Trump Dials Up Pressure to Keep EU From Tapping Kremlin Funds

The US is dialing up pressure on the European Union. Diplomats told us the White House lobbied several EU countries to block plans to use frozen Russian assets to back a massive loan to Ukraine. American officials warned their European counterparts that tapping the funds would prolong the war and diminish the possibility of a peace deal.

Almost a year after President Donald Trump returned to office, the ideological divisions between the US and its traditional European allies have become stark. Europe risks “civilizational erasure,” according to Trump’s new National Security Strategy. The US’s main goals in Europe will be to secure a quick end to the war in Ukraine, to cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” reads the document.