NEWS ANALYSIS: Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is grappling with issues he and most other leaders around Europe never thought they’d face. At issue is whether they should still prioritize democracy and freedom or relations with the US, which long was viewed as the guarantor of both, but not since Donald Trump took over as its new authoritarian leader.
Støre was among those invited to attend the latest crisis meeting in London on Sunday. Now the crisis isn’t just about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago and all its consequences, but how to deal with the new man in the White House who seems far more friendly towards Russia than to Ukraine and the US’ longtime allies in Canada and the Europe.
It’s been a rough six weeks since the former showman and real estate investor Donald J Trump stormed into office and launched what many in Norway have called “a new Blitz.” Trump seems intent on “overwhelming the entire system, the opposition, the voters, the bureaucracy and the media,” Hilmar Mjelde, a professor of political science, told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN). Trump has been launching trade wars, threatening allies, cutting foreign aid to developing countries, pulling the US out of the UN climate agreement and the World Health Organisation, deporting illegal aliens, supporting right-wing political comrades abroad, challenging the US’ own legal system and coaxing businesses into dismantling affirmative action and gender equality programs.
Most “grotesque,” as newspaper Aftenposten editorialized recently, is Trump’s “inability” to put responsibility for the war in Europe on the man who annexed Crimea and then invaded the rest of Ukraine three years ago: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump instead chose to spend last Friday yelling at and trying to humiliate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who remains a hero in most of the rest of the free world and certainly in Norway, which was invaded itself and occupied during during the last major war in Europe. Trump also seems to think that all the economic and military support earlier granted by the US to Ukraine was a loan that now needs to be paid back.
“In one month, Donald Trump may have torn down everything that was built up during the past 80 years,” wrote commentator Frithjof Jacobsen in newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) late last week. And that was before Trump launched his verbal assault on Zelensky in the Oval Office, and then, three days later, arranged for a White House leak that he also intends to halt all US support to Ukraine.
“Bullying and conceit do not make American great,” read the headline on another Aftenposten editorial right after Trump’s inauguration. Aftenposten has also editorialized that the new US president “lacks an understanding of history and the meaning of international cooperation” and, more recently, that America’s “cowardly Republicans must wake up soon.”
European leaders have certainly woken up, given their crisis meeting in London, and so have those in Norway, which has long had especially friendly relations with the US no matter who was in the White House, Democrats or Republicans. Norway is not a member of the European Union (EU), but a founding member of NATO and extremely keen on maintaining strong cooperation with all its neighbours, NATO allies and other countries around the world. Norway is a small country but also a very wealthy one and thus carries a certain amount of clout in its relations with much bigger countries. All their current leaders face huge dilemmas as they come to grips with the US’ unpredictable leader.
“Ukraine still needs the US’ support, and Ukraine’s security and future are also important for the US and for Europe,” Prime Minister Støre told state broadcaster NRK both before and after the meeting in London. He also thinks the US must be part of securing lasting peace in both Ukraine and Europe. He described Trump’s recent verbal attacks on Ukraine’s president, though, as both “disheartening” and “serious,” not least since Zelensky has “strong support from his fellow Ukrainians and broad support in Europe.” Støre also agrees that Zelensky needs firm security guarantees before signing a cease-fire agreement or any peace pact.
Former Prime Minister Erna Solberg, now head of the opposition in Parliament, said that “what we saw from Trump and (Trump’s vice-president JD) Vance is not the USA we have always known. We saw a US president humiliate and badly treat Ukraine’s president.” Solberg said she was “shaken” by the entire incident, as were the leaders of every other political party in Norway on both the right and the left.
Even the leader of Norway’s most right-wing party, the Progress Party, said it was “unworthy and shameful to see the treatment Volodymyr Zelensky got” in the White House. “For more than three years Ukraine has bravely defended itself against the Russian regime’s cynical and brutal attacks,” Progress leader Sylvi Listhaug told NRK.
