\n<\/p>\n
President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.<\/p>\n
Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday<\/a> after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America\u2019s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia \u2014 without Europe or Ukraine at the table.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s remarks late on Tuesday<\/a>, when he sided fully with Russia\u2019s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.<\/p>\n It was a complete reversal of historical alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s happening is very bad. It\u2019s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,\u201d Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our security he\u2019s putting at risk,\u201d he said, referring to Mr. Trump. \u201cWe must wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West\u2019s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin\u2019s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.<\/p>\n \u201cEven Poland\u2019s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine\u2019s betrayal in Riyadh,\u201d Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland\u2019s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media,<\/a> referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Rasa Jukneviciene, a former Lithuania defense minister who is now a member of the European Parliament, said it was \u201chard to understand\u201d the sudden shifts in policy by the United States, the once reliable pillar of Europe\u2019s security for decades. She said she was \u201cwondering what historians will write about the events of this time, say, in five decades.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is already clear that the Euro-Atlantic connection will not be the same as it used to be,\u201d she said. \u201cThe stage when European security after World War II was basically guaranteed only by the U.S.A. is over.\u201d<\/p>\n Europe, she added, \u201cis once again facing existential challenges\u201d \u2014 akin to those in 1938 after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain met Hitler in Munich and agreed to his annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia with a large ethnic German population.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the power vacuum, Mr. Macron has tried to show leadership, corralling allied leaders to devise a united response.<\/p>\n The \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace announced that he would host a second emergency meeting on Wednesday of many European leaders who had not been included in the meeting on Monday. Among them were the interim president of Romania, Ilie Bolojan, and Prime Minister Luc Frieden of Luxembourg, who would attend in person, while leaders from 18 other countries were scheduled to attend by video. They included Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Greece, Sweden and Belgium.<\/p>\n The meeting comes the day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian representatives, including Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss a peace deal for the war in Ukraine, to the fury of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky,<\/a> who was not invited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Rubio said they hammered out a three-part plan<\/a>, which would start by re-establishing bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow and end by exploring new partnerships \u2014 geopolitical and business \u2014 between Russia and the United States, while addressing the parameters of an end of the war with Ukraine in between.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Rubio said he would consult with Ukraine, the American \u201cpartners in Europe and others,\u201d but in the end, \u201cultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n Afterward, speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr. Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war,<\/a> despite the fact that Russia had invaded.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could have made a deal,\u201d he said, denigrating Mr. Zelensky\u2019s popularity and indicating he didn\u2019t deserve a seat at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, they\u2019ve had a seat for three years. And a long time before that,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cThis could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land. Without the loss of any lives. And without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s comments blaming Ukraine for the war stirred outrage in the Czech Republic, whose centrist government has been a stalwart supporter of Ukraine. \u201cI\u2019m afraid we\u2019ve never been this close to Orwell\u2019s \u2018war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength\u2019 before,\u201d Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said on social media.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Le Drian called it a monstrous reversal of world alliances, as well as an \u201cinversion of the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe victim becomes the attacker,\u201d he said, adding that the United States seemed to be retreating to a 19th-century view of itself, and telling an aggressive, expansionist Russia to do what it wants in Europe. \u201cIt\u2019s the law of the strongest,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cTomorrow, it could be Moldavia and after tomorrow, it could be Estonia because Putin won\u2019t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian Parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee, also compared the Riyadh meeting with the 1938 talks in Munich. \u201cAll of this paves the way for the aggressor to achieve its new plans of conquest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Before Mr. Rubio and Mr. Trump\u2019s pronouncements on Tuesday, Mr. Macron said he considered the Russian threat to Europe not just in military terms, but through slyer means, including cyberattacks and manipulation of electoral processes like Romania.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRussia constitutes an existential threat to Europeans,\u201d Mr. Macron said on Tuesday in an interview with French regional newspapers, including Le Parisien<\/a> and Ouest France<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cDo not think that the unthinkable cannot happen, including the worst,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n On Monday, a dozen European leaders left a quickly organized meeting in Paris<\/a> with a resounding message that Europeans and Ukrainians needed to be included in any peace talks with Russia and a commitment to increase military funding.<\/p>\n Many made clear that they wanted a continued alliance with the United States, which they considered indispensable to European security.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/strong>The positive message was that we all had the same feeling that this is not about the U.S. or Europe, but it\u2019s about the U.S. and Europe together, and that Europe understands very well that we have to step up, but that we want to still do it together with the Americans,\u201d Prime Minister Dick Schoof of the Netherlands said.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s latest statement poured water on many of those sentiments and may now force a deeper reconsideration of the trans-Atlantic alliance by European leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Macron has been speaking for months<\/a> to European leaders about forming a cease-fire buffer force in Ukraine and has long called for European strategic autonomy. Still, he told the French regional news media that he did not believe European countries could defend themselves without American support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He said that he expected European countries to increase their military budgets and would announce new programs to allow them to do that \u201cas early as March.\u201d Denmark said on Wednesday that it would increase its $5 billion military budget by an additional $7 billion over two years, to reach 3 percent of gross domestic product.<\/p>\n Already, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced in a speech<\/a> that she would propose an \u201cescape clause for defense investments\u201d permitting countries to fund defense without breaching the European Union\u2019s strict fiscal rules, which aim to keep<\/a> budget deficits under 3 percent of the size of each country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will allow member states to substantially increase their defense expenditure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Europeans are also discussing joint spending on defense \u2014 including how to finance those, which could involve issuing joint debt<\/a>, though that is still up for debate. They are also talking about how to ramp up the development of European defense industries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the past week, Europe\u2019s steadfast position that held the United States as the central pole of its defense guarantee seems to be changing, said Martin Quencez, the director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund.<\/p>\n The big question will be whether European nations follow through with increased military spending and maintain a united front, without fracturing off to individually negotiate with Mr. Trump, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard Europe talk about wake-up calls so many times over the past 10 years, I remain cautious,\u201d he said, pointing out that many European leaders, including Mr. Macron, find themselves in fragile political and economic positions in their own countries.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure we will hear from every European leader, but let\u2019s see what actual decisions are taken,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s very, very difficult to tell your population, we\u2019re going to have to make the tough choice of prioritizing European security over social issues or environmental issues. Not many governments have the political capital to spend on all this.\u201d<\/p>\n Poland, the biggest and most militarily powerful country in the European Union\u2019s formerly communist east, sought on Tuesday evening after the talks in Saudi Arabia ended to calm the panic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That day, President Andrzej Duda was visited in Warsaw by Mr. Trump\u2019s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general. The Polish leader said Mr. Kellogg reassured him that \u201cthere are absolutely no American intentions to reduce activity here in our part of Europe, especially in the field of security, to reduce the number of American soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n The United States has thousands of soldiers in Poland and in November opened a new missile defense facility near the Baltic Sea<\/a> that Russia sees as a threat to its own security. Getting Washington to shut down the Polish site and a similar one in Romania has been a longstanding demand by Mr. Putin.<\/p>\n Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n