The European Commission has warned that Donald Trump’s latest restrictions on foreign aid are dangerous and threaten global health — while saying the EU can’t fill the funding gap alone. The Trump administration revealed further conditions on foreign aid last week, which seek to restrict NGOs, governments and agencies in receipt of U.S. funding from promoting not only abortion but also “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.” The measures come as lower-income countries face catastrophic health impacts after many donors, led by the U.S., dramatically cut funding last year, leaving them with little choice but to accept conditional funds. The policies have appalled health experts who say they are an unprecedented attack on sovereignty and confirm the weaponization of aid under Trump, whose administration is seeking more direct influence over global health programs. Europe has also criticized the expanded policy, stepping up its response compared with more restrained positions to the Trump administration’s other diverging health policies. “Limiting international assistance through restrictive funding conditions undermines joint efforts for human rights, global health, peace and stability. It makes funding more unpredictable and increases the vulnerability of those already most at risk,” European Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper told POLITICO. “Ultimately, this risks our goal of saving lives,” Hipper said. The EU would assess the implications for the programs it funds and will remain a “credible, reliable, principled and predictable partner,” but Europe “cannot fill the gap left by others,” Hipper added. The new policy is the widest expansion of the Mexico City Policy — which international groups have called the ‘global gag rule’ because of the restrictions it imposes — that the U.S. has ever imposed. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said last week the Trump administration was “expanding this policy to protect life, to combat [diversity, equity and inclusion] and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children.” He said it would increase the reach of the Mexico City Policy, which has traditionally only applied to abortion advocacy, threefold. It’s the latest policy that underlines the Trump administration’s explicitly strings-attached foreign aid agenda. The U.S. has rolled out a series of bilateral deals with 14 African countries, requiring them to guarantee the U.S. access to pathogen samples and data in exchange for health funding — much of which the U.S. had withdrawn last year through USAID cuts. It has also offered to restore funding to global vaccine program GAVI, but only if the organization stops using a common mercury-based preservative that Trump’s top health officials have linked to autism, without evidence. The latest policy is part of a “much larger project by the Trump administration to advance this radical anti-rights agenda,” Beirne Roose-Snyder, a senior policy fellow at the Council for Global Equality, told reporters this week. Desirée Cormier Smith, a former U.S. diplomat, said she hoped governments in the EU and elsewhere would “push back” and deliver a bracing message to the Trump administration: “We refuse to leave all of our people behind. You’re not going to export your domestic culture wars and the division that plagues the U.S. to our own countries.” The new rules, which come into effect Feb. 26, will also increase pressure on European governments over their own levels of global health funding. Major donors such as France, Germany and the Netherlands have trimmed their own contributions, as part of the global crunch in aid spending. Lisa Goerlitz, head of the Brussels office at global health NGO DSW, said Europe must keep foreign aid spending at levels needed “to allow a credible transition towards domestic resources and new financing mechanisms”. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, meanwhile, said the EU faced a “clear test of its leadership and credibility on equality and human rights.” Claudia Chiappa contributed reporting.

The monster storm that’s threatening to dump snow across much of the U.S. could be a test of the Trump administration’s willingness to help states after natural disasters. With heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain forecast to begin falling Friday and continuing into Monday over a massive swath of the country, from the Rockies to the Atlantic, governors from dozens of states could be forced to navigate shifting policies under President Donald Trump, who has set efforts in motion to reduce the flow of disaster aid to states. As governors declare emergencies ahead of the storm, some are wondering whether the White House will reject their requests for federal funding to help pay for cleanup and repairs if predictions for over a foot of snow in some areas prove accurate. “They’re preparing for the worst,” said a former senior Federal Emergency Management Agency official who was granted anonymity to describe discussions with state officials. “They’re preparing for no grants, no money.” On Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed concern Tuesday about Trump denying disaster aid for snowstorms in a report accompanying a proposed Department of Homeland Security spending plan for fiscal 2026. The report by House and Senate appropriators from both parties said the spending package “reaffirms Congress’ intent … that snowstorms shall be eligible for Federal relief.” A spokesperson for Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat, said in a statement that the willingness of Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “to turn even the weather into a partisan issue and play politics with people’s lives may make an already bad situation somehow even worse.” Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an email, “Any notion that snowstorms don’t qualify as a disaster defies logic — and is unnecessarily cruel.” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, in a statement, called the Democratic criticisms “fear-mongering” that “ignores reality.” “Under the President’s leadership, FEMA, and the entire Administration, has proactively mobilized significant resources to support states in the path of this storm, ensuring a rapid and well-coordinated response,” Jackson said. “President Trump responds to each request for federal assistance with great care and consideration to ensure American tax dollars are used appropriately to supplement, not substitute, state obligations to respond to disasters — he will do the same for any requests received.” The administration has pre-positioned supplies, equipment and personnel in hubs across the country, according to an administration official, granted anonymity to share details of the logistics. It has staged 250,000 meals, 400,000 liters of water, 30 generators and 12 shuttle drivers in Louisiana, with shuttle drivers in Pennsylvania, Texas and Georgia to move supplies as needed. It has also embedded 20 FEMA staff in State Emergency Operations Centers and deployed three incident management teams, with additional teams, including search and rescue, on standby to assist with storm response at governors’ requests. The agency is also helping with monitoring the storm and coordinating with federal partners to support impacted areas. The administration raised alarms last year when then-FEMA acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton suggested cutting off disaster aid for snowstorms in an internal memo. No action has been taken on the memo’s proposals. It came as Trump denied numerous gubernatorial