What if we turned the question around? What if, for a moment, we stopped asking ourselves ‘what can Europe do?’ and instead asked what Trump can do after he attacked Volodymyr Zelenski in the Oval Office.

To force the Ukrainians to accept the annexation of some 20% of their territory without the United States even offering them a security guarantee, the American president can obviously cut off all military and financial aid to them.

Not only is he threatening to do so, but he already did so last year when he ordered the Republican majority in the House to prevent Ukraine from receiving a single dollar or weapon from the United States. This lasted six months, but the Ukrainians held out and the Trumpists had to end up lifting their blockade.

Subject to the same pressure, Ukraine could held out once again, as it produces more and more weapons and the Europeans would deliver them, too, in large numbers. Here again, because it could last a long time, the game would not be won in advance for Donald Trump, who could therefore choose to immediately deprive the Ukrainians of access to American intelligence.

This is his ultimate weapon. European aid or not, heroism or not, the Ukrainians would be virtually powerless to ward off Russian strikes against their front lines, their cities and their infrastructure. They would not be able to resist for long, but in the eyes of the world, it would be the American president who would have ensured the Russian president’s victory, which he had been unable to achieve since the day his troops entered Ukraine.

In Europe as in Asia, the United States’ allies would lose what little confidence they still have in the US. China might think it has carte blanche to invade Taiwan and impose its diktats on its neighbours. Nothing would prevent Russia from annexing the whole of Ukraine before attacking Moldova and the Baltic States. India, Brazil, Turkey and many other countries would move closer to Europe as Canada is already doing, and this diplomatic fiasco, from which America would have absolutely nothing to gain, would considerably weaken Trump and his friends on their domestic scene.

On Friday, Donald Trump drove himself into a dead end and considerably isolated himself because, apart from Moscow, no capital has approved his attitude. The mistake he has made here is huge. It is certainly not in his interest to persist in playing the Kremlin’s stooge and everything must be done to make him see the dangers and find common ground between Americans, Europeans and Ukrainians.

This is the first of two tasks for the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway and even Turkey. As they resolved to do in London on Sunday, the Europeans must increase their aid to Ukraine, ensure its duration, make proposals for a common diplomatic approach to Donald Trump and thus obtain his agreement to grant US air protection to the troops that the Europeans would deploy in Ukraine after the signing of a peace agreement.

It is not unrealistic, certainly not easy but possible, and at the same time the European Union must accelerate its progress towards the establishment of a common defence by coordinating its arms production and extending the French nuclear umbrella to those of the 27 who request it, as Germany has just done.

This is its second task and it will not be done overnight. It will take several years until the French strike force can protect the Union as the American nuclear force protected the entire Atlantic Alliance. It will also take more than a snap of the fingers to set up pan-European armaments companies, but Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and their imperialisms have now ingrained a European political will to equip themselves with a common defence and find the means to finance it.

The train has left the station. A new European Union is emerging before our eyes, and its 450 million citizens, its wealth and its allies will soon carry enough weight on the new world stage so that we no longer ask ourselves: ‘What can Europe do?’.

(Photo: President.gov.ua 2019)