When we talk about the war in Ukraine, I agree with supporting the invaded country. Let my position be clear. However, to understand President Trump’s position, we must remember several factors.

First: The war has stalled, and Russia is advancing, even if I don’t like it. By early 2025, the Russian army controlled about 18% of Ukraine’s territory. It added 1,500 square miles over the course of 2024, almost twice the size of London.

Second: Sanctions against Russia have failed. I was the first to defend them, but I warned that if Asia didn’t join, they would fail. Between 2022 and 2024, Russia’s trade surplus has reached over $600 billion. Russian products are exported all over the world and in many cases, they are sold in the European Union via China or India.

Third: The European Union’s position with the United States cannot be one of indignation when it maintains growing strategic ties with China, Russia’s partner and ally “without limits” or when EU leaders speak of Putin as a murderous dictator but treat him as an uncomfortable partner.

The European Union’s position cannot be in confrontation with Trump. The EU excluded the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from sanctions. In 2024, EU imports of Russian liquefied natural gas reached a record $7 billion. France, Spain, and Belgium accounted for 85% of those. Spain has imported more than $8.9 billion of Russian liquefied natural gas since the beginning of the war, and the European Union nearly $21 billion.

Fourth: Almost 18% of Ukraine’s population is Russian, about 8.4 million people.

Fifth: President Trump’s position on Ukraine is not a shock or a surprise from a week ago. He clarified his stance on Ukraine more than a year ago, specifically in February 2024, and reiterated it throughout the campaign. European Union leaders assumed he would not win the elections by a wide margin and that, if he did, he would not fulfil his promises. The war in Ukraine has cost the American taxpayer more than $350 billion, and in the United States, this war is not perceived as we see it in European media.

Let’s not forget that the EU geopolitical “experts” told us that the war would be quick, that Ukraine would undoubtedly win it, and that sanctions would lead to Russia conceding defeat, and that the Russian people, with the help of the oligarchs, would oust Putin from power. Well, three years later, they must explain several things to us.

What is the “position of the European Union”? On paper, the European Union supports Ukraine unconditionally, yet it continues to purchase billions of dollars’ worth of Russian liquefied natural gas and maintains privileged relations with China, Putin’s key strategic partner.

The position of the European Union leaders seems to be to do nothing, let the United States pay for it, and complain because they are not considered in the decision process.

Moreover, if the European Union’s position is that the only solution is a resounding victory for Ukraine, the actions of its member states betray them. Waiting for the media to forget and conceal the victory is insufficient if the EU desires an unappealable outcome.

A total victory for Ukraine would only come with a continent-wide military and economic confrontation against Russia and China, and only if it ended in a victory for NATO.

According to Byron York, “European leaders are upset about their exclusion from the Ukraine talks. They feel their no-ideas-no-agreement-on-how-to-proceed-but-plenty-of-platitudes perspective would be a valuable part of the negotiation.”

The European Union policy is to entrench this war, stop talking about it, and have the US pay for it. Fascinating.

President Trump is following the mandate of the American voters. 77 million votes, all swing states, Congress, and the Senate. Trump’s voters and many of Harris’s do not see this war as something the taxpayer should fund. Why? The EU’s own actions contradict the apocalyptic image they portray to us.

European leaders talk about Putin as if he were Hitler but behave with him as if he were Brezhnev. And Americans don’t buy that narrative. In fact, politicians who accuse Trump of giving wings to Putin, which hasn’t happened, keep quiet in the face of evidence that they did give him wings and armour with their ductile sanctions.

Former British diplomat John Foreman explains in The Spectator that “Europe is now in panic because it has become accustomed to the comfort provided by the United States in terms of security, has not paid attention to what Trump has been saying, and has not adequately prepared for his second presidency. The consequences of this strategic miscalculation are beginning to become clear.”

While President Trump does not view Putin as a threat, he recognises China as one. Therefore, he understands the importance of halting the waste of taxpayer funds in a war that the EU ignores. He intends to use these funds to fortify the U.S. in other areas against China and to reach an agreement in Ukraine before the evidence threatens the country’s existence. Furthermore, he remains unflinching and understands that the failure to negotiate could lead to Europe’s downfall in the medium run. Chinese support shields Russia’s position. The indignant European leaders, who simultaneously embrace China, rarely mention that “small” detail.

President Trump’s remarks about Zelensky sound very aggressive in Europe. However, we must remember that Zelensky stopped the efforts to investigate Hunter Biden’s businesses in Ukraine and rejecting new elections may be accepted by the constitution, but, as Thomas Di Lorenzo, president of the Mises Institute, points out, it can be seen as a “constitutional dictatorship.”

“If Europe is obsessed with retreating to irrelevance through its local totalitarianism, economic stagnation, or getting into a continental war, American taxpayers are not obliged to help them,” Connor O’Keefe says in Mises, quite rightly.

President Trump has not conceded or given away anything. What he has done is wake up the oligarchic bureaucracy and offer a door to a realistic peace solution. The alternative was nothing.

The negotiation will be complex, tough, and, of course, it will be good for Ukraine, or it won’t happen. The alternative is the current condescension, incompetence, and inaction. If the European Union wants to think it’s winning the war and that it is relevant by sticking its head in a hole, making another summit of bureaucrats, and thinking that China is a friendly partner just passing by, that’s their problem. But Americans are not going to pay for it.