requests for disaster aid, even though FEMA had confirmed that the damage exceeded the agency’s cost threshold for aid. The administration has given no explanation for the denials, creating uncertainty among state emergency managers. FEMA makes recommendations about disaster requests to the president, who has exclusive authority to approve disaster aid under federal law. In Maryland, Trump denied a request in July by Gov. Wes Moore (D) for disaster aid to help rural, Republican communities recover from extensive flood damage that FEMA found caused damage that was millions of dollars above the agency’s cost threshold. “Now they want to arbitrarily deny disaster assistance to communities hit by snowstorms regardless of the severity of the event,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News on Thursday. “As communities across the country prepare for this weekend’s snowstorm, this blanket policy is all the more alarming.” In one highly controversial decision last year, Trump approved some disaster aid for Michigan after a devastating ice storm in March damaged infrastructure including power lines in the northern part of the state. But at the same time, Trump denied a request by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) for $90 million to help two rural electric utilities repair their equipment. The utilities raised rates to cover the costs. Federal disaster law lists snowstorms among the events that qualify for disaster aid, along with extreme winds, wildfires, floods and others. But the law does not require any allocation of disaster aid. Since 2016, presidents have approved 18 disasters following snowstorms, costing FEMA $272 million altogether, according to Hamilton’s memo. Both numbers are a small fraction of the hundreds of approved disasters and tens of billions of dollars that have been spent. Craig Fugate, who ran FEMA during the Obama administration, said states often cut their funding for snowstorm-related programs after experiencing no snow for several years. Then they turn to FEMA to fill budget holes when storms hit. “When budgets are lean and you’re not having a lot of snow, you cut those snow removal operations and when you get caught short you say, ‘Oh, well, the federal taxpayer will bail us out,’” Fugate said in an interview Thursday. “We tried to set the thresholds to say, unless this is an extraordinary event, it should not be supplanting state and local responsibility to fund snow removal and treatment operations on their highways on the back of the federal taxpayers.” FEMA’s daily report Thursday showed that the agency was monitoring the storm at its regional offices across the country and at its Washington headquarters. The agency has nearly 4,200 employees available to be deployed to disaster areas, the report said. A year ago, FEMA had 2,400 disaster employees available. The number is higher this year because the Trump administration has been reassigning workers from state field offices to its Washington headquarters.

Mark Leonard is the director and co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and author of “Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics when the Rules Fail” (Polity Press April 2026). The international liberal order is ending. In fact, it may already be dead. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said as much last week as he gloated over the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power … These are the iron laws of the world.” But America’s 47th president is equally responsible for another death — that of the united West. And while Europe’s leaders have fallen over themselves to sugarcoat U.S. President Donald Trump’s illegal military operation in Venezuela and ignore his brazen demands on Greenland, Europeans themselves have already realized Washington is more foe than friend. This is one of the key findings of a poll conducted in November 2025 by my colleagues at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford University’s Europe in a Changing World research project, based on interviews with 26,000 individuals in 21 countries. Only one in six respondents considered the U.S. to be an ally, while a sobering one in five viewed it as a rival or adversary. In Germany, France and Spain that number approaches 30 percent, and in Switzerland — which Trump singled out for higher tariffs — it’s as high as 39 percent. This decline in support for the U.S. has been precipitous across the continent. But as power shifts around the globe, perceptions of Europe have also started to change. With Trump pursuing an America First foreign policy, which often leaves Europe out in the cold, other countries are now viewing the EU as a sovereign geopolitical actor in its own right. This shift has been most dramatic in Russia, where voters have grown less hostile toward the U.S. Two years ago, 64 percent of Russians viewed the U.S. as an adversary, whereas today that number sits at 37 percent. Instead, they have turned their ire toward Europe, which 72 percent now consider either an advisory or a rival — up from 69 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. They’re distinguishing between U.S. and European policy, and nearly two-thirds expect their country’s relations with the EU to get stronger, while only one-third say the same about the U.S. Even beyond Europe, however, the single biggest long-term impact of Trump’s first year in office is how he has driven people away from the U.S. and closer to China, with Beijing’s influence expected to grow across the board. From South Africa and Brazil to Turkey, majorities expect their country’s relationship with China to deepen over the next five years. And in these countries, more respondents see Beijing as an ally than Washington. More specifically, in South Africa and India — two countries that have found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs recently — the change from a year ago is remarkable. At the end of 2024, a whopping 84 percent of Indians considered Trump’s victory to be a good thing for their country; now only 53 percent do. Of course, this poll was conducted before Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and before his remarks about taking over Greenland. But with even the closest of allies now worried about falling victim to a predatory U.S., these trends — of countries pulling away from the U.S. and toward China, and a Europe isolated from its transatlantic partner — are likely to accelerate. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images All the while, confronted with Trumpian aggression but constrained by their own lack of agency, European leaders are stuck dealing with an Atlantic-sized chasm between their private reactions and what they allow themselves to say in public. The good news from our poll is that despite the reticence of their leaders, Europeans are both aware of the state of the world and in favor of a lot of what needs to be done to improve the continent’s position. As we have seen, they harbor no illusions about the U.S. under Trump. They realize they’re living in an increasingly dangerous, multipolar world. And majorities support boosting defense spending, reintroducing mandatory conscription, and even entertaining the prospect of a European nuclear deterrent. The rules-based order is giving way to a world of spheres of influence, where might makes right and the West is split from within. In such a world, you are either a pole with your own sphere of influence or a bystander in someone else’s. European leaders should heed their voters and ensure the continent belongs in the first category — not the second.

