BRUSSELS — On Greenland’s southern tip, surrounded by snowy peaks and deep fjords, lies Kvanefjeld — a mining project that shows the giant, barren island is more than just a coveted military base. Beneath the icy ground sits a major deposit of neodymium and praseodymium, rare earth elements used to make magnets that are essential to build wind turbines, electric vehicles and high-tech military equipment. If developed, Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark, would become the first European territory to produce these key strategic metals. Energy Transition Minerals, an Australia-based, China-backed mining company, is ready to break ground. But neither Copenhagen, Brussels nor the Greenlandic government have mobilized their state power to make the project happen. In 2009, Denmark handed Greenland’s inhabitants control of their natural resources; 12 years later the Greenlandic government blocked the mine because the rare earths are mixed with radioactive uranium. Since then the project has been in limbo, bogged down in legal disputes. “Kvanefjeld illustrates how political and regulatory uncertainty — combined with geopolitics and high capital requirements — makes even strategically important projects hard to move from potential to production,” Jeppe Kofod, Denmark’s former foreign minister and now a strategic adviser to Energy Transition Minerals, told POLITICO. Kvanefjeld’s woes are emblematic of Greenland’s broader problems. Despite having enough of some rare earth elements to supply as much as 25 percent of the world’s needs — not to mention oil and gas reserves nearly as great as those of the United States, and lots of other potential clean energy metals including copper, graphite and nickel — these resources are almost entirely undeveloped. Just two small mines, extracting gold and a niche mineral called feldspar used in glassmaking and ceramics, are up and running in Greenland. And until very recently, neither Denmark nor the European Union showed much interest in changing the situation. But that was before 2023, when the EU signed a memorandum of understanding with the Greenland government to cooperate on mining projects. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act, proposed the same year, is an attempt to catch up by building new mines both in and out of the bloc that singles out Greenland’s potential. Last month, the European Commission committed to contribute financing to Greenland’s Malmbjerg molybdenum mine in a bid to shore up a supply of the metal for the EU’s defense sector.  But with United States President Donald Trump threatening to take Greenland by force, and less likely to offer the island’s inhabitants veto power over mining projects, Europe may be too late to the party. “The EU has for many years had a limited strategic engagement in Greenland’s critical raw materials, meaning that Europe today risks having arrived late, just as the United States and China have intensified their interest,” Kofod said. In a world shaped by Trump’s increasingly belligerent foreign policy and China’s hyperactive development of clean technology and mineral supply chains, Europe’s neglect of Greenland’s natural wealth is looking increasingly like a strategic blunder. With Donald Trump threatening to take Greenland by force, and less likely to offer the island’s inhabitants veto power over mining projects, Europe may be too late to the party. | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images A HOSTILE LAND That’s not to say building mines in Greenland, with its mile-deep permanent ice sheet, would be easy. “Of all the places in the world where you could extract critical raw materials, [Greenland] is very remote and not very easily accessible,” said Ditte Brasso Sørensen, senior analyst on EU climate and industrial policy at Think Tank Europa, pointing to the territory’s “very difficult environmental circumstances.”  The tiny population — fewer than 60,000 — and a lack of infrastructure also make it hard to build mines. “This is a logistical question,” said Eldur Olafsson, CEO of Amaroq, a gold mining company running one of the two operating mines in Greenland and also exploring rare earths and copper extraction opportunities. “How do you build mines? Obviously, with capital, equipment, but also people. [And] you need to build the whole infrastructure around those people because they cannot only be Greenlandic,” he said.  Greenland also has strict environmental policies — including a landmark 2021 uranium mining ban — which restrict resource extraction because of its impact on nature and the environment. The current government, voted in last year, has not shown any signs of changing its stance on the uranium ban, according to Per Kalvig, professor emeritus at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, a Danish government research organization. Uranium is routinely found with rare earths, meaning the ban could frustrate Greenland’s huge potential as a rare earths producer. It’s a similar story with fossil fuels. Despite a 2007 U.S. assessment that the equivalent of over 30 billion barrels in oil and natural gas lies beneath the surface of Greenland and its territorial waters — almost equal to U.S. reserves — 30 years of oil exploration efforts by a group including Chevron, Italy’s ENI and Shell came to nothing. In 2021 the then-leftist government in Greenland banned further oil exploration on environmental grounds.  Danish geologist Flemming Christiansen, who was deputy director of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland until 2020, said the failure had nothing to do with Greenland’s actual potential as an oil producer. Instead, he said, a collapse in oil prices in 2014 along with the high cost of drilling in the Arctic made the venture unprofitable. Popular opposition only complicated matters, he said. THE CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECT From the skies above Greenland Christiansen sees firsthand the dramatic effects of climate change: stretches of clear water as rising temperatures thaw the ice sheets that for centuries have made exploring the territory a cold, costly and hazardous business. “If I fly over the waters in west Greenland I can see the changes,” he said. “There’s open water for much longer periods in west Greenland, in Baffin Bay and in east Greenland.” Climate change is opening up this frozen land. Climate change is opening up this frozen land. | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images Greenland contains the largest body of ice outside Antarctica, but that ice is melting at an alarming rate. One recent study suggests the ice sheet could cease to exist by the end of the century, raising sea levels by as much as seven meters. Losing a permanent ice cap that is several hundred meters deep, though, “gradually improves the business case of resource extraction, both for … fossil fuels and also critical raw materials,” said Jakob Dreyer, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen.   But exploiting Greenland’s resources doesn’t hinge on catastrophic levels of global warming. Even without advanced climate change, Kalvig, of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, argues Greenland’s coast doesn’t differ much from that of Norway, where oil has been found and numerous excavation projects operate.     “You can’t penetrate quite as far inland as you can [in Norway], but once access is established, many places are navigable year-round,” Kalvig said. “So, in that sense, it’s not more difficult to operate mines in Greenland than it is in many parts of Norway, Canada or elsewhere — or Russia for that matter. And this has been done before, in years when conditions allowed.”    A European Commission spokesperson said the EU was now working with Greenland’s government to develop its resources, adding that Greenland’s “democratically elected authorities have long favored partnerships with the EU to develop projects beneficial to both sides.” But the spokesperson stressed: “The fate of Greenland’s raw mineral resources is up to the Greenlandic people and their representatives.” The U.S. may be less magnanimous. Washington’s recent military operation in Venezuela showed that Trump is serious about building an empire on natural resources, and is prepared to use force and break international norms in pursuit of that goal. Greenland, with its vast oil and rare earths deposits, may fit neatly into his vision. Where the Greenlandic people fit in is less clear.

