe’s security. She also slammed the Future Air Combat System, a project to build a next-generation fighter jet with Germany and Spain, describing it as a “blatant failure.” She hinted she would axe the program if she won power in France’s next presidential elections, scheduled for 2027, along with another initiative to manufacture a next-generation battle tank with Berlin, known as the Main Ground Combat System. Le Pen claimed that France’s military planning law was contributing to EU funds that were, in turn, being spent on foreign defense contractors. “Cutting national defense budgets to create a European defense system actually means financing American, Korean or Israeli defense companies,” she said. Marine Le Pen criticized Emmanuel Macron’s proposal this past summer to enter into a strategic dialogue with European countries on how France’s nuclear deterrent could contribute to Europe’s security. | Pool Photo by Sebastien Bozon via Getty Images The French government has long pushed for Buy European clauses to be attached to the use of EU money, with mixed results. “[European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen did not hear you, or perhaps did not listen to you, promising to purchase large quantities of American weapons in the unfair trade agreement with President [Donald] Trump,” Le Pen declared. In reality, the EU-U.S. trade deal agreed earlier this year contains no legally binding obligation to buy U.S. arms.

President Donald Trump’s pursuit of an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine is increasingly being driven by his own impatience — with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders who Trump believes are standing in the way of both peace and future economic cooperation between Washington and Moscow. Trump, who has called for Russia’s return to the G7 and spoken repeatedly about his eagerness to bring Russia back into the economic fold, laid bare his frustrations Monday at the White House with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of “The Conversation.” He derided European leaders as talkers who “don’t produce” and declared that Zelenskyy has “to play ball” given that, in his view, “Russia has the upper hand.” Zelenskyy, who Trump grumbled hadn’t read the latest peace proposal, spent Monday working with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on a revision of the Americans’ 28-point proposal that he said has been shaved down to 20 points. “We took out openly anti-Ukrainian points,” Zelenskyy told a group of reporters in Kyiv, emphasizing that Ukraine still needs stronger security guarantees and that he isn’t ready to give Russia more land in the Donbas than its military currently holds. With Russia unlikely to budge from its demands, the White House-driven peace talks appear stalled. And as Trump’s irritation deepens, pressure is mounting on the Europeans backing Zelenskyy to prove Trump wrong. “He says we don’t produce, and I hate to say it, but there’s been some truth to that,” said a European official, one of three interviewed for this report who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “We are doing it now, but we have been slow to realize we are the solution to our problem.” The official pointed to NATO’s increased defense spending commitments and the PURL initiative, through which NATO allies are buying U.S. weapons to send to Ukraine, as evidence that things have started to shift. But in the near term, the European Union is struggling to convince Belgium to support a nearly $200 billion loan to Ukraine funded with seized Russian assets. “If we fail on this one, we’re in trouble,” said a second European official. Trump’s mounting pressure on Ukraine makes clear that months of careful management of the president through private texts, public flattery and general deference has gotten Europe very little. But Liana Fix, a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the leaders on the other side of the Atlantic “know very well that they can’t just stand up to Trump and tell him courageously that, you know, this is not how you treat Europe, because [of] the existential dependence that is still there between Europe and the United States.” Still, some in Europe continue to express shock and revulsion over Trump’s lopsided diplomacy in favor of Russia, disputing the president’s assessment during his POLITICO interview that Putin’s army has the upper hand despite its slow advance across the Donbas, more than half of which is now in Russian control. “Our view is not that Ukraine is losing. If Russia was so powerful they would have been able to finish the war within 24 hours,” a third European diplomat said. “If you think that Russia is winning, what does that mean — you give them everything? That’s not a sustainable peace. You’ll reward the Russians for their aggression and they will look for more – not only in Ukraine but also in Europe.” Trump has refused to approve additional defense aid to Ukraine, while blasting his predecessor for sending billions in aid — approved by Democrats and many Republicans in Congress — to help the country defend itself following Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said Trump’s brief that Russia is prevailing on the battlefield doesn’t match the reality. “Russia has not achieved its strategic objectives in Ukraine. It has completely failed in its initial objective to take Kyiv and subjugate the country, and it has even failed in its more limited objective in taking all of the Donbas and neutering Ukraine from a security perspective,” Sullivan said, adding that he thinks Ukraine could prevail militarily with stronger U.S. support. “But if the United States throws Ukraine under the bus and essentially takes Russia’s side functionally, then things, of course, are much more difficult for Ukraine, and that seems to be the direction of travel this administration is taking.” The White House did not respond to a request for additional comment. Clearly eager to normalize relations with Moscow, Trump appears to be motivated more by the prospect of cutting deals with Putin than maintaining a transatlantic alliance built on shared democratic principles. Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who served on Trump’s national security council in his first term, noted that the U.S.-Russia diplomacy involves three people with business backgrounds and investment portfolios: special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on the U.S. side and Russia’s Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign investment fund. “Putin’s always thinking about what’s the angle here? How do I approach somebody? He’s got the number of President Trump,” Hill said Monday on a Brookings Institution podcast. “He knows he wants to make a deal, and he’s emphasizing this, and all the context is business, not really as diplomacy.” Additionally, Trump is eager to end Europe’s decades-long dependence on the U.S., which he believes has been saddled with the burden of its continental security for far too long. Ending the war with a deal that largely favors Putin would not only burnish Trump’s own self-conception as a global peacemaker — it would serve final notice to Europe that many of America’s oldest and most steadfast allies are truly on their own. Trump’s new national security strategy, released last week, made that point explicit, devoting more words to the threat of Europe’s civilizational decline — castigating the entire continent over its immigration and economic policies — than to threats posed by China, Russia or North Korea. Asked by POLITICO if European countries would continue to be U.S. allies, Trump demurred: “It depends,” he said, harshly criticizing immigration policies. “They want to be politically correct, and it makes them weak.” Europe, despite years of warnings from Trump and their own growing awareness about the need for what French President Emanuel Macron has called “strategic autonomy,” has been slow to mobilize its defenses to be able to defend the continent — and Ukraine — on its own. At Trump’s behest, NATO members agreed in June to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP over the coming decade. And NATO is now purchasing U.S. weapons to send to Ukraine through a new NATO initiative. But it may be too little, too late as the war grinds into a fourth winter with Ukraine’s military low on ammunition, weapons and morale. “That is why they will continue to engage this administration despite the strategy,” Fix said. And while Trump sees Ukraine and European stubbornness as the primary impediment to peace, many longtime diplomats believe that it’s his own unwillingness to ratchet up pressure on Moscow — Trump imposed new sanctions on Russian oil last month, only to pull some of them back — that is rendering his peacemaking efforts so fruitless. “It’s not enough to want peace. You’ve got to create a context in which the protagonists are willing to compromise either enthusiastically or reluctantly,” said Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration. “The president has totally failed to do that, so it’s not a question of wordsmithing. In order to succeed at the table, you have to succeed away from the table. And they have failed to do that.” Veronika Melkozerova, Ari Hawkins and Daniella Cheslow contributed to this report.

LONDON — The Ministry of Defence plans to develop autonomous vessels that operate AI technology alongside warships and aircraft to better protect Britain’s undersea cables and pipelines from Moscow. Under the Atlantic Bastion program, surface and underwater vessels, ships, submarines, and aircraft would be connected through AI-powered acoustic detection technology and integrated into a “digital targeting web,” a network of weapons systems, allowing faster decisions to be made. The government explained that the program was in response to a resurgence of Russian submarine and underwater activity in British waters. British intelligence says Russian President Vladimir Putin was modernizing his fleet to target critical undersea cables and pipelines. Last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar directed lasers at British forces deployed to monitor the vessel for the first time after it entered U.K. waters. Yantar was previously in U.K. territorial seas in January. Defence Secretary John Healey said Yantar was “designed for gathering intelligence and mapping our undersea cables.” The Ministry of Defence says Atlantic Bastion will create a hybrid naval force that can find, track, and, if required, act against adversaries. A combined £14 million has been invested by the Ministry of Defence and industry, with 26 U.K. and European firms submitting proposals to develop anti-submarine sensor technology. Any capabilities would be deployed underwater from 2026. “People should be in no doubt of the new threats facing the U.K., and our allies under the sea, where adversaries are targeting infrastructure that is so critical to our way of life,” said Defence Secretary John Healey. “Our pioneering Atlantic Bastion program is a blueprint for the future of the Royal Navy. It combines the latest autonomous and AI technologies with world-class warships and aircraft to create a highly advanced hybrid fighting force to detect, deter and defeat those who threaten us.” Britain’s Chief of the Naval Staff, Gwyn Jenkins, was expected to say at the International Sea Power Conference on Monday: “We are a Navy that thrives when it is allowed to adapt. To evolve. We have never stood still — because the threats never do.” The first sea lord general added: A revolutionary underwater network is taking shape — from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Norwegian Sea. More autonomous, more resilient, more lethal — and British built.”

