Trump Calls Europe ‘Decaying’ and Suggests ‘Size Will Win’ in Ukraine War

 

Trump Calls Europe ‘Decaying’ and Suggests ‘Size Will Win’ in Ukraine War

 

President Trump’s comments deepened his rift with mainstream European leaders over defense and Ukraine policy.

 

Amelia Nierenberg

By Amelia Nierenberg

Reporting from London

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/us/politics/trump-europe-decaying-weak-ukraine.html

Dec. 9, 2025

Updated 7:58 p.m. ET

 

President Trump said in an interview published on Tuesday that Europe was weak and its nations were “decaying,” days after the Trump administration issued a strategy paper that indicated that the United States should no longer guarantee the continent’s security.

 

The president’s comments, made in a wide-ranging interview with Politico, widened a dispute between Mr. Trump and his European counterparts over Europe’s future and how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

 

Mr. Trump said that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has rejected parts of a U.S. proposal for a cease-fire, would have to “get on the ball” and start “accepting things.” Mr. Zelensky’s army is losing the war, Mr. Trump said, suggesting that it was time for him to compromise in the cease-fire talks.

 

Mr. Trump’s interview was published a day after the leaders of Britain, France and Germany met with Mr. Zelensky in London to show their support for Ukraine and discuss alternative cease-fire plans. Mr. Zelensky reiterated after that meeting that Ukraine would not budge from its longstanding opposition to handing over land to Russia, a requirement of Mr. Trump’s proposed peace plan.

 

Mr. Trump also accused Mr. Zelensky of not having read a new draft of the American peace plan. “It would be nice if he would read it,” Mr. Trump said. “You know, a lot of people are dying. So it would be really good if he’d read it.”

 

Several elements of the American peace plan — which was published last month — echoed demands made by the Kremlin, prompting alarm across Europe.

 

Mr. Trump suggested that a Russian victory would be inevitable, in part because the country is much larger than Ukraine.

 

Russia, he said, has the “upper hand. And they always did. They’re much bigger. They’re much stronger,” Mr. Trump said. Even though he said that he gave Ukraine a lot of credit for bravery, “At some point, size will win.”

 

Mr. Trump called for elections in Ukraine, accusing the country’s leadership of “using war not to hold an election.”

 

“They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore,” he said.

 

Mr. Trump also would not rule out an American ground invasion of Venezuela, which he has repeatedly threatened with military action inside the country and accused of sending drugs and criminals to the United States. As for President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, whom the Trump administration has labeled the head of a terrorist organization: “His days are numbered,” Mr. Trump said, according to the interview transcript.

 

Later, Mr. Trump said he had watched footage of the Sept. 2 military strike on a boat in the Caribbean that killed survivors of a previous attack on the boat, which the administration has said was involved in drug trafficking. “It’s not pretty,” Mr. Trump said. Lawmakers in Congress have been debating whether the second strike was a war crime.

 

“Nobody wants to drive boats to America loaded up with drugs anymore,” Trump said. “And we’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon, too.”

 

Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.