BRUSSELS — A coalition of European left parties has launched a call for signatures to force the European Commission to suspend the EU’s association agreement with Israel over Gaza. Despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement in October, Israel has kept attacking targets in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, drones and tanks, prompting the pro-Palestinian movement to renew its calls for the EU to take action against Israel. The coalition — led by France’s La France Insoumise, Spain’s Podemos, Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda, and Nordic left parties — has launched a European Citizens Initiative titled “Justice for Palestine” calling on the EU executive suspend ties with Israel over its “genocide against the Palestinian population, and its ongoing violations of international law and human rights.” If the initiative receives a million signatures from at least seven EU counties — a likely outcome given the popularity of the issue — the Commission will be forced to state which actions, if any, it will take in respond to the initiative. “The EU pretends everything is back to normal, but we will not turn a blind eye to what is happening in Gaza,” said MEP Manon Aubry, the leader of La France Insoumise, adding the “EU is helping to finance genocide” by not suspending trade relations with Israel. More than 100 children have been killed since the ceasefire agreement was signed in March, UNICEF said Tuesday. The Commission already proposed in November to suspend some parts of the association agreement and to sanction some “extremist ministers” in the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But parts of the package were never implemented because they required unanimous approval from EU countries. After the ceasefire was reached the Commission proposed withdrawing the measures; the issue has remained frozen ever since. Foreign ministers from numerous EU countries as well as the U.K., Norway, Canada and Japan sharply criticized an Israeli decision to bar 37 international non-governmental organizations from providing aid to Gaza. The humanitarian situation in the besieged territory remains dire, with many living outdoors in winter weather. Four people were killed on Tuesday when a storm caused buildings that had been damaged in the war to collapse, according to local media.

LONDON — Britain stepped up a promise to send troops into Ukraine — and left open a host of questions about how it will all work in practice. At a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris this week, the U.K. and France signed a “declaration of intent” to station forces in Ukraine as part of a multinational bid to support any ceasefire deal with Russia. It builds on months of behind-the-scenes planning by civil servants and military personnel eager to put heft behind any agreement. Despite promising a House of Commons vote, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has so far shared very little information publicly about how the operation might work and what its terms of engagement will be, at a time when Britain’s armed forces are already under significant strain. This lack of transparency has begun to raise alarm bells in defense circles. Ed Arnold of think tank the Royal United Services Institute has described the U.K. as being in “a really dangerous position,” while retired commander Tim Collins said any peacekeeping mission would not be credible without higher defense spending. Even Nigel Farage was in on the action Wednesday — the populist leader of Britain’s Reform UK party said he couldn’t sign up to the plan in its current form, and predicted the country could only keep its commitments going “for six or eight weeks.” Here are the key questions still lingering for Starmer’s government. HAS THE UK GOT ENOUGH TROOPS? In France, Emmanuel Macron is at least starting to get into the numbers. The French president gave a televised address Tuesday in which he said France envisaged sending “several thousands” of troops to Ukrainian territory. But Starmer has given no equivalent commitment. Under pressure in the House of Commons, the British prime minster defended that position Wednesday, saying the size of the deployment would depend on the nature of the ceasefire agreed between Russia and Ukraine. However, analysts say it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which a deployment does not place a genuine strain on the U.K.’s military. The country’s strategic defense review, published last year, stressed that the Britain’s armed forces have dwindled in strength since the Cold War, leaving “only a small set of forces ready to deploy at any given moment. The latest figures from the Ministry of Defence put the number of medically-deployable troops at 99,162. Figures including former head of the army Richard Dannatt and Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at RUSI, have warned that a new deployment in Ukraine would mean pulling away from existing operations. There is also a hefty question mark over how long troops might be deployed for, and whether they might be taking on an open-ended commitment of the kind that snarled Britain for years in Afghanistan. RUSI’s Arnold said positioning troops in Ukraine could be “bigger” than deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya, “not necessarily in numbers, but in terms of the consequences… This mission absolutely can’t fail. And if it’s a mission that can’t fail, it needs to be absolutely watertight.” WHAT HAPPENS IF RUSSIA ACTUALLY ATTACKS? Ministers have refused to be drawn so far on the expectations placed on troops who might be stationed in Ukraine as part of the plan. They have instead placed an emphasis on the U.K.’s role as part of a “reassurance” force, providing air and maritime support, with ground activity focused on training Ukrainian soldiers, and have not specified what would happen if British troops came under direct threat. The latest figures from the Ministry of Defence put the number of medically-deployable troops at 99,162. | Pool photo by Jason Alden/EPA That’s already got Kyiv asking questions. “Would all the COW partners give a strong response if Russia attacks again? That’s a hard question. I ask all of them, and I still have not gotten a clear answer,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters via WhatsApp chat on Wednesday. “I see political will. I see partners being ready to give us strong sanctions, security guarantees. But until we have legally binding security guarantees, approved by parliaments, by the U.S. Congress, we cannot answer the question if partners are ready to protect us,” Zelenskyy added. Richard Shirreff, former deputy supreme commander of NATO in Europe, told LBC: “This can’t be a lightly armed ‘blue beret’-type peacekeeping force … enforcing peace means being prepared to overmatch the Russians, and that means also being prepared to fight them if necessary.” A U.K. military official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said: “There is no point in troops being there if they’re not prepared to fight.” Asked if British troops could return fire if they came under attack from Russia, a Downing Street spokesman said Wednesday afternoon that they would not comment on “operational hypothetical scenarios.”  Ministers have refused to be drawn so far on the expectations placed on troops who might be stationed in Ukraine as part of the plan. | Tolga Akmen/EPA Returning fire might even be one of the simpler possibilities for the army to contemplate, with less clarity over how peacekeeping forces could respond to other types of hostile activity designed to destabilize a ceasefire, such as drone incursions or attempted hacking. WILL THE US REALLY PROVIDE A BACKSTOP? Starmer has long stressed that U.K. military involvement will depend on the U.S. offering back-up. John Foreman, a former British defense attaché in Moscow and Kyiv, said it was right for the multinational force to focus on support for Ukraine’s own forces, pointing out: “It was never going to be able to provide credible security guarantees — only the U.S. with perhaps key allies can do this.” While Washington has inched forward in its apparent willingness to provide security guarantees — including warm words from Donald Trump’s top envoys in Paris Tuesday — they are by no means set in stone.  The final statement, which emerged from Tuesday’s meeting, was watered down from an earlier draft, removing references to American participation in the multinational force for Ukraine, including with “U.S. capabilities such as intelligence and logistics, and with a U.S. commitment to support the force if it is attacked.” This will only add to fears that the U.K. is talking beyond its capabilities and is overly optimistic about the behavior of its allies. Government officials pushed back against the accusation that British military plans lack substance, arguing that it would be “irresponsible” to share specific operational details prematurely. That position could be difficult to maintain for long.

