Alwaght- In September 1938, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany reached "Munich Agreement" that victimized Czechoslovakia and prepared the ground for the Second World War. By chance, history is repeating itself these days and this time in the atmosphere of the annual Munich Security Conference— which is called by many countries the "conspiracy conference" — the Westerners are stabbing in the back another country in Eastern Europe.
The storm of verbal clash between American and European leaders that sparked at the Munich Security Conference has not yet subsided and is crumbling the foundations of the trans-Atlantic alliance, especially over the issue of Ukraine, to the extent that on the third anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war, the US voted for the first time against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia as an "aggressor."
While Europeans had not yet recovered from the shock of the Munich Security Conference, the revelation of the secret meeting of the American and Russian delegations 1,000 kilometers away in Saudi Arabia and the agreement to de-escalate made them fully aware of the risk of facing a new moment of Yalta, where a few months before the end of the WWII, the leaders of the US, the Soviet Union, and Britain in the Crimean Peninsula drew up a new security framework for Europe and the world by dividing the geopolitical map and spheres of influence after the war.
Trump and redefinition of the trans-Atlantic relations
The differences and, even we can say the confrontation, between the US and Europe over Ukraine under Trump is indeed itself only part of a major equation about cleavage in approach and priorities of the two sides in security, economy, politics, and geopolitics. The US withdrawal from the treaties and multilateral mechanisms on which the Europeans strictly insist, like the Paris climate agreement, the World Health Organization, and UNESCO, as well as threatening to slap new trade tariffs on Europe and backing rise of right-wing European parties through Elon Musk, and even threatening to seize Greenland from Danmark as a NATO member are hallmarks of this major equation.
The US Vice President JD Vance’s remarks on the opening day of the Munich Security Conference provided a good overview of these deep divisions, where he repeatedly raised the dubious question of whether the US and Europe still have a common agenda, citing domestic gaps on issues such as the failure to curb illegal immigration, the suppression of freedom of speech and religion, and other issues as “real threats to Europe.”
Even on his first trip to Europe as vice president, Vance ignored diplomatic protocols and declined a formal invitation to meet with the German Chancellor, instead holding a 30-minute private meeting with Alice Weidel, the leader of the far-right opposition party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).
All these show that a month after his comeback to power, Trump has begun to change the political and geopolitical landscape of Europe, radically change trans-Atlantic relations, and recalibrate the US role in the international security system and the power balance.
For Trump and the American center-right, the European liberal democracies are not friends, but potential enemies for their internal plans. Regime change in these countries is part of a new hegemonic strategy that combines the expansion of plenipotentiary power with a cultural counter-revolution.
In this situation, Washington will not spend except to advance its security, economic, and geopolitical interests and priorities, and its allies around the world, and even NATO, must pay the price for military, political, and economic support. In this regard, Trump has repeatedly stated that European countries should increase their share of NATO spending by increasing the defense budget to 5 percent of GDP, and that the war in Ukraine and the threat from Russia are more a matter for European countries than for the US, and Washington should not have gotten involved in this conflict and shouldered its costs to such extent.
Taking this approach has led to the point where Trump is now demanding the privilege of exploiting Ukraine's rare mines, equivalent to $500 billion, in exchange for continued military support to the country.
Reverse Nixon theory: Penetrating the danger triangle
The US's Ukraine war approach shift should not be limited to the case of differences with Europe. Rather, it has to do with Trump's priority of concentration on China. This gives the US breathing room to rebuild its power and focus on India and Pacific Ocean and boost its military presence and bilateral and multilateral security alliances like AUKUS in the face of China.
Over the past 45 years, the EU’s share of global GDP has fallen from 27 percent to 14.5 percent, while China’s has risen from 2 percent to 19 percent. In 1960, Europe accounted for 20 percent of the world’s population, but today it accounts for just 9 percent. Europe has literally lost its value and weight as a strategic partner for the US.
In contrast, China is rapidly beefing up its economic position in the world to take on the US superpower status and end the West’s political and economic hegemony. For years, China has become the most significant threat to the American position, with its unstoppable economic growth and use of economic leverage to expand its network of political allies and geopolitical influence in the world. It is no wonder that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsetg said during a recent meeting with European leaders that Washington has prioritized “deterring war with China.”
China has assumed the economic leadership of the most important alternative international organizations to the Western-dominated economic order, organizations such as Shanghai and BRICS, in which emerging powers in the Global South seek to redraw the rules of the international system based on new realities and confront Western unilateralism. The BRICS decision to de-dollarize its transactions, which is a response to the US weaponization of the dollar for economic pressure on competitors in geopolitical issues, has rattled Trump, to the point that he threatened these countries with heavy tariffs.
Meanwhile, Trump has seen the war in Ukraine and the imposition of extensive sanctions against Russia as a cause for the expansion of the alliance and closer proximity of US main rivals, Russia, China, and Iran, in all areas, which could lead to the weakening of Washington's leverage over each of them— a policy that Richard Nixon pursued during the Cold War by making concessions to China in order to isolate the Soviet Union.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, recently said that Washington wants to push Moscow toward actions that could include disrupting its alliance with China and others. Vice President JD Vance has said that “a Russia-China alliance is not in Moscow’s interest.”
For this reason and while most of the Western strategists saw no hope for Ukraine to reclaim territories it lost to Russia with war continuation, Trump is seizing the opportunity and trying to rebuild relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin before Ukraine totally loses the war on the ground.
But the Russian leader knows very well that even if Trump and his team are seeking to mend ties to the pre-war levels, the complications of the American political structure put powerful obstacles whose removal is beyond powers of the president. For example, lifting Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) requires the Congress green light and even despite the majority is held by the Republicans, the Congress in not in favor of sanctions relief, and perhaps with possible return of the Democrats in 2026 or winning the 2028 elections by another figure, all Trump's plans will be shattered.
Additionally, China, Russia, and Iran's long leap forward to expansion of all-out cooperation rests on the strategic agreements that signal a thorough and long-term view among the political elites and ruling bodies of these countries which is not easy to separate.