Josep Borrell is the former high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and former vice-president of the European Commission. In too many corners of the world — including our own — democracy is losing oxygen. Disinformation is poisoning debate, authoritarian leaders are staging “elections” without real choice, and citizens are losing faith that their vote counts. Even as recently as the Jan. 3 U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, we have seen opposition leaders who are internationally recognized as having the democratic support of their people be sidelined. None of this is new. Having devoted much of his work to critiquing the absolute concentration of power in dictatorial figures, the long-exiled Paraguayan writer Augusto Roa Bastos found that when democracy loses ground, gradually and inexorably a singular and unquestionable end takes its place: power. And it shapes the leader as a supreme being, one who needs no higher democratic processes to curb their will. This is the true peril of the backsliding we’re witnessing in the world today. A few decades ago, the tide of democracy seemed unstoppable, bringing freedom and prosperity to an ever-greater number of countries. And as that democratic wave spread, so too did the practice of sending impartial international observers to elections as a way of supporting democratic development. In both boosting voter confidence and assuring the international community of democratic progress, election observation has been one of the EU’s quiet success stories for decades. However, as international development budgets shrink, some are questioning whether this practice still matters. I believe this is a grave mistake. Today, attacks on the integrity of electoral processes, the subtle — or brazen — manipulation of votes and narratives, and the absolute answers given to complex problems are allowing Roa Basto’s concept of power to infiltrate our democratic societies. And as the foundations of pluralism continue to erode, autocrats and autocratic practices are rising unchecked. By contrast, ensuring competitive, transparent and fair elections is the antidote to authoritarianism. To that end, the bloc has so far deployed missions to observe more than 200 elections in 75 countries. And determining EU cooperation and support for those countries based on the conclusions of these missions has, in turn, incentivized them to strengthen democratic practices. The impact is tangible. Our 2023 mission in Guatemala, for example, which was undertaken alongside the Organization of American States and other observer groups, supported the credibility of the country’s presidential election and helped scupper malicious attempts to undermine the result. And yet, many now argue that in a world of hybrid regimes, cyber threats and political polarization, international observers can do little to restore confidence in flawed processes — and that other areas, such as defense, should take priority. In both boosting voter confidence and assuring the international community of democratic progress, election observation has been one of the EU’s quiet success stories for decades. | Robert Ghement/EPA I don’t agree. Now, more than ever, is the time to stick up for democracy — the most fundamental of EU values. As many of the independent citizen observer groups we view as partners lose crucial funding, it is vital we continue to send missions. In fact, cutting back support would be a false economy, amounting to silence precisely when truth and transparency are being drowned out. I myself observed elections as chair of the European Parliament’s Development Committee. I saw firsthand how EU observation has developed well beyond spotting overt ballot stuffing to detecting the subtleties of unfair candidate exclusions, tampering with the tabulation of results behind closed doors and, more recently, the impact of online manipulation and disinformation. In my capacity as high representative I also decided to send observation missions to controversial countries, including Venezuela. Despite opposition from some, our presence there during the 2021 local elections was greatly appreciated by the opposition. Our findings sparked national and international discussions over electoral conditions, democratic standards and necessary changes. And when the time comes for new elections once more — as it surely must — the presence of impartial international observers will be critical to restoring the confidence of Venezuelans in the electoral process. At the same time, election observation is being actively threatened by powers like Russia, which promote narratives opposed to electoral observations carried out by the organizations that endorse the Declaration of Principles on International Election Observation (DoP) — a landmark document that set the global standard for impartial monitoring. A few years ago, for instance, a Russian parliamentary commission sharply criticized our observation efforts, pushing for the creation of alternative monitoring bodies that, quite evidently, fuel disinformation and legitimize authoritarian regimes — something that has also happened in Azerbaijan and Belarus. When a credible international observation mission publishes a measured and facts-based assessment, it becomes a reference point for citizens and institutions alike. It provides an anchor for dialogue, a benchmark against which all actors can measure their conduct. Above all, it signals to citizens that the international community is watching — not to interfere but to support their right to a meaningful choice. Of course, observation must evolve as well. We now monitor not only ballot boxes but also algorithms, online narratives and the influence of artificial intelligence. We are strengthening post-electoral follow-up and developing new tools to verify data and detect manipulation, exploring the ways in which AI can be a force for good. In line with this, last month I lent my support to the DoP’s endorsers — including the EU, the United Nations, the African Union, the Organization of American States and dozens of international organizations and NGOs — as they met at the U.N. in Geneva to mark the declaration’s 20th anniversary, and to reaffirm their commitment to strengthen election observation in the face of new threats and critical funding challenges. Just days later we learned of the detention of Dr. Sarah Bireete, a leading non-partisan citizen observer, ahead of the Jan. 15 elections in Uganda. These recent events are a wake-up call to renew this purpose. Election observation is only worthwhile if we’re willing to defend the principle of democracy itself. As someone born into a dictatorship, I know all too well that democratic freedoms cannot be taken for granted. In a world of contested truths and ever-greater power plays, democracy needs both witnesses and champions. The EU, I hope, will continue to be among them.