Donald Trump wants the U.S. to own Greenland. The trouble is, Greenland already belongs to Denmark and most Greenlanders don’t want to become part of the U.S. While swooping into Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and taking over Venezuela-style seems fanciful ― even if the military attack on Caracas seems to have provided a jolt to all sides about what the U.S. is capable of ― there’s a definite pathway. And Trump already appears to be some way along it. Worryingly for the Europeans, the strategy looks an awful lot like Vladimir Putin’s expansionist playbook. POLITICO spoke with nine EU officials, NATO insiders, defense experts and diplomats to game out how a U.S. takeover of the mineral-rich and strategically important Arctic island could play out. “It could be like five helicopters … he wouldn’t need a lot of troops,” said a Danish politician who asked for anonymity to speak freely. “There would be nothing they [Greenlanders] could do.” STEP 1: INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN TO BOOST GREENLAND’S INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT Almost immediately upon taking office, the Trump administration began talking up independence for Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. An unshackled Greenland could sign deals with the U.S., while under the status quo it needs Copenhagen’s approval. To gain independence, Greenlanders would need to vote in a referendum, then negotiate a deal that both Nuuk and Copenhagen must approve. In a 2025 opinion poll, 56 percent of Greenlanders said they would vote in favor of independence, while 28 percent said they would vote against it. Americans with ties to Trump have carried out covert influence operations in Greenland, according to Danish media reports, with Denmark’s security and intelligence service, PET, warning the territory “is the target of influence campaigns of various kinds.” Felix Kartte, a digital policy expert who has advised EU institutions and governments, pointed to Moscow’s tactics for influencing political outcomes in countries such as Moldova, Romania and Ukraine. “Russia mixes offline and online tactics,” he said. “On the ground, it works with aligned actors such as extremist parties, diaspora networks or pro-Russian oligarchs, and has been reported to pay people to attend anti-EU or anti-U.S. protests. “At the same time, it builds large networks of fake accounts and pseudo-media outlets to amplify these activities online and boost selected candidates or positions. The goal is often not to persuade voters that a pro-Russian option is better, but to make it appear larger, louder and more popular than it really is, creating a sense of inevitability.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, told CNN on Monday that “nobody is going to fight the U.S. militarily over the future of Greenland.” | Joe Raedle/Getty Images On Greenland, the U.S. appears to be deploying at least some of these methods. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, told CNN on Monday that “nobody is going to fight the U.S. militarily over the future of Greenland.” Last month, Trump created the position of special envoy to Greenland and appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry to the role. He declared his goal was to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”  Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, on a visit to the territory in March, said “the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination.” He added: “We hope that they choose to partner with the United States, because we’re the only nation on Earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security.” STEP 2: OFFER GREENLAND A SWEET DEAL Assuming its efforts to speed up Greenland’s independence referendum come to fruition, and the territory’s inhabitants vote to leave Denmark behind, the next step would be to bring it under U.S. influence. One obvious method would be to fold Greenland into the U.S. as another state — an idea those close to the president have repeatedly toyed with. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was on Monday forced to say that “the U.S. has no right to annex” Greenland after Katie Miller — the wife of Stephen Miller — posted to social media a map of the territory draped in a U.S. flag and the word “SOON.” A direct swap of Denmark for the U.S. seems largely unpalatable to most of the population. The poll mentioned above also showed 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose the territory becoming part of the U.S., and even Trump-friendly members of the independence movement aren’t keen on the idea. But there are other options. Reports have circulated since last May that the Trump administration wants Greenland to sign a Compact of Free Association (COFA) — like those it currently has with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Under the deals, the U.S. provides essential services, protection and free trade in exchange for its military operating without restriction on those countries’ territory. The idea resurfaced this week. Kuno Fencker, a pro-independence Greenlandic opposition MP who attended Trump’s inauguration and met with Republican Congressman Andy Ogles last year, said he tries to “explain to [the Americans] that we don’t want to be like Puerto Rico, or any other territory of the United States. But a Compact of Free Association, bilateral agreements, or even opportunities and other means which maybe I can’t imagine — let them come to the table and Greenlanders will decide in a plebiscite.” Compared to Nuuk’s deal with Copenhagen, things “can only go upwards,” he said.  Referring to Trump’s claim that the U.S. has a “need” for Greenland, Fencker added: “Denmark has never said that they ‘needed’ Greenland. Denmark has said that Greenland is an expense, and they would leave us if we become independent. So I think it’s a much more positive remark than we have ever seen from Denmark.” But Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College that provides training and education for the Danish defense forces, warned that Greenland is unlikely to get the better of Trump in a negotiation. “Trump’s primary identity as a deal-maker is someone who forces his will on the people he’s negotiating with, and someone who has a very long track record of betraying people who he’s negotiated deals with, not honoring his commitments, both in private and public life, and exploiting those around him … I really see zero benefits to Greenlandic people other than a very temporary boost to their self esteem.” And, he added, “it would be crazy to agree to something in the hope that a deal may come. I mean, if you give away your territory in the hopes that you might get a deal afterwards — that would be just really imprudent.” STEP 3: GET EUROPE ON BOARD Europe, particularly Denmark’s EU allies, would balk at any attempt to cleave Greenland away from Copenhagen. But the U.S. administration does have a trump card to play on that front: Ukraine. As peace negotiations have gathered pace, Kyiv has said that any deal with Putin must be backed by serious, long-term U.S. security guarantees. Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, on a visit to the territory in March, said “the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination.” | Pool photo by Tom Brenner vis Getty Images The Americans have prevaricated on that front, and in any case, Kyiv is skeptical about security guarantees, given those it has received from both Russia and the West in the past have amounted to nothing. One potential scenario an EU diplomat floated would be a security-for-security package deal, under which Europe gets firmer assurances from the Trump administration for Ukraine in exchange for an expanded role for the U.S. in Greenland. While that seems like a bitter pill, it could be easier to swallow than the alternative, annoying Trump, who may retaliate by imposing sanctions, pulling out of peace negotiations — or by throwing his weight behind Putin in negotiations with Ukraine. STEP 4: MILITARY INVASION But what if Greenland — or Denmark, whose “OK” Nuuk needs to secede — says no to Trump? A U.S. military takeover could be achieved without much difficulty.  Crosbie, from the Royal Danish Defense College, said Trump’s strategists are likely presenting him with various options. “The most worrisome would be a fait accompli-type strategy, which we see a lot and think about a lot in military circles, which would be simply grabbing the land the same way Putin tried to grab, to make territorial claims, over Ukraine. He could just simply put troops in the country and just say that it’s American now … the United States military is capable of landing any number of forces on Greenland, either by air or by sea, and then claiming that it’s American territory.” According to Lin Mortensgaard, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and an expert on Greenlandic security, Washington also has around 500 military officers, including local contractors, on the ground at its northern Pituffik Space Base and just under 10 consulate staff in Nuuk. That’s alongside roughly 100 National Guard troops from New York who are usually deployed seasonally in the Arctic summer to support research missions.  Greenland, meanwhile, has few defenses. The population has no territorial army, Mortensgaard said, while Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command in the capital includes scant and out-of-date military assets, largely limited to four inspection and navy vessels, a dog-sled patrol, several helicopters and one maritime patrol aircraft. As a result, if Trump mobilizes the U.S. presence on the ground — or flies in special forces — the U.S. could seize control of Nuuk “in half an hour or less,” Mortensgaard said. “Mr. Trump says things and then he does them,” said Danish Member of European Parliament Stine Bosse. “If you were one of 60,000 people in Greenland, you would be very worried.” Any incursion would have no “legal basis” under U.S. and international law, said Romain Chuffart, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Arctic Institute, a security think tank. Any occupation beyond 60 days would also require approval from the U.S. Congress.  Meanwhile, an invasion would “mean the end of NATO,” he said, and the “U.S. would be … shooting itself in the foot and waving goodbye to an alliance it has helped create.” Beyond that, a “loss of trust by key allies … could result in a reduction in their willingness to share intelligence with the U.S. or a reduction in access to bases across Europe,” said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. troops in Europe. “Both of these would be severely damaging to America’s security.” Reports have circulated since last May that the Trump administration wants Greenland to sign a Compact of Free Association (COFA) — like those it currently has with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images NATO would be left unable to respond, given that military action must be approved unanimously and the U.S. is the key member of the alliance, but European allies could deploy troops to Greenland via other groupings such as the U.K.-Scandinavian Joint Expeditionary Force or the five-country Nordic Defence Cooperation format, said Ed Arnold, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. But for now, NATO allies remain cool-headed about an attack. “We are still far from that scenario,” said one senior alliance diplomat. “There could be some tough negotiations, but I don’t think we are close to any hostile takeover.” Max Griera, Gerardo Fortuna and Seb Starcevic contributed reporting.

