Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Russia’s reaction to America’s gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela has been rather tame by the Kremlin’s standards, with a pro forma feel to it. The foreign ministry has come out with standard language, issuing statements about “blatant neocolonial threats and external armed aggression.” To be sure, it demanded the U.S. release the captured Nicolás Maduro, and the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev dubbed the whole business “unlawful” — but his remarks also contained a hint of admiration. Medvedev talked of U.S. President Donald Trump’s consistency and how he is forthrightly defending America’s national interests. Significantly, too, Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to comment directly on the snatching of his erstwhile ally. Nor did the Kremlin miss a beat in endorsing former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as Venezuela’s interim leader, doing so just two days after Maduro was whisked off to a jail cell in New York. Overall, one would have expected a much bigger reaction. After all, Putin’s alliance with Venezuela stretches back to 2005, when he embraced Maduro’s boss Hugo Chávez. The two countries signed a series of cooperation agreements in 2018; Russia sold Venezuela military equipment worth billions of dollars; and the relationship warmed up with provocative joint military exercises. “The unipolar world is collapsing and finishing in all aspects, and the alliance with Russia is part of that effort to build a multipolar world,” Maduro announced at the time. From 2006 to 2019, Moscow extended $17 billion in loans and credit to Venezuela. So why the current rhetorical restraint? Seems it may all be about bargaining — at least for the Kremlin. Moscow likely has no wish to rock the boat with Washington over Venezuela while it’s actively competing with Kyiv for Trump’s good graces. Better he lose patience with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and toss him out of the boat rather than Putin. Plus, Russia probably has zero interest in advertising a hitherto successful armed intervention in Ukraine that would only highlight its own impotence in Latin America and its inability to protect its erstwhile ally. Indeed, there are grounds to suspect the Kremlin must have found Maduro’s surgically executed removal and its stunning display of U.S. hard power quite galling. As POLITICO reported last week, Russia’s ultranationalists and hard-line militarists certainly did: “All of Russia is asking itself why we don’t deal with our enemies in a similar way,” posted neo-imperialist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, counseling Russia to do it “like Trump, do it better than Trump. And faster.” Even Kremlin mouthpiece Margarita Simonyan conceded there was reason to “be jealous.” Indeed, there are grounds to suspect the Kremlin must have found Maduro’s surgically executed removal and its stunning display of U.S. hard power quite galling. | Boris Vergara/EPA From Russia’s perspective, this is an understandable sentiment — especially considering that Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine was likely conceived as a quick decapitation mission aimed at removing Zelenskyy and installing a pro-Kremlin satrap in his place. Four years on, however, there’s no end in sight. It’s essentially a demonstration of America’s military might that highlights the limits of Russia’s military effectiveness. So, why draw attention to it? However, according to Bobo Lo — former deputy head of the Australia mission in Moscow and author of “Russia and the New World Disorder” — there are other explanations for the rhetorical restraint. “Maduro’s removal is quite embarrassing but, let’s be honest, Latin America is the least important area for Russian foreign policy,” he said. Besides, the U.S. operation has “a number of unintended but generally positive consequences for the Kremlin. It takes the attention away from the conflict in Ukraine and reduces the pressure on Putin to make any concessions whatsoever. It legitimizes the use of force in the pursuit of vital national interests or spheres of influence. And it delegitimizes the liberal notion of a rules-based international order,” he explained. Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institute who oversaw European and Russian affairs at the White House for part of Trump’s first term, echoed these thoughts: “Russia will simply exploit Trump’s use of force in Venezuela — and his determination to rule the country from afar — to argue that if America can be aggressive in its backyard, likewise for Russia in its ‘near abroad.’” Indeed, as far back as 2019, Hill told a congressional panel the Kremlin had signaled that when it comes to Venezuela and Ukraine, it would be ready to do a swap. This all sounds like two mob bosses indirectly haggling over the division of territory through their henchmen and actions. For the Kremlin, the key result of Venezuela is “not the loss of an ally but the consolidation of a new logic in U.S. foreign policy under the Trump administration — one that prioritizes force and national interests over international law,” noted longtime Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s New Eurasian Strategies Center. “For all the reputational damage and some minor immediate economic losses, the Kremlin has reason, on balance, to be satisfied with recent developments: Through his actions, Trump has, in effect, endorsed a model of world order in which force takes precedence over international law.” And since Maduro’s ouster, Trump’s aides have only made that clearer. While explaining why the U.S. needs to own Greenland, regardless of what Greenlanders, Denmark or anyone else thinks, influential White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” Now that’s language Putin understands. Let the bargaining begin — starting with Iran.