DOHA, Qatar — Inside the U.S., President Donald Trump is dogged by rising consumer prices, the Epstein files debacle, and Republicans’ newfound willingness to defy him. But go 100 miles, 1,000 miles, or, as I recently did, 7,000 miles past U.S. borders, and Trump’s domestic challenges — and the sinking poll numbers that accompany them — matter little. The U.S. president remains a behemoth in the eyes of the rest of the world. A person who could wreck another country. Or perhaps the only one who can fix another country’s problems. That’s the sense I got this weekend from talking to foreign officials and global elites at this year’s Doha Forum, a major international gathering focused on diplomacy and geopolitics. Over sweets, caffeine and the buzz of nearby conversations, some members of the jet set wondered if Trump’s domestic struggles will lead him to take more risks abroad — and some hope he does. This comes as Trump faces criticism from key MAGA players who say he’s already too focused on foreign policy. “He doesn’t need Capitol Hill to get work done from a foreign policy standpoint,” an Arab official said of Trump, who, let’s face it, has made it abundantly clear he cares little about Congress. Vuk Jeremic, a former Serbian foreign minister, told me that whether people like Trump or not, “I don’t think that there is any doubt that he is a very, very consequential global actor.” He wasn’t the only one who used the term “consequential.” The word doesn’t carry a moral judgment. A person can be consequential whether they save the world or destroy it. What the word does indicate in this context is the power of the U.S. presidency. The weakest U.S. president is still stronger than the strongest leader of most other countries. America’s wealth, weapons and global reach ensure that. U.S. presidents have long had more latitude and ability to take direct action on foreign policy than domestic policy. They also often turn to the global stage when their national influence fades in their final years in office, when they don’t have to worry about reelection. There’s a reason Barack Obama waited until his final two years in office to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba. In the first year of his second term, Trump has stunned the world repeatedly, on everything from gutting U.S. foreign aid to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. He remains as capricious as ever, shifting sides on everything from Russia’s war on Ukraine to whether he wants to expel Palestinians from Gaza. He seeks a Nobel Peace Prize but is threatening a potential war with Venezuela. Trump managed to jolt the gathering at the glitzy Sheraton resort in Doha by unveiling his National Security Strategy — which astonished foreign onlookers on many levels — in the run-up to the event. The part that left jaws on the floor was its attack on America’s allies in Europe, which it claimed faces “civilizational erasure.” The strategy’s release led one panel moderator to ask the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, whether Trump sees Europe as “the enemy.” Yet, some foreign officials praised Trump’s disruptive moves and said they hope he will keep shaking up a calcified international order that has left many countries behind. Several African leaders in particular said they wanted Trump to get more involved in ending conflicts on their continent, especially Sudan. They don’t care about the many nasty things Trump has said about Africa, waving that off as irrelevant political rhetoric. Trump claims to have already ended seven or eight wars. It’s a wild assertion, not least because some of the conflicts he’s referring to weren’t wars and some of the truces he’s brokered are shaky. When I pointed this out, foreign officials told me to lower my bar. Peace is a process, they stressed. If Trump can get that process going or rolling faster, it’s a win. Maybe there are still clashes between Rwanda and Congo. But at least Trump is forcing the two sides to talk and agree to framework deals, they suggested. “You should be proud of your president,” one African official said. (I granted him and several others anonymity to candidly discuss sensitive diplomatic issues involving the U.S.) Likewise, there’s an appreciation in many diplomatic corners about the economic lens Trump imposes on the world. Wealthy Arab states, such as Qatar, already are benefiting from such commercial diplomacy. Others want in, too. “He’s been very clear that his Africa policy should focus on doing business with Africa, and to me, that’s very progressive,” said Mthuli Ncube, Zimbabwe’s finance minister. He added that one question in the global diplomatic community is whether the next U.S. president — Democrat or Republican — will adopt Trump’s “creativity.” The diplomats and others gathered in Doha were well-aware that Trump appreciates praise but