There is potential for postwar Ukraine to become President Trump’s Trojan horse in Europe. Trump’s vision for Europe is no secret. Liberal democracy isn’t part of it. If the Trump Administration can exploit the reconstruction project to shape Ukraine in its own image it could be a major problem for the Europeans.
Wars end in chaos, confusion, and uncertainty; Ukraine will be no different. The stoicism, resilience, unity, and patriotism shown in the face of a larger aggressor has been widely admired. Despite this, the cessation of war is always as dramatically transformational as its commencement.
The Trump Administration can be expected to be well-positioned to exert huge influence on Ukraine’s politics through the scale of America’s commercial, economic, and industrial involvement. An opportunity for the Americans to cultivate in Ukraine the carrier of the ‘civilisation’ at the heart of the Administration’s aspirations for Europe as a whole.
The Trump Administration’s critique of the state-of-politics in Europe was set out by JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in 2025, further expounded in the US National Security Strategy (NSS), and again in Marco Rubio’s presentation to this year’s Munich Security Conference. The NSS says America aims “to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.”
But what sort of state?
Not one that resembles the existing European states, which the Trump Administration believes are bringing on a “civilisational erasure”. It would be naive to think the opportunity to build an exemplar state in Ukraine would be passed up. It is at least a risk the Europeans should be contemplating.
The Administration sees an urgent need to rectify the “activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty”. Europe must reverse “migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” Presumably, for Trump, a ‘viable’ Ukraine would be free of these failings.
Concern about anti-European Union, anti-immigration, and anti-multilateralism forces in postwar Ukraine doesn’t appear to loom large in Brussels and the European capitals. Yet, Ukraine would provide the Americans with a way to infiltrate Europe, and affect its policies, and erode European unity and support for the Union. To infiltrate and transform the Union from inside might prove irresistible.
This idea should not be simply dismissed as far-fetched. There is an earlier example. The purpose of the Economic Recovery Act of 1948 (the Marshall Plan) was “the development of stable democratic governments in Western Europe” and “to promote … the national interest, and foreign policy of the United States … through economic-financial and other measures necessary … consistent with the maintenance of the strength and stability of the United States”. Ironically, the Trump Administration now could use the same tools that created the antecedents of liberal Europe to reverse that outcome.
Politics in Ukraine won’t spring back into the pre-war configuration. For the duration normal politics have been suppressed and the political class has uniformly fallen in behind President Zelenskyy. The political ambitions held in abeyance will reemerge and new political forces with new agendas and priorities will appear. After a ceasefire veterans, returning citizens, the homeless, business and financial interests, and others, will form new alliances offering new solutions to the manifold economic and social problems. Some of these solutions will be radical and extreme, and exploitable.
The end of hostilities will likely release powerful emotional and psychological states within returning fighters and the civilian community. Recriminations towards those who left or avoided fighting, and blame for the failure to recover all national territory and expel of all Russian forces could be directed at the procrastination of the Europeans and the unreliability of American support. Simple access to basic necessities could exacerbate deep resentment towards anyone who appears to have profited from the war. The potential for extremism and populism to flourish will be high.
For these reasons, the first Ukrainian postwar elections are unlikely to result in stable government. Nevertheless, it seems that if Zelenskyy were to remain president, the entry of Ukraine into the EU might be reasonably straight-forward. But over the period of the reconstruction – maybe ten years – the Americans will have plenty of chances to shape subsequent governments in their own image. The behaviour shown by America in interfering in and trying to influence electoral outcomes in the EU will find greater scope in the febrile Ukrainian post-war political environment. It will be a monumental task for authorities to tackle corruption and subversion of liberal and democratic norms in the disruption; especially given the enormous inflow of reconstruction funds into what is certain to be a fractured society.
The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is expected to be a major vehicle for the involvement of the Americans in Ukraine. The DFC aims to mobilise investment for “advancing U.S. national interest (italics added)”. The Administration aims to ensure “that American expertise and capital play a leading role in rebuilding a prosperous future for both the United States and Ukraine”. But this is not an act of beneficence.
The NSS is explicit about America’s national interests in Europe. In the Trump Administration’s world view, Europe’s problem lies in its governments’ “subversion of democratic processes”. That this is happening is “strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis”. Ukraine’s expected entry into the EU provides a ready-made Trojan horse. The liberal fortress of Europe must be taken.
The pronouncements of the Trump Administration need to be taken seriously, and as literal statements of their intentions. The NSS states, “American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism”. In other words, the aim is to weaken or eliminate the European Union.
This can only be read as crusading. As the NSS declares, America’s “goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory”.
The Trump Administration has already been prepared to meddle in the domestic affairs of European states to boost political parties that align with its culture war priorities, its embrace of nativism, and its commitment to a radical understanding of nationalism. As Americans take the lead in rebuilding Ukraine’s institutions, economy, and industrial and mining sectors, it will be favouring and supporting like-minded political and social factions.
Ukraine could be a Trojan horse. For the Trump Administration – and recall, JD Vance and Marco Rubio will potentially still be on the scene after Trump – the liberal fortress of Europe must be taken.
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