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He posts at @Mij_Europe. 2026 is here, and Europe is under siege. External pressure from Russia is mounting in Ukraine, China is undermining the EU’s industrial base, and the U.S. — now effectively threatening to annex the territory of a NATO ally — is undermining the EU’s multilateral rule book, which appears increasingly outdated in a far more transactional and less cooperative world. And none of this shows signs of slowing down. In fact, in the year ahead, the steady erosion of the norms Europe has come to rely on will only be compounded by the bloc’s weak leadership — especially in the so-called “E3” nations of Germany, France and the U.K. Looking forward, the greatest existential risks for Europe will flow from the transatlantic relationship. For the bloc’s leaders, keeping the U.S. invested in the war in Ukraine was the key goal for 2025. And the best possible outcome for 2026 will be a continuation of the ad-hoc diplomacy and transactionalism that has defined the last 12 months. However, if new threats emerge in this relationship — especially regarding Greenland — this balancing act may be impossible. The year also starts with no sign of any concessions from Russia when it comes to its ceasefire demands, or any willingness to accept the terms of the 20-point U.S.-EU-Ukraine plan. This is because Russian President Vladimir Putin is calculating that Ukraine’s military situation will further deteriorate, forcing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to capitulate to territorial demands. I believe Putin is wrong — that backed by Europe, Zelenskyy will continue to resist U.S. pressure on territorial concessions, and instead, increasingly target Russian energy production and exports in addition to resisting along the frontline. Of course, this means Russian aerial attacks against Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure will also increase in kind. Nonetheless, Europe’s growing military spending, purchase of U.S. weapons, financing for Kyiv and sanctions against Russia — which also target sources of energy revenue — could help maintain last year’s status quo. But this is perhaps the best case scenario. Activists protest outside Downing street against the recent policies of Donald Trump. | Guy Smallman/Getty Images Meanwhile, European leaders will be forced to publicly ignore Washington’s support for far-right parties, which was clearly spelled out in the new U.S. national security strategy, while privately doing all they can to counter any antiestablishment backlash at the polls. Specifically, the upcoming election in Hungary will be a bellwether for whether the MAGA movement can tip the balance for its ideological affiliates in Europe, as populist, euroskeptic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is currently poised to lose for the first time in 15 years. Orbán, for his part, has been frantically campaigning to boost voter support, signaling that he and his inner circle actually view defeat as a possibility. His charismatic rival Péter Magyar, who shares his conservative-nationalist political origins but lacks any taint of corruption poses a real challenge, as does the country’s stagnating economy and rising prices. While traditional electoral strategies — financial giveaways, smear campaigns and war fearmongering — have so far proven ineffective for Orbán, a military spillover from Ukraine that directly affects Hungary could reignite voter fears and shift the dynamic. To top it all off, these challenges will be compounded by the E3’s weakness. The hollowing out of Europe’s political center has already been a decade in the making. But France, Germany and the U.K. each entered 2026 with weak, unpopular governments besieged by the populist right and left, as well as a U.S. administration rooting for their collapse. While none face scheduled general elections, all three risk paralysis at best and destabilization at worst. And at least one leader — namely, Britain’s Keir Starmer — could fall because of an internal party revolt. The year’s pivotal event in the U.K. will be the midterm elections in May. As it stands, the Labour Party faces the humiliation of coming third in the Welsh parliament, failing to oust the Scottish National Party in the Scottish parliament and losing seats to both the Greens and ReformUK in English local elections. Labour MPs already expect a formal challenge to Starmer as party leader, and his chances of surviving seem slight. France, meanwhile, entered 2026 without a budget for the second consecutive year. The good news for President Emmanuel Macron is that his Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government will probably achieve a budget deal targeting a modest deficit reduction by late February or March. And with the presidential election only 16 months away and local elections due to be held in March, the opposition’s appetite for a snap parliamentary election has abated. However, this is the best he can hope for, as a splintered National Assembly will sustain a mood of slow-motion crisis until the 2027 race. Finally, while Germany’s economy looks like it will slightly recover this year, it still won’t overcome its structural malaise. Largely consumed by ideological divisions, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government will struggle to implement far-reaching reforms. And with the five upcoming state elections expected to see increased vote shares for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, pressure on the government in Berlin will only mount A historic truth — one often forgotten in the quiet times — will reassert itself in 2026: that liberty, stability, prosperity and peace in Europe are always brittle. The holiday from history, provided by Pax Americana and exceptional post-World War II cooperation and integration, has officially come to an end. Moving forward, Europe’s relevance in the new global order will be defined by its response to Russia’s increased hybrid aggression, its influence on diplomacy regarding the Ukraine war and its ability to improve competitiveness, all while managing an increasingly ascendant far right and addressing the existential threats to its economy and security posed by Russia, China and the U.S. This is what will decide whether Europe can survive.

While U.S. President Donald Trump brashly cited the Monroe Doctrine to explain the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, he didn’t leave it there. He also underscored a crude tenet guiding his foreign adventures: “It’s important to make me happy,” he told reporters. Maduro had failed in that task after shunning a surrender order by Trump — hence, he was plucked in the dead of night by Delta Force commandos from his Caracas compound, and unceremoniously deposited at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Yet despite the U.S. president’s admonishment about needing to be kept happy — an exhortation accompanied by teasing hints of possible future raids on the likes of Cuba, Colombia and Mexico — one continent has stood out in its readiness to defy him. Maduro’s capture has been widely denounced by African governments and the continent’s regional organizations alike. South Africa has been among the most outspoken, with its envoy to the U.N. warning that such actions left unpunished risk “a regression into a world preceding the United Nations, a world that gave us two brutal world wars, and an international system prone to severe structural instability and lawlessness.” Both the African Union, a continent-wide body comprising 54 recognized nations, and the 15-member Economic Community of West African States have categorically condemned Trump’s gunboat diplomacy as well. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni even had the temerity to issue a blunt dare to Washington: If American forces attempt the same trick in his country, he bragged, “we can defeat them” — a reversal of his 2018 bromance with the U.S. president, when he said he “loves Trump” because of his frankness. Africa’s forthrightness and unity over Maduro greatly contrasts with the more fractured response from Latin America, as well as the largely hedged responses coming from Europe, which is more focused on Trump’s coveting of Greenland.   Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had the temerity to issue a blunt dare to Washington: If American forces attempt the same trick in his country, he bragged, “we can defeat them” | Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images Fearful of risking an open rift with Washington, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer waited 16 hours after Maduro and his wife were seized before gingerly stepping on a diplomatic tightrope, careful to avoid falling one way or the other. While highlighting his preference for observing international law, he said: “We shed no tears about the end of his regime.” Others similarly avoided incurring Trump’s anger, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis flatly saying now isn’t the right time to discuss Trump’s muscular methods — a position shared by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. So, why haven’t African leaders danced to the same circumspect European tune? Partly because they have less to lose. Europe still harbors hope it can influence Trump, soften him and avoid an irreparable breach in the transatlantic alliance, especially when it comes to Greenland, suggested Tighisti Amare of Britain’s Chatham House. “With dramatic cuts in U.S. development funds to Africa already implemented by Trump, Washington’s leverage is not as strong as it once was. And the U.S. doesn’t really give much importance to Africa, unless it’s the [Democratic Republic of the Congo], where there are clear U.S. interests on critical minerals,” Amare told POLITICO. “In terms of trade volume, the EU remains the most important region for Africa, followed by China, and with the Gulf States increasingly becoming more important,” she added. Certainly, Trump hasn’t gone out of his way to make friends in Africa. Quite the reverse — he’s used the continent as a punching bag, delivering controversial remarks stretching back to his first term, when he described African nations as “shithole countries.” And there have since been rifts galore over travel bans, steep tariffs and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is credited with saving millions of African lives over decades. U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a printed article from “American Thinker” while accusing South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa of state-sanctioned violence against white farmers in South Africa. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In May, Trump also lectured South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over what he claimed amounted to genocide against white South Africans, at one point ordering the lights be dimmed to show clips of leaders from a South African minority party encouraging attacks on the country’s white population. Washington then boycotted the G20 summit hosted by South Africa in November, and disinvited the country from this year’s gathering, which will be hosted by the U.S. According to Amare, Africa’s denunciation of Maduro’s abduction doesn’t just display concern about Venezuela; in some part, it’s also fed by the memory of colonialism. “It’s not just about solidarity, but it’s also about safeguarding the rules that limit how powerful states can use force against more vulnerable states,” she said. African countries see Trump’s move against Maduro “as a genuine threat to international law and norms that protect the survival of the sovereignty of small states.” Indeed, African leaders might also be feeling their own collars tighten, and worrying about being in the firing line. “There’s an element of self-preservation kicking in here because some African leaders share similarities with the Maduro government,” said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In some countries, people on the street and in even civil society have a different take, and actually see the removal of Maduro as a good thing.” The question is, will African leaders be wary of aligning with either Russian President Vladimir Putin or China’s Xi Jinping, now that Trump has exposed the impotence of friendship with either by deposing the Venezuelan strongman? According to Onubogu, even before Maduro’s ouster, African leaders understood the world order had changed dramatically, and that we’re back in the era of great power competition. “Individual leaders will make their own specific calculations based on what’s in their favor and their interests. I wouldn’t want to generalize and say some African countries might step back from engaging with China or Russia. They will play the game as they try to figure out how they can come out on top.”

