Trump's Pivot to Putin

America has switched sides. What now?

by Elise Labott, an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

The imagery on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine couldn't have been more stark: European capitals illuminated landmarks in Ukraine's blue and yellow while, at the United Nations, America voted against a resolution condemning Russian aggression. The symbolism was unmistakable – and profoundly alarming to European capitals. America had quite literally switched sides.

The geopolitical earthquake set the stage for this week's frantic European damage control operation. French President Emmanuel Macron arrived at the White House Monday, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to follow on Thursday, in what amounts to a last-ditch effort to salvage what remains of the transatlantic alliance. Their diplomatic playbook is clear: flatter Trump personally while desperately trying to secure some vestige of America's seven-decade security commitment to Europe, along with Ukrainian sovereignty.

Macron performed an elaborate diplomatic ballet. Standing beside Trump in the White House East Room, the French leader called him "dear Donald" and repeatedly emphasized "friendship" while trying to inject strategic reality, stressing a negotiated peace "must not mean a surrender of Ukraine."

Trump's response? An announcement that he's in "serious discussions" with Putin about "major economic development transactions" – effectively shredding America's policy of isolating Russia.

Trump even suggested he might visit Moscow if a peace deal were reached, which would make him the first American president to visit Russia in more than a decade and provide a massive diplomatic victory for Putin.

By keeping both Ukraine and other European allies away from the negotiating table, the US has signaled they have no say in deciding the outcome of the war. What happens will be decided by Trump and Putin.

It's reminiscent of the Yalta Conference of 1945, where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt effectively carved up Europe into spheres of influence, deciding the fate of smaller nations without their input. The message is clear: great powers make the rules, and smaller countries live with the consequences.

In the span of just three weeks, Trump has radically rewritten American foreign policy, embracing a Russian narrative that would have been unthinkable just months ago. His insistence that Ukraine "started the war" and his description of Zelensky as a "dictator without elections" aren't just throwaway comments – they represent a wholesale adoption of Putin's revisionist history.

Even Trump's most loyal Republican allies are grappling with this position. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy offered a stark contrast to the White House messaging, calling Putin "a gangster with a black heart" who "makes Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mother Teresa."

Other Republican senators performed elaborate verbal gymnastics, with Senate Minority Whip John Thune saying "the president speaks for himself" and Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton literally running away from reporters, twice taking wrong turns to avoid cameras.

This shift in allegiance reached its symbolic peak Monday at the United Nations, where America found itself voting with Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The US even tried to kill Ukraine's resolution condemning Russian aggression before voting against it.

Trump's pivot to Putin isn't entirely new – it began during his first term. But what's different now is how complete and unabashed that pivot has become. From falsely claiming Ukraine started the war to exploring economic partnerships with Russia while Ukraine still burns, Trump has abandoned even the pretense of holding Russia accountable.

The irony is that Donald Trump's "America First" approach may accomplish what decades of gentle EU encouragement never could: forcing Europe to develop genuine strategic autonomy.

For Germany's next chancellor Friedrich Merz, a pro-business conservative who built his career supporting the transatlantic alliance, the situation demands a response he likely never dreamed he’d give: "It is clear that the Americans, at least this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

Merz is now even questioning NATO's very future: "I am very curious to see how we are heading toward the NATO summit at the end of June," he said. "Whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly."

This existential crisis extends beyond diplomatic disagreements or European paranoia. Trump's Pentagon is reportedly planning to divert resources away from European security toward China, scaling back the European Deterrence Initiative that has been central to NATO's eastern flank deterrence since Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

The practical reality is sobering. Approximately 100,000 U.S. troops are stationed across Europe, with most in Germany. If these forces were withdrawn, Europe would face a security vacuum experts say it's unprepared to fill.

"Europeans are already one foot into a scenario where there won't even be U.S. forces in Europe. It'll be just them," warns Jim Townsend, a former top Pentagon official who recently told POLITICO. Europe, he warns, "is now looking into the abyss."

So is Trump's approach a gift, a wake-up call, or a burden for Europe? In many ways, it's all three.

It's certainly a wake-up call. Nothing focuses the mind like watching your security guarantor chatting amiably with your adversary. As German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock put it, "This is an existential moment and it's a moment where Europe has to stand up."

And it's undeniably a burden, forcing rapid and expensive adjustments when European economies are already struggling. One estimate found that Europe would need hundreds of thousands of new troops and at least $260 billion more in defense funding to credibly deter Russia without American backing.

But it's also a gift in that it has created clarity where ambiguity persisted for decades. The comfortable fiction that America would always be there has been shattered.

"We were free riding. There was free riding in Europe," Sir Alex Younger, former head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service said in an interview with the BBC. Trump, he admitted, wasn't wrong about everything. "But there's a vast difference between pushing allies to contribute more within an alliance structure and abandoning them to their own devices while pivoting toward their adversary."

Yet Younger offers a more optimistic assessment about Europe's ability to meet the moment: "The reason we don't need to be that worried is we are 10 times richer as European NATO than Russia," he said. "We absolutely have the capability to build up the necessary military forces to resist this."

The question isn't whether Europe should pursue strategic autonomy – it must. The real questions are how quickly it can build those capabilities, at what cost, and whether the transatlantic alliance can survive this transition in any recognizable form. What happens when Europe finally puts on its big-boy pants and develops the hard power needed for self-defense? Will that repair the alliance or render America superfluous?

For a continent that has known peace largely under the American security umbrella, these are profound challenges. But as Trump's team pivots to the Indo-Pacific and Macron acknowledges that "Europe must take on more responsibility," the question is no longer whether European strategic autonomy will happen, but how quickly it can be achieved – and at what cost to the relationship that has underpinned global security for generations.

The post-Cold War peace dividend has ended. Europe's military adolescence may have just come to an abrupt close.