US President Donald Trump got into another shouting match over the Ukraine conflict, this time with Europe’s top leaders of the coalition of the willing, in a phone call following the end of the Paris summit on September 4.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the success of the summit turned on offering Ukraine genuine security guarantees, but EU leaders fluffed the task. They failed to come up with any real security guarantees and instead talks about beefing up the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and turning Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” Even this won’t work as they have admitted on multiple occasions, and again this week in Paris, that the success of their proposals depend on a US “backstop.”

The COW leaders phoned Trump following their meetings to seek his support, but the conversation quickly descended into an argument in which Trump raised his voice, Axios reports.

In a virtual meeting, Trump accused European leaders of "funding the war" through ongoing purchases of Russian oil and must cut Russia off as well as pressuring China to do the same, a White House official told Axios.

In 2021, the EU spent €71bn  on imports of oil and oil products from Russia and an unknown, but probably comparable amount on gas imports. In 2024, according to CREA, the total volume of Russian energy imports to the EU amounted to €23.9bn  - several times less, but far from zero.

As bne IntelliNews has reported, the EU has spent €233bn on the import of Russian oil and gas in the last three years, about three-times more than it has sent to Kyiv to support its war effort.

Trump is more focused on energy deals than ending the conflict. As part of his tariffs deal with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in March, she conceded to tripling European imports of US energy to €750bn a year. Likewise, during the Alaska summit on August 15 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two discussed smoothing the way for ExxonMobil to return to the Sakhalin-1 oil project that could be worth billions of dollars to the company. And the US delegation has made it plain from the start of the Ukraine ceasefire talks that started in Riyadh in February that it wants to do business with Russia and is looking at joint oil and gas projects in the Arctic in particular.

In the most recent example, Trump said he was “very angry” with Ukraine and backed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s complaints to Brussels after Ukraine attacked, and temporarily knocked out of action, oil deliveries from Russia to Budapest with missile strikes on the Druzhba oil pipeline.

The latest row will come as a big blow to Kyiv and the COW leaders, who needed Trump’s backing for their plans. However, as bne IntelliNews reported, the Paris summit was a failure insomuch as it didn’t come up with many concrete decisions. Rather than offer the genuine collective security guarantees that Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed in a Nato-lite format, it focused on a vague plan to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine and beef up the AFU so that Ukraine can provide its own security. But all of the COW proposals need US backing, which remains the main source of weapons, technology and crucial satellite intelligence. Trump has promised some sort of support, but remains extremely vague on the details.

The Europeans hoped to get the US to sign some commitments to participate in these guarantees, such as air support or intelligence. What they managed to achieve is not yet clear. Macron said after the meeting that the US would finalize its proposals to participate in security guarantees in the coming days.

Relations between Europe and the White House are deteriorating. Trump officials have accused Brussels of trying to undermine the US president’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, Axios reported last week.

Now, Trump got into yet another shouting match with COW leaders following the end of the Paris summit, Axios reports, similar to the notorious shouting match between Trump and Zelenskiy in February during an Oval Office press conference.

Trump has shown little interest in making a genuine effort to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. During the Alaska summit, he switched lines and abandoned his own suggestion for a 30-day ceasefire, adopting instead the Kremlin’s call to start the more difficult peace talks, based on the agreements reached on the failed 2022 Istanbul peace deal.

Putin prefers the wider peace talk format as it will deal with what he calls the “root causes” of the conflict that would include an insistence that Ukraine return to neutrality and also cede to Russia’s claim of sovereignty over the five occupied Ukrainian regions. He wants to not only end his “special military operation,” but reset Russia’s wider security situation with all of Europe. No-Nato for Ukraine is at the heart of this deal.

Trump appears to be onboard with these demands as they were included in his seven-point “final offer” peace plan presented in April that was immediately rejected by Kyiv. At the same time, Trump has set, and then ignored, seven deadlines for Putin to start negotiations or face brutal sanctions. Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has imposed no new sanctions on Russia whatsoever.

During the call with the COW leaders and Zelenskiy asking for US support, Trump turned the tables on them and demanded that Europe dramatically decrease their purchases of Russian oil and gas. A White House official claimed, "Russia received €1.1bn in fuel sales from the EU in one year," Axios reports. "The President also emphasized that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia's war efforts," the official said.

As bne IntelliNews reported in a commentary on the two sets of talks underway, the EU leaders are deluding themselves that they have some sway over Trump and believe that he will support their efforts to save Ukraine. It appears that Trump is involved in the Ukraine peace negotiations not because he genuinely wants to halt the fighting, but because he believes it gives him leverage over Putin in his business negotiations.

After the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron, who was on the call with Trump, said that if Putin continues to reject peace talks with Zelenskiy, more sanctions will be imposed “in coordination with the US.” The White House disabused Macron of that assumption, emphasizing that it's “up to Europe to pressure Putin.”