Listhaug has also joined every other party leader in the Norwegian Parliament in noting that “this is a war for our values, for freedom and democracy against authoritarian powers.” Guri Melby of the non-socialist Liberal Party has been claiming that all along, while the conservative Christian Democrats called Trump’s treatment of Zelensky “a new low point.” The Greens Party leader Arild Hermstad said Trump’s verbal assaults on Zelensky were “probably the most demeaning and contemptible performance the world has ever seen from an American president.”
On Tuesday the Norwegian Parliament called its own extraordinary meeting of an expanded defense- and foreign relations committee to discuss all the current Trump trauma, especially his new threat to cut off aid to Ukraine. Defense Minister Tore Sandvik, who called the threat “unsettling,” wouldn’t comment on what was discussed at the meeting because Prime Minister Støre planned to address Parliament himself on Thursday.
Støre was glad to see other NATO allies and leaders rally to Ukraine’s and Zelensky’s support in London over the weekend, also after the reported threats that Trump will cut off US aid. He remains caught like many others, though, between trying to maintain the “values” once extolled by the US and trying to get along with Trump, who often seems to discard principles of freedom, liberty, democracy and opt for a far more brutal and authoritarian rule. Støre and other European leaders are also acutely aware of how badly Trump reacts to any form of criticism.
On Tuesday Støre worried that Trump was sending “a very serious signal to Ukraine and also to Europe, and I think also for the US” with his alleged threat to cut off support to Ukraine. Støre agrees that “solving this conflict (between Russia and Ukraine) is very important for both sides. We must try to find a solution together.” Støre isn’t convinced support from the US will end, “because (the threat) can be a signal, it can be a pause, it can be a new form of pressure that Trump is putting on Zelensky to get him back to the negotiating table.”
Støre, who was traveling in Northern Norway on Tuesday, said he thinks “we must take it as a starting point that Trump has said he wants to work for the war to stop.” He added that when a war is going on “it’s not possible to be very optimistic. Therefore we must work towards ending the war in a manner that Ukraine can live with and that doesn’t affect European security.”
That’s why Støre and others in Europe have been careful with their criticism of Trump, since they all want America to remain an ally. The problem is whether America can still be a trusted ally under Trump given his way of doing business and his pride in his form of deal-making.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, meanwhile, has been more outspoken. He has said, for example that Trump’s policies can be “good for China” after the US made clear that it would “only take part in international cooperation that will serve its own interests directly.” Eide noted how China, which he described as “the only other super-power in our time,” is keen on showing “that it wants to strengthen multilateral institutions. There’s no doubt they’re trying to fill the room that the US is vacating.”
Eide’s comments came during an interview with Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen while he was representing Norway at the recent G20 meeting in South Africa in February. Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov was also there, “and in much better humour than when I last saw him,” Eide said at the time. There’s all reason to believe Lavrov is even happier now, after Trump’s session with Zelensky last week and his subsequent threat to halt aid to Ukraine.
Eide’s American counterpart, the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (whom Trump also once bullied and disparaged), didn’t attend the G20 gathering that represents around 85 percent of the world’s gross national product. “I think he should have been here,” Eide told Klassekampen, adding that “he may have benefited” from meeting many of his international colleagues.
“It’s too early to conclude whether the world has been turned upside down, but fundamental questions are rising around our anchors,” Eide said. “We have grown up in a time when the West has held together despite disagreements over, for example, Iraq. Now that’s not so sure. Now we’re really on a roller-coaster the likes of which I’ve never before.”
Eide told state broadcaster NRK this past weekend that he was also stunned by Trump’s verbal assault on Zelensky, claiming that “Ukraine’s fight isn’t just a fight for Ukraine but also for what Europe will look like afterwards.” He thinks Europe is now in its “most serious security situation in my time” and that there’s “broad agreement among Norwegian politicians on these issues and on our reaction to Trump. There’s also broad agreement on the importance of the trans-Atlantic cooperation.” The challenge is getting that to mesh.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund