WASHINGTON, USA — President Donald Trump said he traded “pretty strong words” on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany during a phone call dominated by widening disagreements over how to end Russia’s nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the conversation with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz revealed deepening rifts between Washington and its closest European allies over a US-backed proposal to halt the war.
“We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words,” Trump said when asked about the call.
“I think we had some little disputes about people, and we’re going to see how it turns out. And we said, before we go to a meeting, we want to know some things.”
The Europeans have asked for an in-person meeting this weekend, Trump said, but he indicated that Washington might not attend without assurances that negotiations would be productive.
“They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t want to be wasting time,” he said.
The remarks show growing tension between the United States and Europe over how aggressively Ukraine should be pushed to accept terms that could end the conflict.
Trump has been pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept a US plan that Kyiv and several European governments have criticised as overly favourable to Russia.
Trump also claimed Zelenskyy had not read the latest version of the proposal.
Ukrainian officials, however, told AFP on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, that Kyiv had sent an updated draft to Washington.
The earlier version of the American plan reportedly called for Ukraine to surrender territory not currently occupied by Russian forces — a concession viewed in Kyiv and Europe as aligning with some of Moscow’s maximalist demands.
That element has since been revised following pushback from Ukraine, France, Germany and Britain.
Washington and Moscow also held quiet talks in the Kremlin last week, but US officials failed to reach a breakthrough with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Trump’s comments come after days of escalating friction between Washington and its European allies.
The US president recently described Europe as “decaying” and “weak” on immigration and Ukraine.
His administration’s new national security strategy similarly warned that Europe risked “civilizational erasure,” drawing criticism across the continent.
Trump has long argued that the war is a burden the United States should not bear alone, blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, for what he describes as a preventable conflict.
He has repeatedly suggested that he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office, though he has provided no details on how such an outcome would be secured.
“Sometimes you have to let people fight it out and sometimes you don’t,” Trump said on Wednesday.
“But the problem with letting people fight it out is yet you’re losing thousands of people a week. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.”
The latest remarks deepen uncertainty over Washington’s approach to the war and raise new questions about the unity of Western policy towards Ukraine at a moment when Kyiv faces severe battlefield pressure and shrinking ammunition supplies.
