European leaders were blindsided by President Trump’s 28-point-plan to end the Ukraine war, setting off a dash for influence.
When Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany first learned of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine last Thursday, he was stunned by both the content and the way he found out.
Instead of hearing of it from American officials, Mr. Merz learned about the plan from a news headline. His team had to reach out several times to set up a call on Friday night with President Trump for an explanation, according to officials with knowledge of the events.
The content was alarming, from a European perspective. The leaked 28-point plan would ensure that Russia paid little price for invading Ukraine in 2022. It would hand it more territory than the Russian Army has captured on the battlefield. And it would force NATO to formally refuse to admit Ukraine, countermanding a European desire for the Ukrainians to join the alliance.
Senior European officials had known the Trump administration was working on some kind of plan, but nothing that favored Russia to this extent. When it surfaced, they realized that Europe had been cut out of the Trump administration’s efforts to end the continent’s biggest land war since World War II.
This account of how Mr. Trump sidelined Europe in discussions about its own backyard, based on interviews with 16 officials with knowledge of the diplomatic wrangling, paints a picture of a continent squeezed between competing powers, its leaders grasping for influence in a world their nations once dominated. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive political matters.
In the days since the plan was leaked, European leaders, including Mr. Merz, have worked frantically to reverse the slide, using persuasion and behind-the-scenes maneuvering to nudge Mr. Trump’s administration toward a more acceptable position. Plans were upended, frenzied huddles arranged. Several envoys took the first possible flight from Johannesburg, where they were meeting counterparts from the G20, to Geneva to try to persuade U.S. officials to change course.
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Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the German foreign minister. His name is Johann Wadephul, not Stefan Wadephul.
Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Lara Jakes, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.
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