If the administration is sincere about helping Ukraine win, much more than words will be needed.

By Dalibor Rohac

Only one European statesman dared to say the truth about the US president Donald Trump’s sudden pro-Ukrainian turn: the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. “Behind this surprising optimism,” he wrote on X, “lies a promise of reduced U.S. involvement and a shift of responsibility for ending the war to Europe.”

Trump’s statement, which followed his Tuesday with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in New York, was perhaps his harshest ever on the subject of Russia. Yet, what was absent was any indication of action by the United States itself. With no policy announcements coming in its aftermath, Trump’s post was simply an affirmation of the status quo—minus the increasingly embarrassing overtures toward Moscow in an effort to settle the war through diplomatic means.

In short, Ukrainians can forget about military assistance in the form of another supplemental bill. The president promises to “continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them.” Taken literally, that could be an improvement over the status quo, as it would mean removing, for example, the range restrictions that the Pentagon has imposed on Ukraine’s use of ATACMs to strike deep inside Russian territory. Until proven otherwise, it is safe to assume that this particular wording falls into the category of Trump’s utterances that should not be taken literally.

It may be fair that the administration is placing the burden of responsibility for sanctions and economic pressure on Russia on our European allies. Trump hints at a “very strong round of powerful tariffs” but only if Europeans “join us in adopting the exact same measures … they have to immediately cease ALL energy purchases from Russia.”

But passing the buck to Europe is tantamount to “leading from behind,” which Republicans summarily criticized in the context of other administrations. Either coercive measures by the United States and European governments against the Russian economy are not in the US interest—in which case Trump’s promise of eventual action is not really credible—or they are in America’s interest. If the latter is the case, then the United States might as well act alone and/or look for ways to bring others on board, instead of hiding behind European complacency.

In fact, Washington has powerful tools it could use to bring Europeans along, kicking and screaming if necessary. Trump already suggested that he could end Hungarian purchases of Russian oil with a phone call to his friend Viktor Orbán—let us see if he does it. Moreover, there is the Graham-Blumenthal bill, which would impose a de facto trade embargo against countries purchasing Russian oil and gas. What happens to the bill in the Senate is a good indication of just how serious Republicans and the administration are about forcing the Europeans’ hands to derail the Russian war machine.

There are solid grounds for skepticism. Under the Trump administration, US sanctions have been de facto rolled back because of the Treasury Department’s failure to update relevant sanctions lists. Whereas the European Union has gone through three distinct sanctions packages since January 2025 (and another one is in the works), Treasury has not added any individuals and legal entities to its Russia-related sanctions lists. Updating is critical to plugging the holes created by new business entities, banks, and other organizations being constantly set up to circumvent the existing sanctions regime and get Western technologies to Russia—or Russian exports to the West.

Earlier in September, the administration removed sanctions on Belavia, Belarus’ national air carrier, opening a new loophole that will allow Western spare parts for airplanes and other support into Belarus—and likely into Russia as well. Russia, moreover, is still not facing any of Trump’s tariffs, imposed on practically all other countries of the world—the administration justified the initial omission on the grounds that it was in the midst of a diplomatic effort to bring the war in Ukraine to a negotiated end. With that justification gone, it will be telling whether the Trump team will seek to impose tariffs comparable to those facing other nations.

More broadly, questions remain about the direction of the US-Russian relationship. Those who cheered the president’s tough words should not discount the possibility that the war may be bracketed away from an effort to normalize economic, trade, and investment ties between the two nations—with the cover provided by Europe’s residual purchases of Russian energy. On the same day as Trump posted his extraordinary statement on the war, Exxon and Rosneft reached a preliminary deal, with the administration’s blessing, on recouping Exxon’s losses following its exit from Russia in 2022.

Such business decisions do not reflect the expectation of a new, tougher scrutiny imposed on Russia—quite the contrary. If the administration is sincere about trying to bring an end to Russian victory by helping Ukraine win—and not just looking for an easy exit from the ineffectual and cringeworthy shuttle diplomacy by the likes of Steve Witkoff—much more will be needed than a handful of encouraging posts on social media.

Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. 

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