also sometimes respects those who stand up to him. So one has to tread carefully. Kallas, for instance, downplayed the Trump team’s broadsides against Europe in the National Security Strategy. Intentionally or not, her choice reflected the power differential between the U.S. and the EU. “The U.S. is still our biggest ally,” Kallas insisted. Privately, another European official I spoke to was fuming. The strategy’s accusations were “very disturbing,” they said. The official agreed, nonetheless, that Trump is too powerful for European countries to do much beyond stage some symbolic diplomatic protests. Few Trump administration officials attended the Doha Forum. The top names were Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, and Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Donald Trump Jr. — not a U.S. official, but certainly influential — also made an appearance. Several foreign diplomats expressed optimism that Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace Prize will guide him to take actions on the global stage that will ultimately bring more stability in the world — even if it is a rocky ride. A British diplomat said they were struck by Trump’s musings about gaining entry to heaven. Maybe a nervousness about the afterlife could induce Trump to, say, avoid a conflagration with Venezuela? “He’s thinking about his legacy,” the diplomat said. Even Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of State whom Trump defeated in the 2016 presidential race, was measured in her critiques. Clinton said “there’s something to be said for the dramatic and bold action” Trump takes. But she warned that the Trump team doesn’t do enough to ensure his efforts, including peace deals, have lasting effect. “There has to be so much follow-up,” she said during one forum event. “And there is an aversion within the administration to the kind of work that is done by Foreign Service officers, diplomats, others who are on the front lines trying to fulfill these national security objectives.” Up until the final minute of his presidency, Trump will have extraordinary power that reaches far past America’s shores. That’s likely to be the case even if the entire Republican Party has turned on him. At the moment, he has more than three years to go. Perhaps he will end immigration to the U.S., abandon Ukraine to Russia’s aggression or strike a nuclear deal with Iran. After all, Trump is, as Zimbabwe’s Ncube put it, not lacking in “creativity.”

LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin was “morally responsible” for the 2018 Novichok poisonings which led to the death of an innocent British woman, an official inquiry concluded Thursday. Dawn Sturgess died in July 2018 after spraying herself with a perfume bottle that contained the Russian nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury. The bottle had been a gift from her then partner Charlie Rowley. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with the nerve agent four months earlier. Anthony Hughes, who chaired the public inquiry into Sturgess’ death, said the attack was “expected to stand as a public demonstration of Russian power” and “amounted to a public statement, both for international and domestic consumption, that Russia will act decisively in what it regards are its own interests.” He said there were “failings” to adequately protect the Skripals, but acknowledged CCTV cameras, alarms or hidden bugs would not have stopped a “professionally mounted attack with a nerve agent.” The government believes the Russian president personally approved the poisoning on Skripal. The ex-Russian spy lived in an easily accessible property and declined the offer of CCTV. In a statement following publication of the report, Hughes said Sturgess’ death was “needless and arbitrary. She was the entirely innocent victim of the cruel and cynical acts of others.” He said: “I’ve concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorized at the highest level, indeed, by President Putin.” The U.K. government on Thursday said it has sanctioned the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) in its entirety, and summoned Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Andrey Kelin. The public inquiry began in Salisbury last year more than six years after Sturgess’ death, which also left 80 other people in hospital. Nobody has been charged with Sturgess’ murder. Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga were named as the suspects responsible for deploying the nerve agent in Salisbury, but returned to Russia before they could be captured. They were charged with conspiracy to murder, three counts of attempted murder, two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent, and one count of use or possession of a chemical weapon. But those charges related to the attacks on the Skripals rather than Sturgess’ death.