While U.S. President Donald Trump brashly cited the Monroe Doctrine to explain the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, he didn’t leave it there. He also underscored a crude tenet guiding his foreign adventures: “It’s important to make me happy,” he told reporters. Maduro had failed in that task after shunning a surrender order by Trump — hence, he was plucked in the dead of night by Delta Force commandos from his Caracas compound, and unceremoniously deposited at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Yet despite the U.S. president’s admonishment about needing to be kept happy — an exhortation accompanied by teasing hints of possible future raids on the likes of Cuba, Colombia and Mexico — one continent has stood out in its readiness to defy him. Maduro’s capture has been widely denounced by African governments and the continent’s regional organizations alike. South Africa has been among the most outspoken, with its envoy to the U.N. warning that such actions left unpunished risk “a regression into a world preceding the United Nations, a world that gave us two brutal world wars, and an international system prone to severe structural instability and lawlessness.” Both the African Union, a continent-wide body comprising 54 recognized nations, and the 15-member Economic Community of West African States have categorically condemned Trump’s gunboat diplomacy as well. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni even had the temerity to issue a blunt dare to Washington: If American forces attempt the same trick in his country, he bragged, “we can defeat them” — a reversal of his 2018 bromance with the U.S. president, when he said he “loves Trump” because of his frankness. Africa’s forthrightness and unity over Maduro greatly contrasts with the more fractured response from Latin America, as well as the largely hedged responses coming from Europe, which is more focused on Trump’s coveting of Greenland.   Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had the temerity to issue a blunt dare to Washington: If American forces attempt the same trick in his country, he bragged, “we can defeat them” | Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images Fearful of risking an open rift with Washington, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer waited 16 hours after Maduro and his wife were seized before gingerly stepping on a diplomatic tightrope, careful to avoid falling one way or the other. While highlighting his preference for observing international law, he said: “We shed no tears about the end of his regime.” Others similarly avoided incurring Trump’s anger, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis flatly saying now isn’t the right time to discuss Trump’s muscular methods — a position shared by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. So, why haven’t African leaders danced to the same circumspect European tune? Partly because they have less to lose. Europe still harbors hope it can influence Trump, soften him and avoid an irreparable breach in the transatlantic alliance, especially when it comes to Greenland, suggested Tighisti Amare of Britain’s Chatham House. “With dramatic cuts in U.S. development funds to Africa already implemented by Trump, Washington’s leverage is not as strong as it once was. And the U.S. doesn’t really give much importance to Africa, unless it’s the [Democratic Republic of the Congo], where there are clear U.S. interests on critical minerals,” Amare told POLITICO. “In terms of trade volume, the EU remains the most important region for Africa, followed by China, and with the Gulf States increasingly becoming more important,” she added. Certainly, Trump hasn’t gone out of his way to make friends in Africa. Quite the reverse — he’s used the continent as a punching bag, delivering controversial remarks stretching back to his first term, when he described African nations as “shithole countries.” And there have since been rifts galore over travel bans, steep tariffs and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is credited with saving millions of African lives over decades. U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a printed article from “American Thinker” while accusing South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa of state-sanctioned violence against white farmers in South Africa. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In May, Trump also lectured South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over what he claimed amounted to genocide against white South Africans, at one point ordering the lights be dimmed to show clips of leaders from a South African minority party encouraging attacks on the country’s white population. Washington then boycotted the G20 summit hosted by South Africa in November, and disinvited the country from this year’s gathering, which will be hosted by the U.S. According to Amare, Africa’s denunciation of Maduro’s abduction doesn’t just display concern about Venezuela; in some part, it’s also fed by the memory of colonialism. “It’s not just about solidarity, but it’s also about safeguarding the rules that limit how powerful states can use force against more vulnerable states,” she said. African countries see Trump’s move against Maduro “as a genuine threat to international law and norms that protect the survival of the sovereignty of small states.” Indeed, African leaders might also be feeling their own collars tighten, and worrying about being in the firing line. “There’s an element of self-preservation kicking in here because some African leaders share similarities with the Maduro government,” said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In some countries, people on the street and in even civil society have a different take, and actually see the removal of Maduro as a good thing.” The question is, will African leaders be wary of aligning with either Russian President Vladimir Putin or China’s Xi Jinping, now that Trump has exposed the impotence of friendship with either by deposing the Venezuelan strongman? According to Onubogu, even before Maduro’s ouster, African leaders understood the world order had changed dramatically, and that we’re back in the era of great power competition. “Individual leaders will make their own specific calculations based on what’s in their favor and their interests. I wouldn’t want to generalize and say some African countries might step back from engaging with China or Russia. They will play the game as they try to figure out how they can come out on top.”