The message from Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle is clear: Get ready for U.S. relations with China to spiral all over again in the new year. The one-year trade truce brokered in October between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is already looking shaky. And lawmakers are preparing to reup clashes over trade, Taiwan and cyber-intrusions when they return in January. “It’s like a heavyweight fight, and we’re in that short time period in-between rounds, but both sides need to be preparing for what is next after the truce,” Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), a member of the House Select Committee on China, said in an interview. POLITICO talked to more than 25 lawmakers, including those on the House Select Committee on China, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s East Asia subcommittee and the Congressional Executive Commission on China, for their views on the durability of the trade treaty. Both Republicans and Democrats warned of turbulence ahead. More than 20 of the lawmakers said they doubt Xi will deliver on key pledges the White House said he made in October, including reducing the flow of precursor chemicals to Mexico that cartels process into fentanyl and buying agreed volumes of U.S. agricultural goods. “China can never be trusted. They’re always looking for an angle,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. That pessimism comes despite an easing in U.S.-China tensions since the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea. The bruising cycle of tit-for-tat tariffs that briefly hit triple digits earlier this year is currently on pause. Both countries have relaxed export restrictions on essential items (rare earths for the U.S., chip design software for China), while Beijing has committed to “expanding agricultural product trade” in an apparent reference to the suspension of imports of U.S. agricultural products it imposed earlier this year. This trend may continue, given that Trump is likely to want stability in the U.S.-China relationship ahead of a summit with Xi planned for April in Beijing. “We’re starting to see some movement now on some of their tariff issues and the fentanyl precursor issue,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said. But a series of issues have been brushed aside in negotiations or left in limbo — a status quo the Trump administration can only maintain for so long. The U.S.-China trade deal on rare earths that Bessent said the two countries would finalize by Thanksgiving remains unsettled. And the White House hasn’t confirmed reporting from earlier this month that Beijing-based ByteDance has finalized the sale of the TikTok social media app ahead of the Jan. 23 deadline for that agreement. “The idea that we’re in a period of stability with Beijing is simply not accurate,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shaheen has been sounding the alarm on China’s national security threats since she entered the Senate in 2009. But even some lawmakers who have been more open to engagement with Beijing — such as California Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna and Ami Bera — said that they don’t expect the armistice to last. The White House is more upbeat about the prospects for U.S.-China trade ties. “President Trump’s close relationship with President Xi is helping ensure that both countries are able to continue building on progress and continue resolving outstanding issues,” the White House said in a statement, adding that the administration “continues to monitor China’s compliance with our trade agreement.” It declined to comment on the TikTok deal. Still, the lawmakers POLITICO spoke with described four issues that could derail U.S.-China ties in the New Year: A SOYBEAN SPOILER U.S. soybean farmers’ reliance on the Chinese market gives Beijing a powerful non-tariff trade weapon — and China doesn’t appear to be following through on promises to renew purchases. The standoff over soybeans started in May, when China halted those purchases, raising the prospect of financial ruin across farming states including Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Indiana — key political constituencies for the GOP in the congressional midterm elections next year. The White House said last month that Xi committed to buying 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in November and December. But so far, Beijing has only purchased a fraction of that agreed total, NBC reported this month. “What agitates Trump and causes him to react quickly are things that are more domestic and closer to home,” Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) said. China’s foot-dragging on soybean purchases “is the most triggering because it’s hurting American farmers and consumers, so that’s where we could see the most volatility in the relationship,” she said. That trigger could come on Feb. 28 — the new deadline for that 12 million metric ton purchase, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced earlier this month. The Chinese embassy in Washington declined to comment on whether Beijing plans to meet this deadline. The White House said one of the aspects of the trade deal it is monitoring is soybean purchases through this growing season. THE TAIWAN TINDERBOX Beijing’s threats to invade Taiwan are another near-term potential flashpoint, even though the U.S. hasn’t prioritized the issue in its national security strategy or talks between Xi and Trump. China has increased its preparations for a Taiwan invasion this year. In October, the Chinese military debuted a new military barge system that addresses some of the challenges of landing on the island’s beaches by deploying a bridge for cargo ships to unload tanks or trucks directly onto the shore. “China is tightening the noose around the island,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who joined a bipartisan congressional delegation to China in September and returned calling for better communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. Some of the tension around Taiwan is playing out in the wider region, as Beijing pushes to expand its military reach and its influence. Chinese fighter jets locked radar — a prelude to opening fire — on Japanese aircraft earlier this month in the East China Sea. “There is a real chance that Xi overplays his hand on antagonizing our allies, particularly Australia and Japan,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said. “There is still a line [China] cannot cross without making this truce impossible to sustain.” The U.S. has a decades-long policy of “strategic ambiguity” under which it refuses to spell out how the U.S. would respond to Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Trump has also adhered to that policy. “You’ll find out if it happens,” Trump said in an interview with 60 Minutes in November. MORE EXPORT RESTRICTIONS ON THE WAY Beijing has eased its export restrictions on rare earths — metallic elements essential to both civilian and military applications — but could reimpose those blocks at any time. Ten of the 25 lawmakers who spoke to POLITICO said they suspect Beijing will reimpose those export curbs as a convenient pressure point in the coming months. “At the center of the crack in the truce is China’s ability to levy export restrictions, especially its chokehold on the global supply of rare earths and other critical minerals,” Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.) said. Others are worried China will choose to expand its export controls to another product category for which it has market dominance — pharmaceuticals. Beijing supplies 80 percent of the U.S. supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients — the foundations of common drugs to treat everything from high blood pressure to type 2 diabetes. “Overnight, China could turn off the spigot and many basic pharmaceuticals, including things like aspirin, go away from the supply chain in the United States,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) said. China restarted exports of rare earths earlier this month, and its Commerce Ministry pledged “timely approval” of such exports under a new licensing system, state media reported. Beijing has not indicated its intent to restrict the export of pharmaceuticals or their components as a trade weapon. But the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission urged the Food and Drug Administration to reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese sources of pharmaceuticals in its annual report last month. The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. GROWING CHINESE MILITARY MUSCLE China’s drive to develop a world-class military that can challenge traditional U.S. dominion of the Indo-Pacific could also derail relations between Washington and Beijing in 2026. China’s expanding navy — which, at more than 200 warships, is now the world’s largest — is helping Beijing show off its power across the region. The centerpiece of that effort in 2025 has been the addition of a third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which entered into service last month. The Fujian is two-thirds the size of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier. But like the Ford, it boasts state-of-the-art electromagnetic catapults to launch J-35 and J-15T fighter jets. The Trump administration sees that as a threat. The U.S. aims to insulate allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific from possible Chinese “sustained successful military aggression” powered by Beijing’s “historic military buildup,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month at the Reagan National Defense Forum. Five lawmakers said they see China’s increasingly aggressive regional military footprint as incompatible with U.S. efforts to maintain a stable relationship with Beijing in the months ahead. “We know the long-term goal of China is really economic and diplomatic and military domination around the world, and they see the United States as an adversary,” Moran said. Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

LONDON — Green Party leader Zack Polanski is open to forming a discrete non-aggression pact with Labour in order to stop right-winger Nigel Farage from ever entering Downing Street, according to two senior Green officials. Polanski, the leader of the “eco-populist” outfit that is helping squeeze the incumbent Labour government’s progressive vote, has been keen to make the case that his radical politics can halt Farage — whose insurgent Reform UK is riding high in the polls — in his tracks. But the recently elected party chief, who has overseen a big boost to Green polling with his punchy defenses of leftist causes on social media and television, has told allies he “couldn’t live with myself” if he contributed to Farage’s victory, according to a second senior Green official, granted anonymity like others in this piece to speak about internal thinking. Such a move would stop short of a formal Green-Labour deal, instead tapping into tactical voting. Green officials are discussing the prospect of informal, local prioritizations of resources so the best-placed progressive challenger can win, as seen in elections past with Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats. At the same time, Green advisers are keen to lean into the deep divisions within Labour about whether Starmer should be replaced with another leader to prevent electoral oblivion. Starmer appears deeply unpopular with Green supporters. One YouGov study has him rated just as unfavorably as Conservative chief Badenoch with backers of Polanski’s party. The first Green official argued there is “no advantage in working electorally with Labour under Starmer.” Instead, they’re eyeing up — even expecting — a change in Labour leadership. Polanski has talked up Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Labour mayor who is seen as one potential challenger to Starmer.  LABOUR: WE ARE NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT THAT As the party in power, Labour — which has ramped up its attacks on the Greens in recent weeks — is keen to tamp down talk of working together. Asked about the Greens, a senior U.K. government adviser said: “We are not even thinking about that. We need to focus on being a viable government.”  They expect Polanski’s polling to plummet once there’s more scrutiny of his politics, including his criticism of NATO, as well as his more colorful comments. Back in 2013, as a hypnotherapist, Polanski suggested to a reporter he could enlarge breasts with his mind. “The hypnotist thing goes down in focus groups like a bucket of cold sick,” the government adviser added. There’s skepticism that a non-aggression deal could work anyway, not least because the Greens will be vying for the kind of urban heartlands Labour can’t afford to back down from. Neither party “has an incentive to go soft on one another,” as a result, Luke Tryl, a director at the More in Common think tank, said. “I really doubt they’re going to forgo taking more seats off us in London or Bristol in the greater interest of the left,” said a Labour MP with a keen eye on the polling. “They’re trying to replace us — they’re not trying to be our little friends.” The Labour MP instead argued that voters typically make their minds up in the lead-up to elections as to how best to stop a certain outcome, whether that’s due to past polling or activities on the ground. Zack Polanski has been keen to make the case that his radical politics can halt Nigel Farage — whose insurgent Reform UK is riding high in the polls — in his tracks. | Lesley Martin/Getty Images That can well work against Labour, as seen in the Caerphilly by-election in October. The constituency of the devolved Welsh administration had been Labour since its inception in 1999 — but no more. Voters determined to stop Farage decided it was the center-left Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru that represented the best party to coalesce around. Reform’s success was thwarted — but Labour’s vote plummeted in what were once party heartlands.  “There’s no doubt the Greens risk doing to Labour what Farage did to the Conservatives,” said Tryl of More in Common, who pointed out that the Greens may not even win many seats as a result of the fracturing (party officials internally speak of winning only 50 MPs as being a huge ask).   “Labour’s hope instead will have to be that enough disgruntled progressives hold their nose and opt for PM Starmer over the threat of PM Farage.” Labour and the Greens are not the only parties dealing with talk of a pact, despite a likely four-year wait for Britain’s next general election. Ever since 1918, it’s been either the Conservatives or Labour who’ve formed the British government, with Westminster’s first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system across 650 constituencies meaning new parties rarely get a look in. But the general election in July last year suggested this could be coming apart. Farage has already been forced to deny a report that he views an electoral deal with establishment Conservatives as the “inevitable” route to power. His stated aim is to replace the right-wing party entirely. Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch is publicly pretty firm that she won’t buddy up with Reform either. “I am the custodian of an institution that has existed for nigh on 200 years,” she said in February. “I can’t just treat it like it’s a toy and have pacts and mergers.” Robert Jenrick, the right-winger who’s widely tipped as her successor, has been more circumspect, however. That appears to be focusing minds on the left. Farage may be polling the highest — but there’s still a significant portion of the public horrified by the prospect of him entering No.10. A YouGov study on tactical voting suggested that Labour would be able to count on a boost in support from Liberal Democrat and Green voters to stave off the threat of Farage. Outwardly, Polanski is a vocal critic of Labour under Starmer and wants to usurp the party as the main vehicle for left-wing politics. The Green leader is aiming to win over not just progressives, but also disenchanted Reform-leaning voters, with his support for wider public ownership, higher taxes on the wealthy, and opposition to controversial measures like scaling back jury trials and introducing mandatory digital IDs. But privately, Polanski is more open to doing deals because in his mind, “at the general election, stopping Farage is the most important objective,” as the first senior Green adviser put it. “We expect to be the main challengers to Reform, but of course we are open to discussing what options exist to help in that central mission of stopping Farage,” they said.

