European leaders are bracing for tense talks with a US team, led by US Vice President JD Vance, at the 2025 Munich Security Conference.
Vance and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth embarked on a diplomatic blitz of Europe this week to deliver a stern warning from their boss, President Donald Trump. The message from Washington was stark: Europe must step up and contribute more to its own security as part of a rebalancing of transatlantic relations.
Ahead of meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, the new Pentagon chief hammered home the message, repeated oftentimes by Trump, that it was Europe’s responsibility to stop the Russian “war machine” and demanding that NATO countries increase their defence spending by 5 percent of GDP.
Hegseth went on to say that Ukraine’s stance, including its aim to join NATO, were “unrealistic” and said the US would not be part of any future force guaranteeing Kyiv’s security.
The NATO meeting in Brussels came a day after Trump made a shock diplomatic gesture to initiate his own Ukraine peace talks.
From the Oval Office, the US president made calls to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday. In his call to Putin, Trump promised to organise a bilateral meeting to expedite a Ukraine peace deal – infuriating European officials who were stunned to learn that the terms and conditions for ending the war on the continent were being negotiated without them.
EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas fired off a broadside, warning against a “dirty deal” being done “behind our backs”. French President Emmanuel Macron described Trump’s return to the White House as an “electroshock” that should force Europe to secure its own future as well as Ukraine’s.
In an interview with the Financial Times published Friday, Macron insisted that only Zelensky could negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf and warned that allowing “peace that is a capitulation” would be “bad news for everyone”.
Read moreMacron: ‘Peace that is a capitulation’ in Ukraine would be ‘bad news’ for all
A ‘stronger iteration’ of an old US position
The dizzying pace of the week’s events is likely to set the tone for what are expected to be tense talks at the Munich Security Conference, which takes place from February 14 to 16, with the Ukraine war at the heart of European concerns.
Richard Johnson, senior lecturer in US politics and policy at Queen Mary University of London and author of the book US Foreign Policy: Domestic Roots and International Impact, said the Trump administration was engaging in a starkly different approach to diplomacy.
“We’re quite accustomed to seeing diplomacy in terms of very carefully chosen language and moderation and tiptoeing around certain delicate questions, and that’s not the approach of this administration,” he explained. “But actors on the international stage know that what he’s saying is not necessarily fully set in stone.”
Johnson added that the Trump administration’s aim to “rebalance” EU relations was a call for Europe to evolve the relationship.
“What Vance is doing, what Trump is doing, is they are putting out starting negotiating positions. There will be some climb down I suspect,” he said. But Washington is likely to stick to its core message, explained Johnson, that if Europeans care about their own defence, “they have to be prepared to pay for it”.
Trump’s gripes over the EU’s over-reliance on the US for security are not new.
“None of this should come as a shock to anyone who listened to what Trump or JD Vance said before they were elected,” said Andrew Winner, adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Bologna, Italy.
“The US has a long history of wanting its allies to do more, especially on the collective defence front,” Winner added. “In the Reagan years, the US created an ambassador whose job was to go round to the European allies and get them to spend more money or do more for the common defence,” he noted.
“This has been a long conversation. It ebbs and flows depending on what’s going on in Europe. What you’re seeing here now is a stronger iteration.”
An enduring alliance under threat?
Established as a collective security alliance against the Soviet Union, NATO has endured since 1949. How the transatlantic alliance might shift in terms of shared contributions is likely to be played out beyond this week’s discussions.
Trump has set NATO members a mammoth target of spending 5 percent of GDP on defence, mostly to cover the blowout due to aid for Ukraine.
NATO chief Mark Rutte defended European contributions to the alliance, noting that last year NATO increased its share of spending on the Ukraine war effort from €40 billion to €50 billion, with Canada and Europe the biggest contributors.
What’s unclear is how the US would respond if European countries – many of whom have spent a decade trying to reach the current spending target of 2 percent of GDP – fall short of Trump’s new target. EU members could have difficulty finding additional funding, especially if economies already hobbled by inflation are slapped by new US tariffs.
“The question is how much less is the US going to do,” Winner said. “Is the US going to spend less on its contributions to NATO’s collective funds? Is the US going to reduce forces it has deployed on the ground in Europe?”
More importantly, Winner suggested, the US may choose to withdraw its forces deployed regularly to Europe and move them to other regions.
A ‘big ask’ for Europe
The 5 percent target would give the US “ongoing moral leverage” to keep pushing Europe to step up spending for its own security, said Johnson. It was part of a strategy “of demanding the impossible and then getting more in practice”, he explained.
Despite vocal protests from some European diplomats, Johnson said there are Europeans who would agree with Trump’s position.
“There is this perception that Europe has had to dance to the US tune for some time and sometimes that has meant countries have not been able to pursue a different path,” he said.
Whether the EU could afford to not step in line with US demands, especially if Washington threatens to cut its contributions to NATO, is not cut and dry.
“I wouldn’t say that NATO members can afford to take a fundamentally different tack to where their US partner wants to go, given the US is such a vital part of the alliance,” said Johnson.
But a US defence withdrawal from Europe, a continent linked to the Middle East and across the Mediterranean to Africa, would also carry a strategic cost for Washington.
“Trump’s demands can cut both ways,” Johnson explained. “Yes, it can save the US some money, but it will cost the US some influence over time.”
Meanwhile, expecting NATO’s European members to become Ukraine’s main security providers after being sidelined from peace negotiations with Russia would be a “big ask” for Europe, he added.
This could impact how Europeans manage negotiations at Munich, specifically how much they are likely to give in to US concessions on a Ukraine peace deal and on European defence spending.
The bigger challenge of Russia
As Ukraine prepares to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, a grim milestone in the country’s troubled history with its giant neighbour, Zelensky has been forced to soften his position on peace terms.
On Wednesday, Zelensky offered to swap areas captured by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region in a territorial exchange with Russia. The Kremlin rejected the offer.
Trump, who boasted he would end the war within 24 hours of assuming office, has now effectively granted Putin even more leverage, while leaving the Europeans on the negotiating sidelines.
Putin has already begun to use these gains.
The Kremlin has doubled down on Kyiv, insisting it drop its ambitions for NATO membership and withdraw its troops from the entirety of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow. On Thursday, it added it wanted broader European security – suggesting a review of how NATO operates – to be on the agenda of any future negotiations on a Ukraine peace deal.
At his meeting with Zelensky in Munich, Vance is expected to pressure the Ukrainian leader to accept peace negotiations on terms more favourable to the US – a move that will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from EU delegates.
According to Winner, that could also involve asking Ukraine what it is willing to give up in return for US support in some form. Freezing aid already approved by Congress may be legally difficult, but the US could make changes to its budget in September and abandon requests for any new aid to Ukraine.
“Right now, Russia thinks it has the upper hand and time is on its side”, Winner said.
Beyond the war in Ukraine, Russia has become a bigger threat to Europe, argues Johnson.
“It’s about Russia’s interest in destabilising the institutions of liberal international order,” he said. “The ideals underpinning the European project are always being challenged. And that is in itself a threat to European security.”
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