Summary
A European Parliament member claimed that the U.S. gave Europe three weeks to agree on Ukraine’s “surrender” terms or risk an American withdrawal from Europe.
Mika Aaltola made the claim on X, but provided no evidence. NBC News reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested a U.S. troop reduction in Europe.
Trump reportedly plans to cut 20,000 troops and demand greater NATO contributions. He has pushed for higher NATO defense spending.
Trump may meet with Putin soon, believing Russia holds the upper hand in negotiations.
Some notes:
this is not confirmed, but seems credible enough to speculate about
regardless of veracity, European defense readiness needs a big boost, and people are working on the instruments that would allow giving that boost
another source says that Trump is planning cuts in the US armed forces, to the tune of 8% per year [sources that add “for multiple years” remain hearsay for me]
around January 20, I saw a table circulating on social media, describing Trump’s intended cuts, and that table did drop about 21 brigades and paused the development of various capabilities (edit: found it)
so apparently, the Trump administration intends to lower its defense readiness no matter what, believing it has too much
On this background, not much point negotiating with him. He is framing as an ultimatum what he intends to do anyway. No point getting delayed either.
Just get the framework agreed upon, and quickly start supplying Ukraine with fresh stuff. Ukrainians aren’t newbies, for now they have accumulated some small reserves (they knew what to expect under Trump, and Biden’s administration pushed the last remains of its assistance out like there was no tomorrow)… but arrival of European assistance must start rapidly increasing within a window of 2…3 months.
Holy shit if those are true he’s planning to completely destroy the Army’s ability to project force and stop the procurement of modern combat vehicles. Then he wants to tie up money in long lead stuff with Naval ship procurement. So we couldn’t effectively reverse that decision after he’s dead or out of power.
This could not be more calculated to fuck up our position as the pre-eminent world power. It’s exactly what China and Russia would request.
No coincidence there. Trump really is that stupid and traitorous.