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Russia’s war on Ukraine seems likely to end next year — and on terms highly unfavorable for Kyiv. Why the prediction? Because of the EU’s failure last week to agree to use Russia’s money — €210 billion in frozen assets — to keep Ukraine solvent and able to finance its war effort. The felling of the “reparations loan” proposal, which would have recycled Russian assets that are mostly frozen in a clearing bank in Belgium, deprives Ukraine of guaranteed funding for the next two years. It was Belgium’s legal anxieties over the loan, along with French President Emmanuel Macron’s and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s reluctance to join German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in championing the proposal, that doomed it. And all that, despite weeks of wrangling and overblown expectations by the plan’s advocates, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Fortunately, the EU will still provide a sizable funding package for Ukraine, after agreeing to jointly borrow  €90 billion from capital markets secured against the EU’s budget, and lend it on a no-interest basis. But while this will prevent the country from running out of money early next year, the package is meant to be spread out over two years, and that won’t be sufficient to keep Ukraine in the fight. According to projections by the International Monetary Fund, due to the reduction in U.S. financial support, Ukraine’s budgetary shortfall over the next two years will be closer to $160 billion. Simply put, Ukraine will need much more from Europe — and that’s going to be increasingly difficult for the bloc to come up with. Still, many European leaders were rather optimistic once the funding deal was struck last week. Finnish President Alexander Stubb noted on Sunday that the agreed package would still be linked to the immobilized Russian assets, as the scheme envisions that Kyiv will use them to repay the loan once the war ends. “The immobilized Russian assets will stay immobilized … and the union reserves its right to make use of the immobilized assets to repay this loan,” he posted on X. Plus, the thinking goes, a subsequent loan could be added on and indirectly linked to the Russian assets. And maybe so. But this could also be construed as counting one’s chickens before they’re hatched, as everything depends on what kind of deal is struck to end the war. In the meantime, securing another loan won’t be so simple once Ukraine’s coffers empty again. Three countries — Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — already opted out of last week’s joint-borrowing scheme. It isn’t a stretch to imagine others will join them either, balking at the very notion of yet another multi-billion-euro package in 2027, which is an important election year for both France and Germany. Also, Trump will still be in the White House — so, no point in looking to Washington for the additional cash. Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images And yet, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever still described last week’s deal, reached after almost 17 hours of negotiations, as a “victory for Ukraine, a victory for financial stability … and a victory for the EU.” However, that’s not how Russian President Vladimir Putin will see it. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had noted while seeking to persuade European leaders to back the reparations loan: “If Putin knows, that we can stay resilient for at least a few more years, then his reason to drag out this war becomes much weaker.” But that’s not what happened. And after last Friday’s debacle highlighted the division among Europe’s leaders, surely that’s not the lesson Putin will be taking home. Rather, it will only have confirmed that time is on his side. That if he waits just a bit longer, the 28-point plan that his aides crafted with Trump’s obliging Special Envoy Steve Witkoff can be revived, leaving Ukraine and Europe to flounder — a dream outcome for the Kremlin. Putin can also read opinion polls, and see European voters’ growing impatience with the war in some of the continent’s biggest economies. For example, published last week, a POLITICO Poll of 10,000 found respondents in Germany and France even more reluctant to keep financing Ukraine than those in the U.S. In Germany, 45 percent said they would support cutting financial aid to Ukraine, while just 20 percent said they wanted to increase financial assistance. In France, 37 percent wanted to give less, while only 24 percent preferred giving more. In the run-up to last week’s European Council meeting, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal had told POLITICO that European leaders were being handed an opportunity to rebut Trump’s claim that they’re weak. That by inking a deal to unlock hundreds of billions in frozen Russian assets, they would also be answering the U.S. president’s branding of Europe as a “decaying group of nations.” That, they failed to do.

Mark Ward is retired from the U.S. Foreign Service and worked for USAID for over 30 years. As news reports on the recent cyclone in Sri Lanka began pouring in, something caught my attention — something was missing from the reporting. Cyclone Ditwah has killed hundreds, destroying rice fields and rail lines over vast parts of the island, and the Sri Lankan government is still desperately trying to line up international aid. Closely following the coverage, I thought back to when I was one of the first in the U.S. government to receive alerts about natural disasters — no matter the hour. When I was head of the Asia Bureau for the U.S. Agency for International Development and later, head of its Disaster Assistance Office. I thought back to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that hit the day after Christmas in 2004, which Cyclone Ditwah is being compared to. At the time, the U.S. summoned all its assets, both military and civilian, to help four countries that had asked for assistance. The USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, raced to Indonesia and sat in the mist off the earthquake’s epicenter in Aceh. The disaster had rendered the airports on land unusable, and the “Gray Angel” — as survivors came to call this huge ship — provided a desperately needed deck for helicopters to load life-saving supplies and deliver them to villages otherwise cut off. Both USAID and the humanitarian organizations it funded were working on that deck. Civilians who knew what was needed were directing the military operation, and Top Guns, with their F-16s parked at the other end, were loading bags of rice and clean drinking water onto helicopters, asking me how they could join USAID. They said they were never so proud to be American. I thought back to 2006, when I received a Service to America Medal — they’re called SAMMIEs — for helping lead this U.S. response to one of the greatest natural disasters in history. I thought back to when we led. That’s when I realized what was missing from the news reports about the cyclone in Sri Lanka: There was nothing about America’s response — because there wasn’t one. The U.S. response to the 2004 disaster was extraordinary. Thanks to generous support from Congress, USAID’s efforts were unprecedented. And when I saw U.S. humanitarian organizations directing the helicopters on that deck, our military taking orders from them, I was awed by what we could accomplish when working together. But those dedicated, brave humanitarian workers — both Indonesian and American — are now out of work because our foreign aid program was cut by more than 80 percent earlier this year. Cyclone Ditwah has killed hundreds, destroying rice fields and rail lines over vast parts of the island, and the Sri Lankan government is still desperately trying to line up international aid. | R.Satish Babu/Getty Images In 2004, then-President George W. Bush saw the strategic importance of providing as much help as we could to a region critical to U.S. foreign policy. He directed USAID to pull out all the stops. He asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton to shelve their political differences and collaborate to help raise awareness and private funds. I then traveled with the two former presidents to Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and their message was clear: The U.S. doesn’t let politics stand in the way when disasters strike. Help is bipartisan. Help is American. We took them to visit USAID projects near the country’s devastated east coast, where our American and Sri Lankan staff proudly showed them how we were helping orphaned children in a beautiful camp under the palm trees. My team cheered when they saw Bush proudly wearing a USAID hat and as Clinton reminded everyone that the aid we provided was from the American people. Those children were in good hands, thanks to the expertise and compassion USAID brought. That team is out of work now. Ultimately, I stopped reminiscing and read more about Sri Lanka’s cyclone. The damage to farms and infrastructure is greater than what we saw two decades ago. But the U.S. is doing nothing. That’s what’s been missing from the articles. We were always there before. You could count on it. No matter who was in the Oval Office, no matter which party held the majority in Congress, you could count on America. Not anymore. Now, our foreign policy seems to be purely transactional. It asks, what’s in it for us? That’s bad luck for Sri Lanka — it doesn’t have any natural resources we need, like oil or critical minerals. Garments and tea aren’t strategic enough. But wait — if the Sri Lankan government needs our help, maybe it could create a new peace prize and offer it to our president. Maybe then we would lead again.