President Donald Trump promised that a wave of emergency tariffs on nearly every nation would restore “fair” trade and jump-start the economy. Eight months later, half of U.S. imports are avoiding those tariffs. “To all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors, and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs,” Trump said in April when he rolled out global tariffs based on the United States’ trade deficits with other countries, “I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don’t manipulate your currencies.” But in the time since the president gave that Rose Garden speech announcing the highest tariffs in a century, enormous holes have appeared. Carveouts for specific products, trade deals with major allies and conflicting import duties have let more than half of all imports escape his sweeping emergency tariffs. Some $1.6 trillion in annual imports are subject to the tariffs, while at least $1.7 trillion are excluded, either because they are duty-free or subject to another tariff, according to a POLITICO analysis based on last year’s import data. The exemptions on thousands of goods could undercut Trump’s effort to protect American manufacturing, shrink the trade deficit and raise new revenue to fund his domestic agenda. In September, the White House exempted hundreds of goods, including critical minerals and industrial materials, totaling nearly $280 billion worth of annual imports. Then in November, the administration exempted $252 billion worth of mostly agricultural imports like beef, coffee and bananas, some of which are not widely produced in the U.S. — just after cost-of-living issues became a major talking point out of Democratic electoral victories — on top of the hundreds of other carveouts. “The administration, for most of this year, spent a lot of time saying tariffs are a way to offload taxes onto foreigners,” said Ed Gresser, a former assistant U.S. trade representative under Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s first term, who now works at the Progressive Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank. “I think that becomes very hard to continue arguing when you then say, ‘But we are going to get rid of tariffs on coffee and beef, and that will bring prices down.’ … It’s a big retreat in principle.” The Trump administration has argued that higher tariffs would rebalance the United States’ trade deficits with many of its major trading partners, which Trump blames for the “hollowing out” of U.S. manufacturing in what he evoked as a “national emergency.” Before the Supreme Court, the administration is defending the president’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact the tariffs, and Trump has said that a potential court-ordered end to the emergency tariffs would be “country-threatening.” In an interview with POLITICO on Monday, Trump said he was open to adding even more exemptions to tariffs. He downplayed the existing carveouts as “very small” and “not a big deal,” and said he plans to pair them with tariff increases elsewhere. Responding to POLITICO’s analysis, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “The Trump administration is implementing a nuanced and nimble tariff agenda to address our historic trade deficit and safeguard our national security. This agenda has already resulted in trillions in investments to make and hire in America along with over a dozen trade deals with some of America’s most important trade partners.” To date, the majority of exemptions to the “reciprocal” tariffs — the minimum 10 percent levies on most countries — have been for reasons other than new trade deals, according to POLITICO’s analysis. The White House also pushed back against the notion that November’s cuts were made in an effort to reduce food prices, saying that the exemptions were first outlined in the September order. The U.S. granted subsequent blanket exemptions, regardless of the status of countries’ trade negotiations with the Trump administration, after announcing several trade deals. Following the exemptions on agricultural tariffs, Trump announced on Monday a $12 billion relief aid package for farmers hurt by tariffs and rising production costs. The money will come from an Agriculture Department fund, though the president said it was paid for by revenue from tariffs (by law, Congress would need to approve spending the money that tariffs bring in). In addition to the exemptions from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, more than $300 billion of imports are also exempted as part of trade deals the administration has negotiated in recent months, including with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and more recently, Malaysia, Cambodia and Brazil. The deal with Brazil removed a range of products from a cumulative tariff of 50 percent, making two-thirds of imports from the country free from emergency tariffs. For Canadian and Mexican goods, Trump imposed tariffs under a separate emergency justification over fentanyl trafficking and undocumented migrants. But about half of imports from Mexico and nearly 40 percent of those from Canada will not face tariffs because of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. Last year, importers claimed USMCA exemptions on $405 billion in goods; that value is expected to increase, given that the two countries are facing high tariffs for the first time in several years. The Trump administration has also exempted several products — including autos, steel and aluminum — from the emergency reciprocal tariffs because they already face duties under Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The imports covered by those tariffs could total up to $900 billion annually, some of which may also be exempt under USMCA. The White House is considering using the law to justify further tariffs on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and several other industries. For now, the emergency tariffs remain in place as the Supreme Court weighs whether Trump exceeded his authority in imposing them. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump’s use of emergency authority was unlawful — a decision the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld in August. During oral arguments on Nov. 5, several Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism that the emergency statute authorizes a president to levy tariffs, a power constitutionally assigned to Congress. As the rates of tariffs and their subsequent exemptions are quickly added and amended, businesses are struggling to keep pace, said Sabine Altendorf, an economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “When there’s uncertainty and rapid changes, it makes operations very difficult,” Altendorf said. “Especially for agricultural products where growing times and planting times are involved, it’s very important for market actors to be able to plan ahead.” ABOUT THE DATA Trump’s trade policy is not a straightforward, one-size-fits-all approach, despite the blanket tariffs on most countries of the world. POLITICO used 2024 import data to estimate the value of goods subject to each tariff, accounting for the stacking rules outlined below. Under Trump’s current system, some tariffs can “stack” — meaning a product can face more than one tariff if multiple trade actions apply to it. Section 232 tariffs cover automobiles, automobile parts, products made of steel and aluminum, copper and lumber — and are applied in that order of priority. Section 232 tariffs as a whole then take priority over other emergency tariffs. We applied this stacking priority order to all imports to ensure no double-counting. To calculate the total exclusions, we did not count the value of products containing steel, aluminum and copper, since the tariff would apply only to the known portion of the import’s metal contentand not the total import value of all products containing them. This makes the $1.7 trillion in exclusions a minimum estimate. Goods from Canada and Mexico imported under USMCA face no tariffs. Some of these products fall under a Section 232 category and may be charged applicable tariffs for the non-USMCA portion of the import. To claim exemptions under USMCA, importers must indicate the percentage of the product made or assembled in Canada or Mexico. Because detailed commodity-level data on which imports qualify for USMCA is not available, POLITICO’s analysis estimated the amount that would be excluded from tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports by applying each country’s USMCA-exempt share to its non-Section 232 import value. For instance, 38 percent of Canada’s total imports qualified for USMCA. The non-Section 232 imports from Canada totaled around $320 billion, so we used only $121 billion towards our calculation of total goods excluded from Trump’s emergency tariffs. Exemptions from trade deals included those with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, Cambodia and Malaysia. They do not include “frameworks” for agreements announced by the administration. Exemptions were calculated in chronological order of when the deals were announced. Imports already exempted in previous orders were not counted again, even if they appeared on subsequent exemption lists.

DUBLIN — Neutral and poorly armed Ireland — long viewed as “Europe’s blind spot” — announced Thursday it will spend €1.7 billion on improved military equipment, capabilities and facilities to deter drones and potential Russian sabotage of undersea cables. The five-year plan, published as Defense Minister Helen McEntee visited the Curragh army base near Dublin,  aims in part to reassure European allies that their leaders will be safe from attack when Ireland — a non-NATO member largely dependent on neighboring Britain for its security — hosts key EU summits in the second half of next year. McEntee said Ireland intends to buy and deploy €19 million in counter-drone technology “as soon as possible, not least because of the upcoming European presidency.” Ireland’s higher military spending — representing a 55 percent increase from previous commitments — comes barely a week after a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exposed Ireland’s inability to secure its own seas and skies. Five unmarked drones buzzed an Irish naval vessel supposed to be guarding the flight path of Zelenskyy’s plane shortly after the Ukrainian leader touched down at Dublin Airport. The Irish ship didn’t fire at the drones, which eventually disappeared. Irish authorities have been unable to identify their source, but suspect that they were operated from an unidentified ship later spotted in European Space Agency satellite footage. The Russian embassy in Dublin denied any involvement. Ireland’s navy has just eight ships, but sufficient crews to operate only two at a time, even though the country has vast territorial waters containing critical undersea infrastructure and pipelines that supply three-fourths of Ireland’s natural gas. The country has no fighter jets and no military-grade radar and sonar. Some but not all of those critical gaps will be plugged by 2028, McEntee pledged. She said Ireland would roll out military-grade radar starting next year, buy sonar systems for the navy, and acquire up to a dozen helicopters, including four already ordered from Airbus. The army would upgrade its Swiss-made fleet of 80 Piranha III armored vehicles and develop drone and anti-drone units. The air force’s fixed-wing aircraft will be replaced by 2030 — probably by what would be Ireland’s first wing of combat fighters. Thursday’s announcement coincided with publication of an independent assessment of Ireland’s rising security vulnerabilities on land, sea and air. The report, coauthored by the Dublin-based think tank IIEA and analysts at Deloitte, found that U.S. multinationals operating in Ireland were at risk of cyberattacks and espionage by Russian, Chinese and Indian intelligence agents operating in the country.

