US President Donald Trump said Washington has spent $200 billion more on supporting Ukraine than other NATO members, adding that other countries in the bloc would have to “equalize.” In effect, Trump wants Europe to take more responsibility for its defence so that he may allocate more resources and attention to China, which is also why he is threatening a new wave of sanctions on Russia if a “deal” is not quickly reached.
“NATO has to pay more money. NATO has to pay 5 percent. We are in the Ukraine war by $200 billion more than NATO,” the new US president told reporters in the Oval Office on January 21.
According to the US president, this figure seems “ridiculous” because the Ukrainian conflict affects the European member countries of the warring bloc more than the US.
“We have an ocean in between,” he stressed, adding that the bloc members need Washington, not vice versa.
“They need us much more than we need them. We don’t need them, they need us. Everybody needs us,” he said.
When asked about the situation in the conflict zone in Ukraine in the context of his promise to resolve it “in 24 hours,” Trump humorously replied, “I have another half day left. We’ll see. We want to get it done.”
In a statement posted to his Truth Social platform a day later, Trump said he was “not looking to hurt Russia” and expressed “love” for the Russian people and highlighted his “very good relationship” with Putin but also threatened Russia with tariffs and further sanctions if a “deal” was not quickly reached to end the war.
“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way – and the easy way is always better.”
During his election campaign, the Republican and representatives of his team criticized former US President Joe Biden (2021-2025) for having encouraged the large-scale armed conflict in Ukraine and uncontrolled aid to Kiev. For its part, Moscow has repeatedly stated that it does not reject peace negotiations on Ukraine, but with the legitimate authorities of that country and taking into account the realities on the front line, as well as the will of the inhabitants of the former Ukrainian regions who chose reunification with Russia during referendums.
Trump and the Russian president are expected to meet soon, and Moscow has already welcomed the US president’s desire to restore direct contact. In this light, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must have been the first person to panic after the announcement of Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
In effect, Trump wants Europe to take more responsibility for its defence so that China can become the central issue in the first year of his new mandate. China already has almost a third of the world’s industrial production, an unprecedented figure for world trade. This gives an idea of the size of the challenge for the US under Trump in dealing with China. In this sense, Trump will increase pressure on the Asian giant as pressure on Russia slowly alleviates.
In anticipation of tensions, the Chinese embassy in Washington said there would be no winners in the US tariff war and called on Trump to comply with international trade rules after he threatened to trigger more tariffs on Chinese goods on February 1.
“There will be no winner in trade wars between China and the US,” Liu Pengyu, the diplomatic mission’s spokesman, said on January 21 before urging the Trump administration to create a favourable trade and economic cooperation climate between the two powers.
Trump has previously said he’d “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” with European allies if they “don’t pay” to boost their defence spending. Moscow has made it equivocally clear that it has no interest in war with NATO, something Trump knows, but his assertion was to coerce the European members of the bloc to increase spending, especially as the US president’s attention is on challenging China’s rise, the true threat to US hegemony.
The European Commission claims to be ready for any provocations, but the biggest impact on Europe could come if Trump launches an aggressive trade war against Beijing. This could result in supply chain disruptions for Europe, and China could dump even more cheap products on European markets to the detriment of local businesses. In this way, it can be observed that Trump has minimal regard for Europe, whether it be their defence or the impacts that a trade war with China could have on the Old Continent.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: President Joe Biden travels to Kyiv, Ukraine Monday, February 20, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
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