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. But it’s another 19th-century interest that propelled his extraordinary gambit in the first place — oil. According to the New York Times, what started as an effort to press the Venezuelan regime to cede power and end the flow of drugs and immigrants into the U.S., began shifting into a determination to seize the country’s oil last fall. And the president was the driving force behind this shift. That’s hardly surprising though — Trump has been obsessed with oil for decades, even as most of the world is actively trying to leave it behind. As far back as the 1980s, Trump was complaining about the U.S. protecting Japan, Saudi Arabia and others to secure the free flow of oil. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” he wrote in a 1987 newspaper ad. Having supported the Iraq War from the outset, he later complained that the U.S. hadn’t sufficiently benefited from it. “I would take the oil,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.” That same year, he also dismissed humanitarian concerns in Libya, saying: “I am only interested in Libya if we take the oil.” In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. | Henry Chirinos/EPA Unsurprisingly, “take the oil” later became the mantra for Trump’s first presidential campaign — and for his first term in office. Complaining that the U.S. got “nothing” for all the money it spent invading Iraq: “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils’ … I always said, ‘Take the oil,’” he griped during a Commander in Chief Forum in 2016. As president, he also insisted on keeping U.S. forces in Syria for that very reason in 2019. “I like oil,” he said, “we’re keeping the oil.” But while Iraq, Libya and even Syria were all conflicts initiated by Trump’s predecessors, Venezuela is quite another matter. Weeks before seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump made clear what needed to happen: On Dec. 16, 2025, he announced an oil blockade of the country “until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Then, after capturing Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. “We’re in the oil business,” he stated. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies … go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money.” “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump insisted. “It goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.” On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Venezuela would ship its oil to the U.S. “and then infinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” effectively declaring the expropriation of Venezuela’s most important national resources. All of this reeks of 19th-century imperialism. But the problem with Trump’s oil obsession goes deeper than his urge to steal it from others — by force if necessary. He is fixated on a depleting resource of steadily declining importance. And yet, this doesn’t seem to matter. Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump still emphasized the need to produce more oil. “Drill, baby, drill” became as central to his energy policy as “take the oil” was to his views on military intervention. He called on oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, promising his administration would be “a great deal” for their industry. And he talked incessantly of the large reservoirs of “liquid gold” in the U.S., claiming: “We’re going to make a fortune.” But these weren’t just campaign promises. Upon his return to office, Trump unleashed the full force of the U.S. government to boost oil production at home and exports abroad. He established a National Energy Dominance Council, opened protected lands in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration, signed a mandate for immediate offshore oil and gas leases into law, and accelerated permitting reforms to speed up pipeline construction, refinery expansion and liquid natural gas exports. At the same time, he’s been castigating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a climate change “hoax,” he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement once again, and he took a series of steps to end the long-term transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. He signed a law ending credits and subsidies to encourage residential solar and electric vehicle purchases, invoked national security to halt offshore wind production and terminated grants encouraging renewable energy production. Then, after capturing Nicolás Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. | Henry Chirinos/EPA The problem with all these efforts is that the U.S. is now banking on fossil fuels, precisely as their global future is waning. Today, oil production is already outpacing consumption, and global demand is expected to peak later this decade. Over the last 12 months, the cost of oil has decreased by over 23 percent, pricing further exploration and production increasingly out of the market. Meanwhile, renewable energy is becoming vastly more cost-effective. The future, increasingly, lies in renewables to drive our cars; heat, cool and light up our homes; power our data centers, advanced manufacturing factories and everything else that sustains our lives on Earth. By harnessing the power of the sun, the force of wind and the heat of the Earth, China is building its future on inexhaustible resources. And while Beijing is leading the way, many others are following in its footsteps. All this, just as the U.S. goes back to relying on an exhaustive fossil fuel supply. What Trump is betting on is becoming the world’s largest — and last — petrostate. China is betting on becoming its largest and lasting electrostate. Which side would you rather be on?

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Ukraine’s poker-faced Kyrylo Budanov, who was the country’s military spy chief until Friday, had an excellent start to the new year. On Dec. 27, Budanov faked the frontline death of Denis Kapustin — the commander of a pro-Ukraine Russian militia — and with that, tricked Russian spooks into handing over half a million dollars in bounty money for the feigned assassination. Then, on Thursday, he openly celebrated the theatrical ruse by posting a video of himself smiling broadly alongside the rebel commander. “I congratulate you, as they say, on your return to life,” chimed the 39-year-old spy chief. And then the next day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed him chief of staff, as the much-awaited replacement for his longtime aide and friend Andriy Yermak. Yermak, who was virtually operating as a co-president by the end of his tenure, was forced to resign in November, following an anti-corruption raid on his apartment as part of a ballooning graft investigation into Ukraine’s energy sector and presidential insiders. A characteristically stubborn Zelenskyy had initially shunned the calls for Yermak to go, but he heeded them in the end, when even lawmakers from his own party started to rebel. Indeed, Yermak’s departure is a tectonic political shift for Ukraine. But perhaps Budanov allowed himself a private smirk after his new appointment — after all, he’d not only outsmarted the Russians again, but he’d also bested Yermak, who saw him as a rival and had tried to get him fired several times, only to emerge as the second most powerful figure in Ukraine. However, the task at hand is not easy. And in his new role, the popular wartime master spy will need every ounce of the political shrewdness he demonstrated while outfoxing Yermak. Taking over as the head of the presidential office is daunting enough at the best of times. But these are the worst of times — Ukraine is at a critical juncture in a long-running existential war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shows no sign of wanting this to end. In fact, quite the reverse. Every time a U.S.-brokered deal appears on the table, Putin throws up yet another nyet. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Ukraine is coming under increasing pressure, as Russia has the tactical upper hand. The battles in the east are highlighting the country’s severe manpower shortage. Ukraine’s port city Odesa is coming under ferocious drone and missile attacks as part of Russia’s bid to throttle the country’s economy by disrupting exports. And on the home front, Russian attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure are of much greater magnitude this year, and Ukraine doesn’t have the air defenses to cope — nor is it likely to get them soon. On top of all of that, Kyiv is also facing an impatient U.S. president, eager for Kyiv to cave to unacceptable Russian demands, which would leave the country vulnerable and likely in political turmoil. So, not only will Budanov have to help his boss avoid falling afoul of a mercurial Donald Trump, who seems sympathetic to Moscow and echoes Kremlin talking points all too often, he’ll also have to assist Zelenskyy in handling Ukraine’s increasingly turbulent partisan politics and bridge a widening gap between the country’s leader and its parliament. Moreover, if Zelenskyy has no choice but to accept an unfavorable peace deal, Budanov will have to help him sell it to Ukrainians. Partisan politics — long a muscular, no-holds-barred sport in Ukraine — came roaring back to life this year, sparked by an ill-judged and ultimately aborted maneuver by Zelenskyy and Yermak to try to strip two key anti-corruption agencies of their independence this summer, just as both were starting to probe presidential insiders. The snow-balling corruption scandal involving the country’s shattered energy sector has only added to public disillusionment and parliamentary frustration. And while Ukrainians will back Zelenskyy to the hilt in his diplomatic jousting with Washington, criticism of his governance has only swelled. “The biggest expectation from this power shift — beyond the ousting of Yermak’s loyalists — is a genuine transformation in governance, particularly in how the authorities engage with their own citizens. For too long, the war has served as a convenient veil for democratic backsliding. Ukrainian society has endured a profound breakdown in trust: a yawning chasm between the government and the people, fueled by human rights violations, widespread disillusionment with the war’s objectives, and rampant corruption,” said former Zelenskyy aide-turned-critic Iuliia Mendel. Andriy Yermak’s departure is a tectonic political shift for Ukraine. | Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA And lucky for Zelenskyy, aside from obvious political savvy, Budanov will take over the presidential office on Kyiv’s Bankova Street armed with the huge advantage of public popularity as well. Budanov’s esteem comes from how he’s been running Zelenskyy’s equivalent of Winston Churchill’s so-called Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, overseeing successful, morale-boosting Ukrainian commando raids in Russian-occupied Ukraine and in Russia itself. He’s orchestrated dramatic sabotage missions, assassinations and long-range drone attacks on military and energy targets, including one that took out radar systems and a Russian An-26 military transport plane in Crimea last month. And he’s not just a desk jockey either. Budanov is very much a man of action who secretly participates in raids himself, reprising a personal frontline history that saw him fighting in the Donbas immediately after Maidan, as part of an elite commando unit of the Ukrainian military intelligence service. In 2014, he was wounded in the east. Two years later, he led a dramatic amphibious sabotage mission on Russian-occupied Crimea, which involved a nail-biting and violent retreat into Ukrainian-controlled territory. No wonder the Russians are keen to neutralize him — and they have tried. According to his aides, Russian special forces have made several botched attempts on Budanov’s life, including one in 2019, when a bomb affixed to his car exploded prematurely. But how will this buccaneering past translate into a political future? And other than popularity, what does Budanov bring to the table for Zelenskyy? A senior Ukrainian official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, anticipates Budanov’s presence will give the beleaguered presidency a lift: “He’s got credibility. He’s got personal stature. He’s unlikely to operate like Yermak, who was a spider casting his web far and wide. Budanov is likely to focus on national security, leaving the ministers unmolested and able to get on with their jobs and not be micromanaged by the center. So, less monopolization of power by the presidency — and that will be no bad thing,” he said. Similarly, Daniel Vajdich, a Republican foreign policy expert and president of the Yorktown Solutions consulting firm that advises Ukrainian state entities, dubbed Budanov’s appointment “a brilliant move on Zelenskyy’s part.” “I think it’s very good that someone who’s widely respected is taking charge of the president’s office in the wake of Yermak. It will be a very positive dynamic for decision-making in Kyiv,” he told POLITICO. It’s true, Yermak was a gift for MAGA’s Ukraine-bashing wing. Whereas Budanov, as a war hero, is less of an easy target, with no links to graft or any obvious self-serving politics. And if he does harbor personal political ambitions, it seems he has put those aside by taking on this new role — at least in the near term. It would be hard for him to run against Zelenskyy in any near-future elections. Plus, if things go wrong in the coming weeks and months, he risks tarnishing his own image and diminishing his electoral appeal.  In fact, there’s some surprise in Ukraine’s parliament that Budanov agreed to take the job. “It’s very confusing,” a Ukrainian lawmaker confided to POLITICO, having been granted anonymity to speak frankly. “He does have his own political ambitions. I am scratching my head to understand why he took the job — politically, it would have been safer for him to stay doing what he was doing.” Overall, the talk in parliament is that Budanov must have received political promises for the future — either over the prime ministership after elections, or Zelenskyy could have indicated he might not seek reelection and that the former spy chief could slot in as the government candidate. But other, possibly less jaundiced, lawmakers told POLITICO that Budanov’s decision to take the job could well speak less to his political calculations and more to his patriotism — country first. Maybe so, but Ukraine analyst Adrian Karatnycky suspects something more complicated is going on: Budanov’s appointment “comes at a time when the parliament is becoming more independent-minded, with lawmakers seeing that Zelenskyy’s political power is diminishing,” he said. The president’s loyalists see that too, and the appointment could be seen as “an attempt by Zelenskyy and his circle as an exercise in finding a possible substitute should they need one — and if polling indicates that Zelenskyy is unelectable.” So, part job, part audition. Either way, the big remaining question is whether Budanov will bridge the growing gap between the presidency and the parliament and civil society — something Yermak didn’t care to do. In other words, will he meet public expectations for a genuine transformation in Ukrainian governance? If he can, that would strengthen Zelenskyy — and ultimately himself.