As a frontline NATO heavyweight, Poland is seething at being relegated to the diplomatic sidelines on a potential peace deal in Ukraine. When leaders from the U.K., France, Germany and Ukraine gathered in London this week to align their stances on Washington’s fast-moving push for a peace deal, Poland wasn’t to be found on the guest list. It was the second snub in as many months, after Warsaw also missed an invitation to a crunch peace summit in Geneva on Nov. 23. Poland’s exclusion from the top table is a bitter blow for a country that has taken one of the EU’s most active positions on Ukraine — and the right-wing nationalist camp around President Karol Nawrocki has wasted no time in blaming liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk for the flop. “Poland’s absence in London is yet another example of Donald Tusk’s incompetence,” Marek Pęk, a senator from the nationalist Law and Justice party, raged after the Downing Street meeting, calling Tusk “a second-tier politician in Europe.” The reasons for Polish frustration are clear. Poland not only hosts 1 million Ukrainian refugees and acts as the key supply hub for Ukraine, but Warsaw also plays a pivotal role in pressing Europe toward rearmament. Poland is NATO’s highest per capita spender on defense and wants to more than double its military — already the alliance’s third biggest — to 500,000 personnel. TUSK ON THE MARGINS Tusk has also betrayed some frustration at Poland’s exile to the diplomatic margins. After the meeting in Geneva, he asked to be added to the joint European communiqué — a face-saving request that Warsaw commentators said merely underlined Poland’s absence. Donald Tusk has betrayed some frustration at Poland’s exile to the diplomatic margins. | Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images In Berlin last week, standing beside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Tusk tried to defuse the awkwardness over the diplomatic rebuff to Poland with a touch of irony. “I don’t want to stir emotions, but let’s say this plainly: Not everyone in Washington — and certainly no one in Moscow — wants Poland to be present everywhere,” he said, before adding that he took this banishment — presumably a reflection of Poland’s dogged defense of Ukraine — “as a compliment.” The government insists nothing unusual occurred in London. The format “was proposed by Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer,” government spokesperson Adam Szłapka said, arguing that “there are dozens of such formats, and they change constantly. Not every format produces results, and Poland does not have to — and should not — participate in all of them.”  He noted that Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski had joined a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Starmer after the meeting — proof, he said, that Poland “remains fully engaged.” Polish officials are also quick to point out there are no actual peace negotiations with Russia, at least for now. “These are snapshots, not the architecture,” one diplomat said of Warsaw’s absences. “It’s too early for hysteria.” The diplomat, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely on a topic of political sensitivity. FROM PLAYMAKER TO BYSTANDER In the early years of the war, Poland was impossible to ignore. It sent much of its arsenal to Ukraine, cajoled Berlin into sending Leopard tanks to Kyiv, and served as NATO’s indispensable logistics hub, most notably from an airbase near the city of Rzeszów. President Karol Nawrocki has been busy building up his own foreign-policy credentials. | Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images But much of that leverage has faded. Poland’s Soviet-era weapons stocks are depleted and its vast rearmament drive won’t free up anything it can spare abroad for years. Meanwhile, France, Germany and the U.K. are now promising new air-defense systems, long-range missiles and — crucially — are willing to contribute troops to any future monitoring or peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. Even if they are just that — promises — Poland has already ruled that out. In discussions now centered on cease-fire enforcement and security guarantees, past support matters less than deployable assets, and Kyiv has adjusted accordingly. Zelenskyy is now leaning heavily on capitals that can bring something new to the table. “Americans don’t want us, European leaders don’t want us, Kyiv doesn’t want us — so who does?” former Prime Minister Leszek Miller said after the London talks. “Something unpleasant is happening, and we should stop pretending otherwise.” Former President Bronisław Komorowski, a political ally of Tusk, argued that Poland’s absence reflected geopolitical realities, not diplomatic failure.  London brought together “the three strongest European countries” — politically, militarily and economically — the ones contributing the most to Ukraine’s war effort, he said. Poland, he added, “is simply weaker,” and while Europe values Warsaw’s role, it must be “in line with its real weight.” SPLIT-SCREEN DIPLOMACY Poland’s quest for diplomatic heft is hardly helped by its difficulties speaking with one voice abroad. As Tusk focuses on European coordination efforts, nationalist opposition-backed President Nawrocki has been busy building up his own foreign-policy credentials, jetting off to Washington, cultivating contacts around Donald Trump’s administration, and speaking publicly about Poland’s “independent voice.”  The two sides exchange frequent jabs. Tusk recently reminded Nawrocki that the Polish constitution entrusts foreign policy to the government, not to the presidency. Despite the theatrics, both camps share the same hard line on Russia. What they don’t share is a strategy for navigating Washington. Government officials acknowledge Nawrocki currently has more direct access to the White House.  His senior foreign policy adviser, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, puts it bluntly: “Trump will never meet Tusk. He will meet the president. Thanks to him, Poland still has a channel to Washington.” Nawrocki’s circle argues this gives him leverage Tusk can’t match. Without access to Trump, Tusk “adds nothing distinctive” to high-level Western conversations, Saryusz-Wolski told POLITICO. In his view, unless someone with the president’s standing asserts Poland’s interests at the highest level, the country will simply follow whatever compromise Paris, Berlin and London shape with Washington. Officials concede privately that a channel to Washington matters — and for now, Nawrocki has it. Still, they also warn that betting everything on a single, unpredictable U.S. president is risky, especially after the new U.S. security strategy openly signaled that Europe must take far greater responsibility for its own defense. The consequence of Nawrocki handling diplomacy with Trump while Tusk deals with Europe is that it can look like two foreign policies at once. “The problem is not Poland’s position,” said a senior Western European diplomat, referring to the country’s pro-Ukraine stance. “The problem is knowing who speaks for Poland.” If it’s any consolation to Tusk, Germany’s Merz insists that he is taking Warsaw’s position into account. “My position toward Poland is very clear: We do nothing without close coordination with Poland,” the chancellor told Tusk last week.