Laura Thornton is the senior director for democracy programs at the McCain Institute. She spent more than two decades in Asia and the former Soviet Union with the National Democratic Institute. Earlier this month, I spoke at a conference in Bucharest for Eastern Europe’s democracy activists and leaders. I was discussing foreign malign influence operations, particularly around elections, highlighting Russia’s hybrid war in Moldova, when a Hungarian participant pointed out that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered Hungary’s illiberal strongman Viktor Orbán a one-year reprieve for complying with U.S. sanctions for using Russian oil and gas. With Hungarian elections around the corner and this respite being a direct relief to Orbán’s economy, “Is that not election interference?” she asked. The next day, while at the Moldova Security Forum in Chișinău, a Polish government official expressed his deep concern about sharing intelligence with the current U.S. administration. While he had great respect for the embassy in Warsaw, he noted a lack of trust in some leaders in Washington and his worry that intelligence would get leaked, in the worst case to Russia — as had happened during Trump’s first term. My week came to an end at a two-day workshop for democracy activists, all who described the catastrophic impact that the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) elimination had on their work, whether that be protecting free and fair elections, combating disinformation campaigns or supporting independent media. “It’s not just about the money. It’s the loss of the U.S. as a democratic partner,” said one Georgian participant. Others then described how this withdrawal had been an extraordinary gift to Russia, China and other autocratic regimes, becoming a main focus of their disinformation campaigns. According to one Moldovan participant, “The U.S. has abandoned Moldova” was now a common Russian narrative, while Chinese messaging in the global south was also capitalizing on the end of USAID to paint Washington as an unreliable ally. Having spent a good deal of my career tracking malign foreign actors who undermine democracy around the world and coming up with strategies to defend against them, this was a rude reality check. I had to ask myself: “Wait, are we the bad guys?” It would be naive to suggest that the U.S. has always been a good faith actor, defending global democracy throughout its history. After all, America has meddled in many countries’ internal struggles, supporting leaders who didn’t have their people’s well-being or freedom in mind. But while it has fallen short in the past, there was always broad bipartisan agreement over what the U.S. should be: a reliable ally; a country that supports those less fortunate, stands up against tyranny worldwide and is a beacon of freedom for human rights defenders. America’s values and interests were viewed as intertwined — particularly the belief that a world with more free and open democracies would benefit the U.S. As the late Senator John McCain famously said: “Our interests are our values, and our values are our interests.” At the Moldova Security Forum in Chișinău, a Polish government official expressed his deep concern about sharing intelligence with the current U.S. administration. | Artur Widak/Getty Images I have proudly seen this born out in my work. I’ve lived in several countries that have had little to offer the U.S. with regards to trade, extractive industries or influence, and yet we supported their health, education and agriculture programs. We also stood up for defenders of democracy and freedom fighters around the world, with little material benefit to ourselves. I’ve worked with hundreds of foreign aid and NGO workers in my life, and I can say not one of them was in it for a “good trade deal” or to colonize resources. But today’s U.S. foreign policy has broken from this approach. It has abandoned the post-World War II consensus on allies and the value of defending freedom, instead revolving around transactions and deal-making, wielding tariffs to punish or reward, and defining allies based on financial benefit rather than shared democratic values. There are new ideological connections taking place as well — they’re just not the democratic alliances of the past. At the Munich Security Forum earlier this year, U.S. Vice President JD Vance chose to meet with the far-right Alternative for Germany party rather than then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Conservative Political Action Committee has also served as a transatlantic bridge to connect far-right movements in Europe to those in the U.S., providing a platform to strongmen like Orbán. The recently released U.S. National Security Strategy explicitly embraces this pivot away from values toward more transactional alliances, as well as a fondness for “patriotic European parties” and a call to “resist” the region’s “current trajectory” — a clear reference to the illiberal, far-right movements in Europe. Meanwhile, according to Harvard University’s school of public health, USAID’s closure has tragically caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, while simultaneously kneecapping the work of those fighting for freedom, human rights and democracy. And according to Moldovan organizations I’ve spoken with, while the EU and others continue to assist them in their fight against Russia’s hybrid attacks ahead of this year’s September elections, the American withdrawal is de facto helping the Kremlin’s efforts. It should have come as no surprise to me that our partners are worried and wondering whose side the U.S. is really on. But I also believe that while a country’s foreign policy often reflects the priorities and values of that nation as a whole, Americans can still find a way to shift this perception. Alliances aren’t only built nation-to-nation — they can take place at the subnational level, creating bonds between democratic cities or states in the U.S. with like-minded local governments elsewhere. Just like Budapest doesn’t reflect its anti-democratic national leadership, we can find connections and share lessons learned. Moreover, partnerships can be forged at the civil society level too. Many American democracy and civic organizations, journalists and foundations firmly believe in a pro-democracy U.S. foreign policy, and they want to build communities with democratic actors globally. At a meeting in Prague last month, a former German government official banged their hand on the table, emphatically stating: “The transatlantic relationship is dead!” And I get it. I understand that the democratic world may well be tempted to cut the U.S. off as an ally and partner. But to them I’d like to say that it’s not our democracy organizations, funding organizations and broader government that abandoned them when national leadership changed. Relationships can take on many shapes, layers and connections, and on both sides of the Atlantic, those in support of democracy must now find new creative avenues of cooperation and support. I hope our friends don’t give up on us so easily.