"The president was cordial, but he was very direct in his demand that Europe puts more pressure on Russia," a second US official told Axios.

“[European leaders] contend that they have been able to get in Trump’s ear and, through the Jedi mind trick of sucking up to him, bend some of his most problematic instincts,” editor-in-chief of Carnegie’s Comments Rym Momtaz wrote in a recent commentary for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“And yet, the overall picture emerging eight months into Trump’s second presidency confirms that on Ukraine and on trade, he is not on the same team as the Europeans.”

The primary EU customers for Russian oil are Hungary and Slovakia, which have exemptions from the twin EU import bans imposed in 2022 as well as having Trump-friendly leaders.

The Trump administration slapped India with 25% tariffs as punishment for continuing to import Russian crude, but has shied away from doing the same for China that imports even large quantities of Russian oil. India has defied the White House and says it will continue to import Russian crude. Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to China at the weekend to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit as the Global South goes into open defiance of the US and Trump’s aggressive trade policies.

On September 4, Putin said he was still willing to meet with Zelenskiy, but in Moscow. Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) rejected the offer out of hand, saying their president’s life would be in danger if he travelled to the Russian capital.

US pulls Eastern Europe training plug

In another sign of the US withdrawal from European security affairs, the White House announced on September 4 it is beginning to phase out key military assistance programmes for eastern European allies along Russia’s border, the Financial Times reported.

Pentagon officials last week informed European diplomats that Washington would cease funding security training and equipment programmes under the so-called “Section 333” authority, FT sources say. This decision runs directly contrary to the EU plans to deploy a “reassurance force” in Ukraine and increase training for the AFU to improve its defence capabilities in the event of another attack by Russia.

The programme, which has delivered over $1bn globally and $1.6bn in Europe between 2018 and 2022, has supported front-line Nato countries including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as they beef up defences against a possible Russian invasion. A White House official told FT the move was ordered by Trump on his first day in office and “co-ordinated with European countries.”

“This action has been co-ordinated with European countries in line with the executive order and the president’s long-standing emphasis on ensuring Europe takes more responsibility for its own defence,” an official told the FT.

Trump has cut off all aid to Ukraine and the US has transferred to Kyiv no money since he became president. At the same time, Trump has cut off all military supplies, unless European Nato members pay for them. As bne IntelliNews reported, Europe can’t afford to take over the burden of supporting Ukraine, either financially or in terms of military supplies as most EU countries are either in recession or approaching a crisis.

Defence spending in Europe is soaring as the so-called Zeitenwende gets underway, lifting European defence spending to the original Nato goal of 2% of GDP. European defence spending of €170bn expected this year is set to overtake the US’ spending for the first time since the end of WWII, but is still around €100bn less than the €250bn that Europe should be spending the Brussels-based Bruegel thing tank estimate is needed to reach the 3.5% of GDP defence spending agreed at the Nato summit in the Hague at the Trump administration insistence. And that is before Europe comes up with approximately the €50bn a year needed to cover Kyiv’s deficit to run its economy and war effort, or the €800bn per year recommended last year by the Draghi report for Europe to regain its competitiveness in the race with China and the US in the global markets. Draghi’s recommendations have been completely lost in the cacophony surrounding the need for defence spending to counter the Russian threat.

At the Nato summit, member states agreed to raise their military budgets to 5% of GDP, however, the decision to draw down Section 333 funding has raised alarm across European capitals. Two diplomats briefed on the matter told the FT their governments were “startled” and are now seeking clarity from Washington.

“If they are being brutal then it will have big implications,” one diplomat said. “It’s causing a lot of concern and uncertainty,” another diplomat added, drawing parallels with Trump’s earlier cuts to US international aid. Trump tried to cut off Ukraine aid during his first days on the job but was later talked out of it by his aides, according to reports. US Secretary for Defence Pete Hegseth then cut off all military aid to Ukraine again in July as the US stockpile was depleted, only to see Trump reverse that decision too a week later.

The future of the Baltic Security Initiative—a separate programme launched in 2020 to enhance the defensive capabilities of the three Baltic states—is also uncertain. Last year, under the Biden administration, the US Congress approved $228mn in funding, but the Trump administration has not sought further allocations for the coming fiscal year. A source close to the administration told FT the programme is undergoing re-evaluation.

The policy shift coincides with broader efforts led by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who was behind Hegseth’s decision to stop military aid to Ukraine, to refocus US military resources on the Indo-Pacific amid rising tensions with China over Taiwan. Earlier this year, Hegseth said that the US should stop supporting all its external military operations, except in Taiwan, and “prepare for war with China.”

In an exception to the end of aid to Europe, Trump met Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the White House on September 4, and confirmed the US would not pull out its troops stationed in Poland. “We’ll put more there if they want,” Trump said. The US currently has 10,000 troops stationed in Poland on a rotational basis.