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Europe has slowly but steadily moved through the five stages of grief, taking an entire year to finally reach acceptance over the loss of the transatlantic relationship. Now, the question for 2026 is whether the bloc has the will and strength to turn this acceptance into real action. Trump’s reelection and inauguration represented the end of Pax America — a period of over 75 years where the U.S. was the undisputed Leader of the Free World, and successive presidents and administrations in Washington placed relations with Europe at the core of America’s global engagement. It was clear Trump would end this era and instead adopt a narrow, regionally focused policy of “America First.” And yet, few in Europe believed this would truly be the case. At a lunch attended by some dozen NATO ambassadors in mid-December 2024, one envoy after another declared that with a little more European spending on defense, everything would be okay. When I suggested they were in denial about how fundamental the change would be, one of them turned to me and said: “You can’t seriously believe that the United States will no longer see its security as tied to Europe’s, do you?” But not long after, Europe’s refusal to accept the fundamental transformation that Trump’s reelection entailed was put to the test by a series of events in February. At his first NATO meeting, new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told his colleagues that Europe needed to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent.” Next, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. and Russia would negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine — without Ukraine’s or Europe’s involvement. And then came Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said that the biggest threat to Europe wasn’t Russia or China but “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” Finally, at the end of the month, Trump and Vance confronted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, on live television. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump exclaimed, berating Ukraine for failing to end a war it had not started, and ignoring how Ukrainians had valiantly held off their subjugation and occupation by a much larger foe for more than three years. So, by February’s end, Europe’s denial turned to anger. When I met with a foreign minister of a major ally just days after Munich, the longtime supporter of the U.S. appeared despondent. “You stabbed us in the back. You’re leaving us to deal with Russia alone,” he shouted. But the anger lasted only so long, and in the next few months, the bloc shifted to bargaining. Key European leaders convinced Zelenskyy to forget about the Oval Office showdown and tell Trump he was fully committed to peace. Europe would then join Ukraine in supporting an unconditional ceasefire — as Trump had demanded. In August, stage three — bargaining — quickly gave way to stage four — depression. | Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images Similarly, in April, when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, hitting allied countries just as hard as non-allies, the U.K. and the EU moved swiftly to negotiate deals that would lower rates from the initial levels of 25 percent or more. By June, NATO leaders had even agreed to raise defense spending to the 5-percent of GDP mark Trump had insisted on. Europe’s negotiating on Ukraine, trade and defense gave Trump the victories he long craved. But it soon became clear that however great the victories or however fawning the flattery, the U.S. president would just pocket them and move on, with little regard for the transatlantic relationship. Trump was already back to negotiating Ukraine’s fate directly with Putin by August — in a red-carpeted summit in Alaska, no less. And though he had flown to the meeting promising “severe consequences” if the Russian leader didn’t agree to a ceasefire, he left having adopted Putin’s position that the war could only end if there was a fully agreed-upon peace agreement. Days later, no less than eight European leaders flew to Washington to try and persuade Trump to change course and push Russia to accept the ceasefire he had long proposed. And while it sort of worked, most of the leaders still left Washington deeply depressed. No matter what, when it came to Ukraine, an issue they deem existential for their security, Trump just wasn’t on the same page. Eventually, it was the publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy in early December that proved too much — even for Europe’s most stalwart Atlanticists. The strategy not only berates the continent for supposedly causing its own rendezvous with “civilizational erasure,” it also clearly underscores that both Trump and his administration view Russia very differently than Europe. Gone is any mention of Moscow as a military threat. Instead, the U.S. is seeking a return to “strategic stability” with Russia, even offering itself up as a mediator between Russia and Europe on security. An ally just doesn’t say these things or behave in this way. So, after a long year, Europe has now come to accept the reality that the transatlantic relationship they have long known and depended on is no more. “The decades of Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe, and for us in Germany as well,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier this month. “The Americans are now very, very aggressively pursuing their own interests. And that can only mean one thing: that we, too, must now pursue our own interests.” What remains to be seen is whether Europe will do so. On that, the jury is still very much out.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon is clearly gleeful as we sit down to discuss the new U.S. National Security Strategy and the hostility it displays toward America’s supposed allies in Europe. With its brutal claim that Europe is headed for “civilizational erasure,” the document prompted gasps of horror from European capitals when it was released this month. But the MAGA firebrand — and current host of the influential “War Room” podcast — only has words of praise. “It is a shot across the bow of the EU, and even NATO,” he purred, seemingly astonished that the 33-page document ever saw the light of day in its published form without being muted by the more fainthearted Trump aides. Famously, Bannon had once claimed he wanted “to drive a stake through the Brussels vampire.” And now, he and other MAGA influencers get to sharpen their stake with the encouragement of U.S. government policy. Above all, it’s what Bannon describes as the commitment to “back resistance movements to the globalists” that thrills him most. “It was pleasantly shocking that it was so explicit,” he said of the document’s prioritization of support for so-called “patriotic European parties,” with the aim of halting the continent’s supposed slide into irreversible decline due to mass migration, falling birth rates and the dilution of national cultural identities. But while Bannon extols Trump’s foreign-policy priorities, former U.S. diplomats fret the administration may be signaling an intention to go beyond expressing its rhetorical support for MAGA’s ideological allies and browbeating their opponents. Could Washington be tempted to launch more clandestine activities? And if the continent’s current trajectory does, indeed, represent a threat to U.S. national security interests by weakening transatlantic allies — as the document claims — would that justify straying into the unsettling territory of covert action? In short, could we see a reprise of Cold War tactics of political subversion? A time that saw the CIA competing with the KGB, meddling in elections in Italy and Greece, secretly funding academic journals, magazines and think tanks across Western Europe, and disseminating black propaganda to shape public opinion and counter Soviet propaganda. “[The NSS] could just be seen as a guiding document for people who are trying, in an overt way, on behalf of the Trump administration, to exert influence over the direction of European politics,” said Jeff Rathke, head