Steven Everts is the director of the EU Institute for Security Studies The intense diplomatic maneuvering to shape an endgame to the war in Ukraine has revealed a troubling reality: Even when it comes to its own security, the EU struggles to be a central player. The ongoing negotiations over Ukraine’s future — a conflict European leaders routinely describe as “existential” — are proceeding with minimal input from the bloc. And while others set the tone and direction, Europe remains reactive: managing the fallout, limiting the damage and hoping to recuperate its influence. This marginalization isn’t the result of a single decision or down to one person — no matter how consequential U.S. President Donald Trump may be. Rather, it reflects a deeper vulnerability and an unsettling pattern. Anyone looking at Europe’s choices in recent months can see a psychology of weakness. It paints the picture of a continent lacking courage, unable to take decisive action even when it comes to its core interests and when policy alternatives are within reach. Europe is losing confidence, sinking into fatalism and justifying its passivity with the soothing thought that it has no real choice, as its cards are weak. Besides, in the long run, things will work out. Just wait for the U.S. midterms. But will they? And can Europe afford to wait? Ukraine certainly cannot. Simply commenting on others’ peace plan drafts in some form of “track-changes diplomacy” isn’t enough. Decisions are needed, and they’re needed now. Europe is a continent of rich countries with ample capabilities. But while its leaders insist Ukraine’s security and success are essential to Europe’s own security and survival, its actual military assistance to Kyiv has declined in recent months. On the financial end, Europe is flunking the test it set for itself. Ukraine requires approximately €70 billion annually — and yes, this is a large sum, but it amounts to only 0.35 percent of the EU’s GDP. This is within Europe’s collective capacity. Yet for months now, member countries have been unable to agree on the mechanisms for using frozen Russian assets or suitable alternatives that could keep Ukraine afloat. Instead, we’ve seen dithering and the triumph of small thinking. It’s also rather telling that the U.S. attempt to simply impose how these assets are to be used, with 50 percent of the profits going to Washington instead of Kyiv, is finally jolting Europe into action. Regrettably, Europe’s psychology of weakness is equally visible in the economic domain, as the EU-U.S. trade agreement struck this July was a classic case of how frailty can masquerade as “pragmatism.” Brussels had the tools to respond to Washington’s tariffs and coercive measures, including counter-tariffs and its anti-coercion instrument. But under pressure from member countries fearful of broader U.S. disengagement from European security and Ukraine, it chose not to use them. The result was a one-sided “deal” with a 15 percent unilateral tariff, which breaks the World Trade Organization’s rules and obliges Europe to make energy purchases and investments in the U.S. worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even worse, the deal didn’t produce the stability advertised as its main benefit. Washington has since designated Europe’s energy transition measures and tech regulations as “trade barriers” and “taxes on U.S. companies,” signaling that further retaliatory steps may follow. Just last week, the U.S. upped the pressure once more, when its trade representatives met EU ministers and openly challenged existing EU rules on tech. Regrettably, Europe’s psychology of weakness is equally visible in the economic domain, as the EU-U.S. trade agreement struck this July was a classic case of how frailty can masquerade as “pragmatism.”. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images More than on defense, the EU is meant to be an economic and regulatory superpower. But despite decades of leveraging its economic weight for political purposes, the EU is now adrift, faced with a widening transatlantic power play over trade and technology. Similar patterns of retreat mark the EU’s actions in other areas as well. As Russia escalates its hybrid warfare operations against the bloc’s critical infrastructure, Europe’s response remains hesitant. As China dramatically weaponizes its export controls on critical mineral exports, Europe continues to respond late and without clear coordination. And in the Middle East, despite being one of the leading donors to Gaza, Europe is peripheral in shaping any ceasefire and reconstruction plans. In crisis after crisis, Europe’s role is not only small but shrinking still. The question is, when will Europeans decide they’ve had enough of this weakness and irrelevance? This is, above all, a matter of psychology, of believing in one’s capabilities, including the capacity to say “no.” But this is only possible if Europe invests in its ability to take major decisions together — through joint political authority and financial resources. There is no way out of this without investing in a stronger EU. This basic argument has been made a hundred times before. But while insisting on “more political will” among member countries is, indeed, right, it’s also too simplistic. We have to acknowledge that building a stronger EU also means having to give somethings up. But in return we will gain something essential: The ability to stand firm in a world of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This is both necessary and priceless.