Just hours before the black SUVs carrying dozens of European leaders crunched across the gravel of Blenheim Palace on Thursday, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance put the US\u2019s foreign partners on notice. <\/p>\n
\u201cTogether we will make our allies share in the burden of securing world peace,\u201d he said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.\u00a0\u201cNo more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.\u201d <\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t even the most strident rhetoric we\u2019ve heard from the junior senator from Ohio, who voted against the US supplemental aid package for Ukraine that passed in April. In February,\u00a0he told the Munich Security Conference \u201cthe American security blanket has allowed\u00a0European security to atrophy,\u201d arguing that in a world where munitions manufacturing is limited, the only option for Ukraine is a negotiated settlement. <\/p>\n
Vance was echoing the GOP\u2019s presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has long criticized NATO and accused partners in the security alliance of failing to pay their fair share. The former president has also hinted at paring back military aid to Ukraine and claimed that he could have the war settled through negotiation in 24 hours if reelected. <\/p>\n
And yet the mood among European leaders arriving in the rolling\u00a0Oxfordshire countryside is one of resignation, and resolve. <\/p>\n
Finland\u2019s President Alexander Stubb, the head of one of NATO\u2019s newest members, has read Vance\u2019s book, \u201cHillbilly Elegy,\u201d describing it as \u201cvery good.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIs there a rebalancing going on? Yes. Europe needs to take care of its defense more.\u201d <\/p>\n
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, just two weeks into the job, was hoping the Thursday summit involving 42 European heads of state or government would be a strong show of unity, \u201ca signal to Russia of our resolve.\u201d <\/p>\n
And yet one EU leader has signaled something quite different to Russia. Hungarian\u00a0Prime Minister\u00a0Viktor Orban, who has never supported military aid to Ukraine, chose the first week of his rotating EU presidency this month to visit President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on what he called a \u201cpeace mission.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking at the meeting at Blenheim Palace, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was blunt. Preserving European unity is critical to a long-lasting peace, he said. \u201cBut if someone in Europe tries to resolve issues behind others\u2019 backs\u2026 if someone wants to make some trips to the capital of war\u2026 then why should we consider such a person? The EU and NATO can address all their issues without this one individual.\u201d <\/p>\n
Europe did manage a show of unity, but one that faces mounting tests,\u00a0including\u00a0the prospect of a new US administration that may pull its support for Ukraine, and an increasingly active Ukraine-skeptic in its midst. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just hours before the black SUVs carrying dozens of European leaders crunched across the gravel of Blenheim Palace on Thursday, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance put the US\u2019s foreign partners on notice. \u201cTogether we will make our allies share in the burden of securing world peace,\u201d he said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.\u00a0\u201cNo <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}