President Donald Trump’s latest round of Europe-bashing has the U.S.’s allies across the Atlantic revisiting a perennial question: Why does Trump hate Europe so much? Trump’s disdain for America’s one-time partners has been on prominent display in the past week — first in Trump’s newly released national security strategy, which suggested that Europe was suffering from civilizational decline, and then in Trump’s exclusive interview with POLITICO, where he chided the “decaying” continent’s leaders as “weak.” In Europe, Trump’s criticisms were met with more familiar consternation — and calls to speed up plans for a future where the continent cannot rely on American security support. But where does Trump’s animosity for Europe actually come from? To find out, I reached out to a scholar who’d been recommended to me by sources in MAGA world as someone who actually understands their foreign policy thinking (even if he doesn’t agree with it). “He does seem to divide the world into strength and weakness, and he pays attention to strength, and he kind of ignores weakness,” said Jeremy Shapiro, the research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Trump’s strained relations with the continent. “And he has long characterized the Europeans as weak.” Shapiro explained that Trump has long blamed Europe’s weakness on its low levels of military spending and its dependence on American security might. But his critique seems to have taken on a new vehemence during his second term thanks to input from new advisers like Vice President JD Vance, who have successfully cast Europe as a liberal bulwark in a global culture war between MAGA-style “nationalists” and so-called globalists. Like many young conservatives, Shapiro explained, Vance has come to believe that “it was these bastions of liberal power in the culture and in the government that stymied the first Trump term, so you needed to attack the universities, the think tanks, the foundations, the finance industry, and, of course, the deep state.” In the eyes of MAGA, he said, “Europe is one of these liberal bastions.” This conversation was edited for length and clarity. Trump’s recent posture toward Europe brings to mind the old adage that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. Do you think Trump hates Europe, or does he just think it’s irrelevant? My main impression is that he’s pretty indifferent toward it. There are moments when specific European countries or the EU really pisses him off and he expresses something that seems close to hatred, but mostly he doesn’t seem very focused on it. Why do you think that is? He does seem to divide the world into strength and weakness, and he pays attention to strength, and he kind of ignores weakness. And he has long characterized the Europeans as weak for a bunch of different reasons having to do with what seems to him to be a decadence in their society, their immigration, their social welfare states, their lack of apparent military vigor. All of those things seem to put them in the weak category, and in Trump’s world, if you’re in the weak category, he doesn’t pay much attention to you. What about more prosaic things like the trade imbalance and NATO spending? Do those contribute to his disdain, or does it originate from a more guttural place? I get the impression that it is more at a guttural level. It always seemed to me that the NATO spending debate was just a stick with which to beat the NATO allies. He has long understood that that’s something that they felt a little bit guilty about, and that’s something that American presidents had beat them about for a while, so he just sort of took it to an 11. The trade deficit is something that’s more serious for him. He’s paid quite a bit of attention to that in every country, so it’s in the trade area where he takes Europeans most seriously. But because they’re so weak and so dependent on the United States for security, he hasn’t had to deal with their trade problems in the same way. He’s able to threaten them on security, and they have folded pretty quickly. Does some of his animosity originate from his pre-presidency when he did business in Europe? He likes to blame Europeans for nixing some of his business transactions, like a golf course in Ireland. How serious do you think that is? I think that’s been important in forming his opinion of the EU rather than of Europe as a whole. He never seems to refer to the EU without referring to the fact that they blocked his golf course in Ireland. It wasn’t even the EU that blocked it, actually — it was an Irish local government authority — but it conforms to the general MAGA view of the EU as overly bureaucratic, anti-development and basically as an extension of the American liberal approach to development and regulation, which Trump certainly does hate. That’s part of what led Trump and his movement more generally to put the EU in the category of supporters of liberal America. In that sense, the fight against the EU in particular — but also against the other liberal regimes in Europe — became an extension of their domestic political battle with liberals in America. That effort to pull Europe as a whole into the American culture war by positioning it as a repository of all the liberal pieties that MAGA has come to hate — that seems kind of new. That is new for the second term, yeah. Where do you think that’s coming from? It definitely seems to be coming from [Vice President] JD Vance and the sort of philosophers who support him — the Patrick Deneens and Yoram Hazonys. Those types of people see liberal Europe as quite decadent and as part of the overall liberal problem in the world. You can also trace some of it back to Steve Bannon, who has definitely been talking about this stuff for a while. There does seem to be a real preoccupation with the idea that Europe is suffering from some sort of civilizational decline or civilization collapse. For instance, in both the new national security strategy and in his remarks to POLITICO this week, Trump has suggested that Europe is “decaying.” What do you make of that? This is a bit of a projection, right? If you look at the numbers in terms of immigration and diversity, the United States is further ahead in that decay — if you want to call it that — than Europe. There was this view that emerged among MAGA elites in the interregnum that it wasn’t enough to win the presidency in order to successfully change America. You had to attack all of the bastions of liberal power. It was these bastions of liberal power in the culture and in the government that stymied the first Trump term, so you needed to attack the universities, the think tanks, the foundations, the finance industry and, of course, the deep state, which is the first target. It was only through attacking these liberal bastions and conquering them to your cause that you could have a truly transformative effect. One of the things that they seem to have picked up while contemplating this theory is that Europe is one of these liberal bastions. Europe is a support for liberals in the United States, in part because Europe is the place where Americans get their sense of how the world views them. It’s ironic that that image of a decadent Europe coexists with the rise of far-right parties across the continent. Obviously, the Trump administration has supported those parties and allied with them, but at least in France and Germany, the momentum seems to be behind these parties at the moment. That presents them with an avenue to destroy liberal Europe’s support for liberal America by essentially transforming Europe into an illiberal regime. That is the vector of attack on liberal Europe. There has been this idea that’s developed amongst the populist parties in Europe since Brexit that they’re not really trying to leave the EU or destroy the EU; they’re trying to remake the EU in their nationalist and sovereigntist image. That’s perfect for what the Trump people are trying to do, which is not destroy the EU fully, but destroy the EU as a support for liberal ideas in the world and the United States. You mentioned the vice president, who has become a very prominent mouthpiece for this adversarial approach to Europe — most obviously in his speech at Munich earlier this year. Do you think he’s just following Trump’s guttural dislike of Europe or is he advancing his own independent anti-European agenda? A little of both. I think that Vance, like any good vice president, is very careful not to get crosswise with his boss and not contradict him in any way. So the fact that Trump isn’t opposed to this and that he can support it to a degree is very, very important. But I think that a lot of these ideas come from Vance independently, at least in detail. What he’s doing is nudging Trump along this road. He’s thinking about what will appeal to Trump, and he’s mostly been getting it right. But I think that especially when it comes to this sort of culture war stuff with Europe, he’s more of a source than a follower. During this latest round of Trump’s Euro-bashing, did anything stand out to you as new or novel? Or was it all of a piece with what you had heard before? It was novel relative to a year ago, but not relative to February and since then. But it’s a new mechanism of describing it — through a national security strategy document and through interviews with the president. The same arguments have achieved a sort of higher status, I would say, in the last week or so. You could sit around in Europe — as I did — and argue about the degree to which this really was what the Trump administration was doing, or whether this was just a faction — and you can still have that argument, because the Trump administration is generally quite inconsistent and incoherent when it comes to this kind of thing — but I think it’s undoubtedly achieved a greater status in the last week or two. How do you think Europe should deal with Trump’s recurring animosity towards the continent? It seems they’ve settled on a strategy of flattery, but do you think that’s effective in the long run? No, I think that’s the exact opposite of effective. If you recall what I said at the beginning, Trump abhors weakness, and flattery is the sort of ultimate manifestation of weakness. Every time the Europeans show up and flatter Trump, it enables them to have a good meeting with him, but it conveys the impression to him that they are weak, and so it increases his policy demands against them. We’ve seen that over and over again. The Europeans showed up and thought they had changed his Ukraine position, they had a great meeting, he said good things about them, they went home and a few weeks later, he had a totally different Ukraine position that they’re now having to deal with. The flattery has achieved the sense in the Trump administration that they can do anything they want to the Europeans, and they’ll basically swallow it. They haven’t done what some other countries have done, like the Chinese or the Brazilians, or even the Canadians to some degree, which is to stand up to Trump and show him that he has to deal with them as strong actors. And that’s a shame, because the Europeans — while they obviously have an asymmetric dependence on the United States, and they have some weaknesses — are a lot stronger than a lot of other countries, especially if they were working together. I think they have some capacity to do that, but they haven’t really managed it as of yet. Maybe this will be a wake-up call to do that.