of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University. But the former U.S. diplomat worries it could also entail more: “It remains unclear the degree to which other parts of the U.S. national security and foreign policy establishment might also see it as a nudge to do things that go beyond simple overt expressions of endorsement and support,” he said. “That, I think, is an interesting dimension that hasn’t really been explored in the media reporting so far.” According to Rathke, who previously served in the U.S. embassies in Dublin, Moscow and Riga, and was the deputy director of the State Department’s Office of European Security and Political Affairs, “different agencies of the U.S. government” are now probably trying to figure out how the NSS should shape their own activities. NSS documents are generally aspirational, explained former U.S. diplomat and CIA officer Ned Price. “They set out the broad parameters of what an administration hopes to achieve and act as a helpful guide. When you’re talking about something like covert action, the NSS isn’t in itself a green light to do something. That would take a presidential finding and a lot of back-and-forth between the president and the CIA director,” he told POLITICO. But while Price finds it unlikely the administration would resort to covert action, he doesn’t categorically rule it out either. “Maybe in extremes, it could go back to Cold War-era CIA activities,” he mused. “That said, there’s been a lot of rule-bending. There are a lot of norms being broken. I don’t want to be too precious and say this administration couldn’t do such a thing — but it would be highly risky.” Above all, it’s what Bannon describes as the commitment to “back resistance movements to the globalists” that thrills him most. | Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Semafor Bannon, for his part, pooh-poohs the idea that the administration would organize clandestine operations against European liberals and centrists. “Even if Trump ordered it, there would be zero chance his instructions would be executed — particularly by the intelligence agencies,” he scoffed. As far as he sees it, they’re all “deep state” enemies of MAGA. Plus, why would you need covert action when you have the MAGA movement and deep-pocketed tech billionaires like Elon Musk promoting far-right European figures and parties? However, Washington’s muscular efforts to bully the EU into curtailing its landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) with visa bans and threats of punitive tariffs could, for example, read as overt covert action. Trump aides like Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers say they oppose the DSA, which aims to block harmful speech and disinformation, because it amounts to foreign influence over online speech, stifles the free speech of Americans, and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies. But European MAGA allies have lobbied Washington hard to help them push back against the legislation, which, they say, is largely aimed at silencing them. The Department of State declined a POLITICO interview request with Rogers, referring us to the White House. The NSS will now likely turbocharge these transatlantic activities, and we’ll no doubt see the administration give even more love and attention to their “ideological allies in Europe,” said Price. “Instead of hosting the German chancellor, maybe we’ll see the hosting of the AfD head in the Oval Office.” For Europe’s ultraconservatives and populists, the document serves as an invitation to double their efforts to gain MAGA blessings as they try to reforge their politics in Trump’s image, hoping that what’s worked for him in America will work for them in Europe. “I think, in the past it was a big mistake that conservative forces were just focused on their own countries,” explained Markus Frohnmaier, an Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker who sits on the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee. For Europe’s ultraconservatives and populists, the document serves as an invitation to double their efforts to gain MAGA blessings as they try to reforge their politics in Trump’s image, hoping that what’s worked for him in America will work for them in Europe. | Adam Gray/Getty Images Frohnmaier is among the AfD politicians flocking to the U.S. to meet with Trump officials and attend MAGA events. Earlier this month, he was the guest of honor at a gala hosted by New York’s Young Republicans Club, where he was awarded a prize in memory of founding CIA director Allen Dulles, who had overseen the agency’s massive operation to manipulate Italy’s 1948 election and ensure a Soviet-backed Popular Front didn’t win. “What we’re trying to do is something new, with conservatives starting to interact and network seriously to try to help each other with tactics and messaging and to spotlight the issues important for us,” he told POLITICO. Among the key issues for Frohnmaier is Germany’s firewall (brandmauer), which excludes the AfD from participating in coalition governments at the federal and state levels. He and other AfD politicians have discussed this with MAGA figures and Trump officials, urging them to spotlight it as “undemocratic” and help them smash it. But Bannon hopes it isn’t just the firewall that cracks — and he’s clearly relishing upcoming opportunities to amplify the radical populist message across Europe. “I think MAGA will be much more aggressive in Europe because President Trump has given a green light with the national security memo, which is very powerful,” he said. And he’s brimming with iconoclastic schemes to smash the bloc’s liberal hegemony and augment the Trump administration’s efforts. Interestingly, first up is Ireland. “I’m spending a ton of time behind the scenes on the Irish situation to help form an Irish national party,” Bannon told POLITICO. At first glance, Ireland wouldn’t seem the most promising territory for MAGA. Last year, none of the far-right candidates came anywhere near winning a seat in the Dáil, and this year, professional mixed martial arts fighter and MAGA favorite Conor McGregor had to drop out of Ireland’s presidential race, despite endorsements from both Trump and Musk. None of that’s deterring Bannon, though. “They’re going to have an Irish MAGA, and we’re going to have an Irish Trump. That’s all going to come together, no doubt. That country is right on the edge thanks to mass migration,” he said definitively. Of course, Britain, France and Germany figure prominently in future MAGA plans too: “MAGA thinks the European governments, by and large, are deadbeats. They love AfD. They love what National Rally is doing. They love Nigel Farage,” he said.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. It was hardly the kind of peace and cheer one hopes to see leading up to Christmas. But on Dec. 7, the second Sunday of Advent, a collection of telecoms masts in Sweden were the site of a strange scene, as a foreign citizen turned up and began taking photographs. The case became widely known two days later, when the CEO of Teracom, a state-owned Swedish telecom and data services provider, posted an unusual update on LinkedIn: Company employees and contracted security had helped detain a foreign citizen, CEO Johan Petersson reported. They had spotted the foreigner taking pictures of a group of Teracom masts, which are sensitive installations clearly marked with “no trespassing” signs. After being alerted by the employees, police had arrested the intruder. “Fast, resolute and completely in line with the operative capabilities required to protect Sweden’s critical infrastructure,” Petersson wrote. But his post didn’t end there: “Teracom continually experiences similar events,” he noted. “We don’t just deliver robust nets — we take full responsibility for keeping them secure and accessible around the clock. This is total defense in practice.” That’s a lot of troubling news in one message: a foreign citizen intruding into an area closed to the public to take photos of crucial communications masts, and the fact that this isn’t a unique occurrence. Indeed, earlier this year, Swedish authorities announced they had discovered a string of some 30 cases of sabotage against telecoms and data masts in the country. How many more potential saboteurs haven’t been caught? It’s a frightening question and, naturally, one we don’t have an answer to. It’s not just communications masts that are being targeted. In the past couple years, there have been fires set in shopping malls and warehouses in big cities. There have been suspicious drone sightings near defense manufacturing sites and, infamously, airports. Between January and Nov. 19 of this year, there were more than 1,072 incidents involving 1,955 drones in Europe, and as a group of German journalism students have established, some of those drones were launched from Russian-linked ships. And of course, there has been suspicious damage to undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea and off the coast of Taiwan. I’ve written before in this publication that Russia’s goal with such subversive operations may be to bleed our companies dry, and that China seems to be pursuing the same objective vis-à-vis certain countries. But when it comes to critical national infrastructure — in which I could include institutions like supermarkets — we need them to work no matter what. Imagine going a day or two or three without being able to buy food, and you’ll see what I mean. The upside to Teracom’s most recent scare was that the company was prepared and ultimately lost no money. Because its staff and security guards were alert, the company prevented any damage to their masts and operations. In fact, with the perpetrator arrested — whether prosecutors will decide to charge him remains to be seen — Teracom’s staff may well have averted possible damage to other businesses too. Moving forward, companies would do well to train their staff to be similarly alert when it comes to saboteurs and reconnaissance operators in different guises. We can’t know exactly what kind of subversive activities will be directed against our societies, but companies can teach their employees what to look for. If someone suddenly starts taking pictures of something only a saboteur would be interested in, that’s a red flag. Indeed, boards could also start requiring company staff to become more vigilant. If alertness can make the difference between relatively smooth sailing and considerable losses — or intense tangling with insurers — in these geopolitically turbulent times, few boards would ignore it. And being able to demonstrate such preparedness is something companies could highlight in speeches, media interviews and, naturally, their annual reports. Insurers, in turn, could start requiring such training for these very reasons. After serious cyberattacks first took off, insurers paid out on their policies for a long time, until they realized they should start obliging the organizations they insure to demonstrate serious protections in order to qualify for insurance. Insurers may soon decide to introduce such conditions for coverage of physical attacks too. Even without pressure from boards or insurers, considering the risk of sabotage directed at companies, it would be positively negligent not to train one’s staff accordingly. Meanwhile, some governments have understandably introduced resilience requirements for companies that operate crucial national infrastructure. Under Finland’s CER Act, for instance, “critical entities must carry out a risk assessment, draw up a resilience plan and take any necessary measures.” The social contract in liberal democracies is that we willingly give up some of our power to those we elect to govern us. These representatives are ultimately in charge of the state apparatus, and in exchange, we pay taxes and obey the law. But that social contract doesn’t completely absolve us from our responsibility toward the greater good. That’s why an increasing number of European countries are obliging 19-year-olds to do military service. When crises approach, we all still have a part to play. Helping spot incidents and alerting the authorities is everyone’s responsibility. Because the current geopolitical turbulence has followed such a long period of harmony, it’s hard to crank up the gears of societal responsibility again. And truthfully, in some countries, those gears never worked particularly well to begin with. But for companies, however, stepping up to the plate isn’t just a matter of doing the right thing — it’s a matter of helping themselves. Back in the day, the saying went that what was good for Volvo was good for Sweden, and what was good for General Motors was good for the U.S. Today, when companies do the right thing for their home countries, they similarly benefit too. Now, let’s get those alertness courses going.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Russia’s war on Ukraine seems likely to end next year — and on terms highly unfavorable for Kyiv. Why the prediction? Because of the EU’s failure last week to agree to use Russia’s money — €210 billion in frozen assets — to keep Ukraine solvent and able to finance its war effort. The felling of the “reparations loan” proposal, which would have recycled Russian assets that are mostly frozen in a clearing bank in Belgium, deprives Ukraine of guaranteed funding for the next two years. It was Belgium’s legal anxieties over the loan, along with French President Emmanuel Macron’s and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s reluctance to join German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in championing the proposal, that doomed it. And all that, despite weeks of wrangling and overblown expectations by the plan’s advocates, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Fortunately, the EU will still provide a sizable funding package for Ukraine, after agreeing to jointly borrow  €90 billion from capital markets secured against the EU’s budget, and lend it on a no-interest basis. But while this will prevent the country from running out of money early next year, the package is meant to be spread out over two years, and that won’t be sufficient to keep Ukraine in the fight. According to projections by the International Monetary Fund, due to the reduction in U.S. financial support, Ukraine’s budgetary shortfall over the next two years will be closer to $160 billion. Simply put, Ukraine will need much more from Europe — and that’s going to be increasingly difficult for the bloc to come up with. Still, many European leaders were rather optimistic once the funding deal was struck last week. Finnish President Alexander Stubb noted on Sunday that the agreed package would still be linked to the immobilized Russian assets, as the scheme envisions that Kyiv will use them to repay the loan once the war ends. “The immobilized Russian assets will stay immobilized … and the union reserves its right to make use of the immobilized assets to repay this loan,” he posted on X. Plus, the thinking goes, a subsequent loan could be added on and indirectly linked to the Russian assets. And maybe so. But this could also be construed as counting one’s chickens before they’re hatched, as everything depends on what kind of deal is struck to end the war. In the meantime, securing another loan won’t be so simple once Ukraine’s coffers empty again. Three countries — Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — already opted out of last week’s joint-borrowing scheme. It isn’t a stretch to imagine others will join them either, balking at the very notion of yet another multi-billion-euro package in 2027, which is an important election year for both France and Germany. Also, Trump will still be in the White House — so, no point in looking to Washington for the additional cash. Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images And yet, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever still described last week’s deal, reached after almost 17 hours of negotiations, as a “victory for Ukraine, a victory for financial stability … and a victory for the EU.” However, that’s not how Russian President Vladimir Putin will see it. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had noted while seeking to persuade European leaders to back the reparations loan: “If Putin knows, that we can stay resilient for at least a few more years, then his reason to drag out this war becomes much weaker.” But that’s not what happened. And after last Friday’s debacle highlighted the division among Europe’s leaders, surely that’s not the lesson Putin will be taking home. Rather, it will only have confirmed that time is on his side. That if he waits just a bit longer, the 28-point plan that his aides crafted with Trump’s obliging Special Envoy Steve Witkoff can be revived, leaving Ukraine and Europe to flounder — a dream outcome for the Kremlin. Putin can also read opinion polls, and see European voters’ growing impatience with the war in some of the continent’s biggest economies. For example, published last week, a POLITICO Poll of 10,000 found respondents in Germany and France even more reluctant to keep financing Ukraine than those in the U.S. In Germany, 45 percent said they would support cutting financial aid to Ukraine, while just 20 percent said they wanted to increase financial assistance. In France, 37 percent wanted to give less, while only 24 percent preferred giving more. In the run-up to last week’s European Council meeting, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal had told POLITICO that European leaders were being handed an opportunity to rebut Trump’s claim that they’re weak. That by inking a deal to unlock hundreds of billions in frozen Russian assets, they would also be answering the U.S. president’s branding of Europe as a “decaying group of nations.” That, they failed to do.