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote pamphleteer Thomas Paine in the dark days of December 1776, as America’s war to free itself of the British seemed doomed. In a bid to lift flagging spirits, he continued: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” That victory was sorely in doubt for much of the war, but the revolutionaries persevered, and with French assistance — which has often been downplayed since — they triumphed after eight years of brutish conflict. Ukraine’s struggle has been longer. In effect, the country has been fighting to be free of Russia since 2014, and right now, these times are, indeed, trying Ukrainian souls. As it stands, there is scant grounds for optimism that, for all its heroism, Ukraine can turn things around. The country is unlikely to emerge from its most perilous winter of the war in a stronger position, better able to withstand what’s being foisted upon it. In fact, it could be in a much weaker state — on the battlefield, the home front, and in terms of its internal politics. Indeed, as it tries to navigate its way through America’s divisive “peace plan,” this might be the best Ukraine can hope for — or at least some variation that doesn’t entail withdrawing from the territory in eastern Ukraine it has managed to retain. On the battlefield, Ukraine’s forces are currently hard pressed and numerically disadvantaged. Or, as lawmaker Mariana Bezuhla recently argued: “Ukrainian commanders simply can’t keep up” and are “being jerked around within a framework set by the enemy.” Meanwhile, on the home front, pummeling Russian drone attacks and airstrikes are degrading the country’s power system and wrecking its natural gas infrastructure, which keeps 60 percent of Ukrainians warm during the frigid winter months. The country is also running out of money. It’s hard to see a Europe mired in debt providing the $250 billion Kyiv will need in cash and arms to sustain the fight for another four years — and that’s on top of the $140 billion reparations loan that might be offered if Belgium lifts its veto on using Russia’s immobilized assets held in Brussels. If all that weren’t enough, Ukraine is being roiled by a massive corruption scandal that appears to implicate Ukrainian presidential insiders, sapping the confidence of allies and Ukrainians alike. It’s also providing those in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement with ammunition to argue that Washington should be done with Ukraine. And now, of course, Kyiv is having to cope with a contentious U.S. effort to end Russia’s war, which has been advanced in such a chaotic diplomatic process that it wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of “The West Wing.” At times, negotiations have descended into farce, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio forswearing the original peace plan one minute, saying it came from Russia and not a Trump administration proposal, only to swiftly backtrack. And earlier this week, a Reuters report suggested the 28-point plan was, in fact, modeled on a Russian proposal that Kremlin officials shared with their U.S. counterparts in mid-October. Meanwhile, on the home front, pummeling Russian drone attacks and airstrikes are degrading the country’s power system and wrecking its natural gas infrastructure. | Mykola Tys/EPA But for all the buffoonery — including reports that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff coached high-ranking Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov on how Russian President Vladimir Putin should speak to Trump — a tweaked 19-point version of the “peace plan” may well be the best Ukraine can realistically expect, even though it heavily favors Russia. As this column has argued before, a Ukrainian triumph was always unlikely — that is if by triumph one means the restoration of the country’s 1991 borders and NATO membership. This isn’t through any fault of Ukraine, the David in the fight against Goliath, but rather that of Kyiv’s Western allies, who were never clear-sighted or practical in their thinking, let alone ready to do what was necessary to defeat Russia’s revanchism and vanquish a Putin regime heedless of the death toll of even its own troops. Despite their high-blown rhetoric, at no stage in the conflict have Ukraine’s allies agreed on any clear war aims. Some pressed for a debate, among them former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who was worried about a mismatch between Western magniloquence and what the U.S. and Europe were actually prepared to do and give. “We talk about victory, and we talk about standing with Ukraine to the very end — but let’s also talk about this,” he told POLITICO in a 2023 interview. But that debate never happened because of fears it would disunite allies. Nonetheless, Western leaders continued to characterize the war as a contest between good and evil, with huge stakes for democracy. They cast it as a struggle not only for territory but between liberal and autocratic values, and as one with global consequences. But in that case, why be restrained in what you supply? Why hold back on long-range munitions and tanks? Why delay supplying F-16s? And why prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia? Or, as Ukraine’s former top commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny fumed in the Washington Post: “To save my people, why do I have to ask someone for permission what to do on enemy territory?” For former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, for all its talk of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes, the West never really grasped the war’s importance or consequences: “You cannot win a war where Russia clearly knows what its strategic goal is in every detail; [where] Ukraine knows what its strategic goal is in every detail; but [where] the West, without whom Ukraine cannot win, does not know what it is fighting for,” he told POLITICO last year. “This is the real tragedy of this war.” At times, negotiations have descended into farce, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio forswearing the original peace plan one minute, saying it came from Russia and not a Trump administration proposal, only to swiftly backtrack. | Martial Trezzini/EPA The currently discussed 19-point plan is, of course, an improvement on the original 28-point plan — nonetheless, it is an ugly and shameful one. But this is what happens if you run down your military forces and arms production for decades, fail to draw enforceable red lines and don’t ask hard questions before making grand promises. For Ukraine, such a poor deal that leaves it with weak security guarantees, without 20 percent of its territory and prohibits it from joining NATO, will have great domestic consequences and carry the high likelihood of civil strife. It isn’t hard to see how the army and its veterans might react. Many of them will see it as a stab in the back, an enraging betrayal that needs to be punished. It will also mean rewarding Putin’s thuggishness and no real accountability for the bestial nature of his army’s atrocious behavior or the unlawful, detestable deportations from occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia. And it will, no doubt, embolden the axis of autocrats. The American Revolution had lasting global consequences — so, too, will this war.