A pair of documents laying out the Trump administration’s global security strategy have been delayed for weeks due in part to changes that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted on concerning China, according to three people familiar with the discussions on the strategies. The documents — the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — were initially expected to be released earlier this fall. Both are now almost done and will likely be released this month, one of the people said. The second person confirmed the imminent release of the National Security Strategy, and the third confirmed that the National Defense Strategy was coming very soon. All were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The strategies went through multiple rounds of revisions after Bessent wanted more work done on the language used to discuss China, given sensitivity over ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing and the elevation of the Western Hemisphere as a higher priority than it had been in previous administrations, the people said. The National Security Strategy has been used by successive administrations to outline their overall strategic priorities from the economic sphere to dealing with allies and adversaries and military posture. The drafting goes through a series of readthroughs and comment periods from Cabinet officials in an attempt to capture the breadth of an administrations’ vision and ensure the entire administration is marching in the same direction on the president’s top issues. The administration has been involved in sensitive trade talks with Beijing for months over tariffs and a variety of trade issues, but the Pentagon has maintained its position that China remains the top military rival to the United States. The extent of the changes after Bessent’s requests remains unclear, but two of the people said that Bessent wanted to soften some of the language concerning Chinese activities while declining to provide more details. Any changes to one document would require similar changes to the other, as they must be in sync to express a unified front. It is common for the Treasury secretary and other Cabinet officials to weigh in during the drafting and debate process of crafting a new strategy, as most administrations will only release one National Security Strategy per term. In a statement, the Treasury Department said that Bessent “is 100 percent aligned with President Trump, as is everyone else in this administration, as to how to best manage the relationship with China.” The White House referred to the Treasury Department. Trump administration officials have alternately decried the threat from China and looked for ways to improve relations with Beijing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to deliver a speech on Friday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Pentagon efforts to build weapons more quickly to meet the China challenge. At the same time, Hegseth is working with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, to set up a U.S.-China military communication system aimed to prevent disagreements or misunderstandings from spiraling into unintended conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Bessent told the New ‍York Times Dealbook summit on Wednesday that China was on schedule to meet the pledges it made under a ‌U.S.-China trade agreement, including purchasing 12 million metric tons of soybeans by February 2026. “China is on track to ‍keep every ⁠part of the deal,” ⁠he said. Those moves by administration officials are set against the massive Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region and tensions over Beijing’s belligerent attitude toward the Philippines, where Beijing and Manila have been facing off over claims of land masses and reefs in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been supplying the Philippines with more sophisticated weaponry in recent years in part to ward off the Chinese threat. China has also consistently flown fighter planes and bombers and sailed warships close to Taiwan’s shores despite the Taiwan Relations Act, an American law that pledges the U.S. to keep close ties with the independent island. The National Security Strategy, which is put out by every administration, hasn’t been updated since 2022 under the Biden administration. That document highlighted three core themes: strategic competition with China and Russia; renewed investment and focus on domestic industrial policy; and the recognition that climate change is a central challenge that touches all aspects of national security. The strategy is expected to place more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere than previous strategies, which focused on the Middle East, counterterrorism, China and Russia. The new strategy will include those topics but also focus on topics such as migration, drug cartels and relations with Latin America — all under the umbrella of protecting the U.S. homeland. That new National Defense Strategy similarly places more emphasis on protecting the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere, as POLITICO first reported, a choice that has caused some concern among military commanders. Both documents are expected to be followed by the “global posture review,” a look at how U.S. military assets are positioned across the globe, and which is being eagerly anticipated by allies from Germany to South Korea, both of which are home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops who might be moved elsewhere.