Anchal Vohra is a Brussels-based international affairs commentator. On a smog-filled day in New Delhi, I watched as a few German cars struggled to navigate a massive traffic jam. A British SUV was also in the mix, trailing not so far behind. Last year, these foreign cars accounted for only 0.1 percent of India’s imports, with Germans in the lead and the British coming in a near second. However, British businesses have gained an edge ever since the U.K. and India inked a free trade agreement earlier this year, with India finally lowering its protectionist guard. Once this deal fully comes into effect, overall bilateral business is expected to grow by more than 50 percent in about a decade-and-a-half, as New Delhi slashes its car tariffs from 100 percent to 10 percent, and its tariffs on scotch from 150 percent to 40 percent over a period of 10 years — all despite the cost to its domestic industries. It also gains particular advantage for its textile sector, which was hard hit by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 50-percent tariff, removing tariffs on Indian textiles exported to the U.K. The EU, meanwhile, remains the single largest market in the world, with a much higher chance of growing its exports to a country packed with over 1.46 billion consumers. Yet, negotiations between New Delhi and Brussels are forever hitting roadblocks, even as negotiators shuttle between the two capitals to get a deal across the finish line — a deadline that’s now been postponed to Jan. 26. And as these talks continue, the bloc could stand to learn from the flexibility of its former member. According to an Indian official in New Delhi, granted anonymity in order to speak freely, the biggest barriers to an agreement are currently the EU’s insistence on greater market access in the politically sensitive agriculture sector, and its insistence on a carbon tax under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). On top of all this, the bloc’s protectionist tendencies — displayed by its higher tariffs on steel and its recent decision to curb rice imports from India — are also unexpected hurdles. In contrast to this rigidity, India’s concessions in its deal with the U.K. emerged from the flexibility it was granted in the agriculture sector, which was largely insulated from British products, the official said. “For all its faults, [the U.K.] understands India and Indians better.” Nearly half of Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihood, and farmers make up a strong voting bloc that holds strong political clout. Back in 2021, farmer protests even forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw agricultural reforms and apologize. In fact, I have been told by former Indian officials and experts that the U.S. tariffs on India weren’t punishment for the country’s purchase of Russian oil, as Trump has claimed, but rather for its refusal to let U.S. food products flood the country. Nearly half of Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihood, and farmers make up a strong voting bloc that holds strong political clout. | Jagadeesh Nv/EPA “The interests of our farmers are top priority. India will never compromise on the interests of its farmers, dairy farmers and fishermen,” Modi had said at the time. But these same differences now threaten the EU-India relationship before it even properly takes off. “The Europeans could learn from the British,” the Indian official noted. “They excluded dairy, chicken and apples from the deal,” he explained, listing products particularly important to India. “In exchange, we let them bring in salmon, cod and lamb.” He also alluded that India could consider dropping tariffs on cars and wine if the bloc kept out of agriculture: “In liquor, luxury cars and wine, there is always room, since that doesn’t affect our most vulnerable people.” Instead of any such changes,, however, India is now growing peeved by what it sees as last-minute pressure tactics by Brussels. Just this month, the EU decided to “limit rice imports from India” and other Asian countries to the benefit of domestic rice growers and millers. And the bloc’s unexpected decision to spike tariffs on steel imports outside its quota to up to 50 percent has rattled Indian negotiators. New Delhi was already opposed to the EU’s incoming carbon tax, believing it would make its steel exports uncompetitive. The Secretary of India’s Ministry of Steel Sandeep Poundrik described the European carbon tax as a bigger threat to Indian exports than Trump’s tariffs. On top of all this, the bloc’s protectionist tendencies — displayed by its higher tariffs on steel and its recent decision to curb rice imports from India — are also unexpected hurdles. | Piyal Adhikary/EPA Moreover, some experts like former trade negotiator for India Sangeeta Godbole argue the EU stands to gain more from an FTA whereas India stands to lose if the carbon tax provision isn’t reconsidered. “Nearly 80 percent of Indian exports to the EU even now face miniscule tariffs below 1 percent,” she noted recently, demanding India shield exports “from excessive environmental rules” the EU is trying to impose. To that end, the country has decried the bloc’s tax on carbon intensive imports via CBAM as a violation of the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle, which doesn’t hold developing countries equally responsible for climate change due to differences in historical contributions and the state of their economic development. And here, too, India argues, the understanding with the British could be emulated. Although it failed to gain an exemption on the U.K.’s version of the carbon tax, India has reserved the right to retaliate if the FTA’s benefits are negated by this tax. For its part, the EU claims the carbon tax is intended to encourage the use of clean energy in heavy polluting industries. And as Commissioner for Trade Maroš Šefčovič said back in September: “We also need an understanding from the Indian side that we also have our constituency, we also have our audience” to consider — especially after the farmer protests over the recent deal with Mercosur nations. Meanwhile, the EU is also concerned about whether a deal with India might end up benefiting China. The bloc is desperately trying to reduce its dependence on Beijing in strategically important sectors and hoping India could replace it, but India itself is heavily reliant on China as well — for example, nearly half of the components in Indian semiconductors are imported from there. It also gains particular advantage for its textile sector, which was hard hit by U.S. President Donald Trump’s 50-percent tariff, removing tariffs on Indian textiles exported to the U.K. | Divyakant Solanki/EPA However, speaking with a highly placed EU insider who was granted anonymity, I learned the bloc is now ready to make concessions, offering to jointly manufacture cars to encourage India to lower its tariffs, to leave out access to certain agricultural products, and to possibly even relent on garment duties. And last week, negotiators went through sector by sector once more, trying to get a better deal for their domestic industries, trying to keep the balance sheet even. The truth is, India — home to a large number of people living below the poverty line despite its rapid economic growth — needs an FTA with the single largest market to attract foreign investment. But the EU needs India too.