The Trump administration: A bitter medicine for Europe?

US Vice-President JD Vance’s speech in Munich, which critically assessed years of extreme leftist influences in the UK and Europe, will go down in history. With its rigorous logic, clear facts and sharp rhetoric, it left the so-called elite in the audience ashen-faced.

When decay sets in, pests follow. Western leftists immediately tried to divert attention, accusing US President Donald Trump of preparing to betray Ukraine and likening him to another Neville Chamberlain.

But who is truly pursuing appeasement? Let’s look at the latest figures: In 2024, the UK and the EU imported 16 million tons of Russian natural gas — 2 million tons more than the previous year — amounting to 357 million cubic metres. Wait — wasn’t the West supposed to be sanctioning Russia? If Putin is a war criminal, then Britain and the EU are delivering profits to a war criminal every day. Ask yourselves: during World War II, did Churchill buy German cars and machinery?

As of today, Ukraine has not yet lost the war, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s troops continue to fight bravely on the front lines. If Britain, France, and Germany were sincere about aiding Ukraine militarily — including sending troops — they could immediately expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.  

On 27 March 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not rule out sending French troops to Ukraine. On 16 February, British Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK would deploy peacekeeping forces to Ukraine “if necessary”.  

Trump and Vance’s position is clear: stop the empty talk and take real action.

But Britain and Europe do not dare. The US has already done enough. Remember, at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war when Ukraine first sought aid from Germany? Despite making substantial profits from the Chinese car market, Germany was only willing to donate a batch of helmets.

Trump and Vance are merely reminding the EU of a basic reality: there is no such thing as a free lunch forever.  

As for Ukraine, this situation is reminiscent of the ancient Chinese story of “returning the jade to Zhao”. In that tale, Minister Lin Xiangru of the State of Zhao during the Warring States Period carried a priceless jade ring to negotiate with the powerful and untrustworthy King of Qin, who had promised to trade fifteen cities for the treasure. Knowing Qin would likely seize the jade without honouring the deal, Lin Xiangru threatened to destroy both the jade and himself, forcing the King of Qin to back down. In the end, both sides walked away peacefully, and Zhao retained the jade intact.

In this analogy, Trump is to Ukraine what Lin Xiangru was to the jade — employing an unpredictable, strategic retreat to advance. At first, it may appear that Trump and Putin have been making secret deals; but the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently said that Europe and Ukraine will inevitably participate in real negotiations.  

Trump is a master of psychological negotiations in the marketplace. The so-called “elite” are greedy, selfish, and cowardly. If they truly want to save Ukraine for their own security and despise Trump so much, the solution is simple — the EU should declare that it does not need Trump’s America to negotiate peace; Germany, France, and the UK should take the lead themselves. The current NATO secretary-general is a former Dutch foreign minister — he is European. Let Europe announce that the EU will not welcome US involvement in European affairs as long as Trump is president.

Germany should urgently amend its constitution (as Japan follows suit to rebuild its military). Using North Korea’s military involvement in Ukraine as justification, France should fulfil its promise to send troops. The UK should immediately deploy its own forces and act like a real leader.  

If they do all this, Trump will naturally respect them.

Unfortunately, the EU has long behaved like a eunuch — neither masculine nor decisive. “You cannot serve both God and money.” They want China’s market and investments and rely on Huawei, yet they hate Trump and his American supporters. If they now face a Russia-China alliance swallowing Ukraine, they can deal with it themselves.

Trump hasn’t even officially started negotiations yet — he has merely thrown out an initial rock-bottom price, akin to destroying the jade. If they are shocked and don’t like it, they must come to the table and make a counter-offer.

For example: if Trump says he “wants” half of Ukraine’s rare earth resources, including lithium (which is abundant in Donbas, eastern Ukraine), Zelenskyy could respond: “If you can reclaim eastern Ukraine, all the rare earth mining rights there will go to American companies — not just rare earths, but coal too, plus contracts for Kyiv’s reconstruction.”

After all, history offers precedents for such deals. When Sun Yat-sen sought funding from Japan to overthrow the Qing dynasty, he privately assured Japanese politicians that his goal was simply to “expel the Manchus and restore the Han”, since Manchuria was never part of the Ming dynasty’s territory.

As early as 1898, Sun told Japanese writer and activist Uchida Ryōhei that the Chinese revolution aimed to eradicate the Manchus and revive Han rule, even saying that if the revolution succeeded, it would not be impossible to cede Manchuria, Mongolia and Siberia to Japan.

By 3 February 1912, as his financial situation reached the brink, Sun met in Nanjing with Mitsui & Co. representative Mori Tsutomu (Mori Kaku) to discuss leasing Manchuria to Japan. The core of the discussion was that Japan saw “preserving Manchuria” as crucial for national security and East Asian stability, something China could not achieve alone. In return for leasing Manchuria to Japan, Sun’s revolutionary government would receive “special assistance” — including an immediate cash loan of 20 million yen.

There are rare earths in Ukraine, just as there are forests and coal mines in Manchuria. Politics is business. From Lin Xiangru to Sun Yat-sen, it has always been about making deals — so Zelenskyy should see it that way, too. (NB: Reports indicate that on 25 February, Kyiv and Washington reached a minerals deal that Ukrainian officials hope will strengthen ties with the Trump administration and lead to a long-term US security commitment.)

Of course, Russia is not trustworthy. But can Ukraine trust the EU? If the EU were truly reliable, why hasn’t Ukraine already been admitted? Why did the EU stand by and do nothing when Putin invaded Crimea?  

This is no different from Chiang Kai-shek’s deep resentment toward Britain, as recorded in his diaries. When Japan seized Manchuria and expanded into northern China, the League of Nations, led by Britain, did nothing but issue weak condemnations. The British had the power to intervene but chose to stand aside — until a decade later, when Japanese forces advanced into Southeast Asia and occupied British Hong Kong and Britain finally tasted its own suffering.  

If Ukraine expects America to save it, then Zelenskyy cannot afford to curse Trump the way Chiang Kai-shek cursed Roosevelt.  

Even if we take a moral approach and assume that Europe wants the US to “charitably” save it, then European leaders and Britain’s leftist governments should at least show some respect to Trump, who upholds core Western values, opposes the Islamisation of Europe, and defends Christian family values.

You cannot endlessly insult your benefactor while expecting him to keep writing checks, like how the World Health Organization’s Ethiopian director-general, Tedros Adhanom, treats the US as his personal ATM.  

Trump’s strategy is both real and deceptive. He is provoking the EU, which he despises, while also testing Zelenskyy. This is a rare opportunity. Even Sun Yat-sen, China’s revolutionary hero and “Father of the Nation”, openly sold off territory in exchange for victory — history has plenty of precedents.  

After all, Manchuria was never truly part of China before the Tang and Song dynasties — going back through the Wei, Jin, Qin, and Han periods, and even to the legendary times of the Yellow Emperor, Chi You, and Yu the Great’s flood control efforts, it was never under Han rule.

Now, Starmer is finally learning to be pragmatic, but EU elites are still throwing tantrums. These so-called experts do not understand real politics, even though many of them hold PhDs in it.  

So the question is: would you rather entrust the world’s future to these people — who push gender fluidity, promote the Islamisation of Europe, and widen the gap between rich and poor under the excuse of globalisation? Or would you rather let Trump slap them around a little and give Vance’s generation a chance to lead?

Related: JD Vance’s Munich speech: A shift in Europe-US relations? | Does Europe have strategic autonomy?