[[link removed]]
TRUMP AND PUTIN WANT TO CARVE UP EUROPE. IT FEELS LIKE 1939.
[[link removed]]
Simon Tisdall
September 28, 2025
The Guardian
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
_ Forget the US president’s seeming volte-face on Ukraine this
week: he and Putin fundamentally agree that European liberal democracy
is the problem. _
Vladimir Putin meets Donald Trump in Alaska, 15 August 2025,
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
For many people in eastern Europe
[[link removed]], August 1939 may not
feel that long ago. That was the moment Hitler’s Germany and
Stalin’s Soviet Union secretly agreed to partition Poland and
forcibly subsume the sovereign Baltic republics and Finland into their
totalitarian “spheres of influence”. The world knows what came
next.
Now the question arises: is it happening again? This time around,
it’s Donald Trump’s United States and Vladimir Putin’s Russia
making the big geopolitical power-play – and, once again, all of
Europe is potential prey. Notwithstanding last week’s sparring
[[link removed]] over
Ukraine, the two leaders’ core aims appear closely aligned.
Physical subjugation of the European continent is not a Trump
objective (unlike, perhaps, in Venezuela, Canada or Greenland). But US
efforts to dominate the continent through political interference,
ideological subversion, economic blackmail, unregulated big-tech
predation and the projection of conservative, Christian nationalist
cultural
[[link removed]] beliefs
amount to much the same thing.
Putin’s methods are cruder, yet his agenda mirrors Trump’s. He
will not let go of Ukraine. He is intensifying
[[link removed]],
and leveraging, the Russian military threat, from the Baltic states to
the Black Sea, including in Moldova, Romania and Georgia
[[link removed]]. Russian
hybrid warfare
[[link removed]] –
sabotage, cyber-attacks, online trolling and disinformation – is now
a fact of daily western European life.
Trump, failed coup leader, and Putin, indicted war criminal, are not
in formal alliance, yet. They have not agreed a 1939-style
Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact. But there is extensive common
ground. Both despise European liberal democracy, equal rights and
multiculturalism. Both are viscerally hostile to the EU. Both hanker
for past imperial glories; both reject UN “globalism” and
international law. Their anti-democratic ultranationalism nurtures
foul ideas of ethnic and racial supremacy that most Europeans had long
consigned to history.
Trump makes no secret of his desire to normalise US relations with
Russia. This, he claims, would lead to vast, mutually
beneficial money-making opportunities
[[link removed]].
When he complained last week that Putin has “let me down”
[[link removed]],
he was not so much talking about his embarrassing Alaska peace summit
[[link removed]] flop
but about the Russian president’s refusal to cut a deal and cash in.
Trump’s supposed pro-Kyiv shift typifies his pinball policymaking,
which ricochets randomly from one wacky idea to another. It will not
endure. His warning that Russia faces
[[link removed]] “big
economic trouble” was his way of pushing Putin into doing business
while leaving Ukraine and European Nato members to manage the
long-term Russian threat alone.
The US president is urging others to cut off Russian oil, but the US
itself does nothing. Promised tougher sanctions are all talk. He
refuses to resume direct military aid to Kyiv, or punish Russian
incursions into Nato territory. In this context, his prediction that
Ukraine will somehow regain all its lost territory
[[link removed]] is
cruel mockery.
Trump and Putin’s political pressure campaigns are mutually
reinforcing. Both support European hard-right, populist-nationalist
parties and politicians. In February, the US vice-president, JD Vance,
directly intervened in Germany’s election, siding with the
far-right
[[link removed]] Alternative
für Deutschland. Trump’s backing for the Polish presidential
candidate Karol Nawrocki
[[link removed]] may
have helped the conservative nationalist score a narrow victory.
Similar Russian influence campaigns, plus dirty tricks and alleged
vote-buying, have marred elections in Romania
[[link removed]] and
Moldova, which goes to the polls
[[link removed]] this
weekend. Will Trump and Putin conspire to ensure a hard-right populist
succeeds Emmanuel Macron as French president in 2027? It’s a
legitimate worry.
Both leaders exploit Europe’s open societies, stirring political
pots and promoting favourites. In Trump’s case, one such is Giorgia
Meloni, Italy’s rightwing prime minister. Another is British
anti-migrant populist Nigel Farage, the quintessential useful idiot.
In Putin’s case, it’s pro-Moscow leaders such as Hungary’s
Viktor Orbán
[[link removed]] and Slovakia’s
Robert Fico
[[link removed]].
The most obvious manifestation of hostile US economic pressure is
Trump’s unilateral tariffs, which foreshadowed the summer’s
risibly lopsided EU-US trade deal. American big-tech’s £31bn UK
investment, announced during Trump’s quasi-regal state visit,
carries a whiff of neocolonialism
[[link removed]].
Buying British is fine. But are US billionaires buying Britain
[[link removed]]?
Putin is even less subtle. Deniable cyber-attacks cripple key European
industries and institutions. An undersea communications cable or gas
pipeline mysteriously ruptures. Drones force the closure of airports
[[link removed]].
Undocumented migrants are directed
[[link removed]] across
EU borders. Online scams proliferate. Methods vary. Yet the economic
warfare waged on Europe in tandem by Moscow and Washington is real.
A disturbing report by the European Council on Foreign Relations
(ECFR) and European Cultural Foundation claims the US is waging a
broad culture war against Europe
[[link removed]].
Yet its central finding – that Trump is promoting political and
ideological allies while simultaneously trying to sideline and divide
the EU – applies with equal force to Putin’s Russia.
The defence of “free speech”, mounted by Vance during his infamous
Munich security conference attack
[[link removed]] on
Europe’s supposed retreat from “some of its most fundamental
values”, is a key cultural battleground. And here is another
convergence. For Trump and Putin, speech is free – if they agree
with the speaker. But not otherwise. (Ask Jimmy Kimmel, or the late
Alexei Navalny.) Trump and Putin: two clowns resembling Laurel and
Hardy – except their gags are not jokes.
The ECFR report optimistically suggests the dual assault from east and
west is drawing Europeans together. Yet, as ever in Europe, what’s
lacking is urgency and strong, united leadership. What’s lacking is
clear understanding that this US administration, no longer a trusted
friend, is turning into an outright enemy; and that the Russian bear,
a species once thought extinct, is back with a vengeance.
The evidence grows. So does the threat. Planned or not, Trump and
Putin – like-minded, amoral, authoritarian apex predators – are
working together, or at least in parallel, to undercut European
democracy, security, prosperity and progressive values. It looks like
a concerted pincer movement. It feels like 1939.
_Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator_
_The Guardian [[link removed]] is globally renowned
for its coverage of politics, the environment, science, social
justice, sport and culture. Scroll less and understand more about the
subjects you care about with the Guardian's brilliant email
newsletters
[[link removed]],
free to your inbox._
* Vladimir Putin
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Russia
[[link removed]]
* Europe
[[link removed]]
* U.S. foreign policy
[[link removed]]
* European Union
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT
Submit via web
[[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]
Twitter [[link removed]]
Facebook [[link removed]]
[link removed]
To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]
