Fireside Chat: Kaja Kallas on the US-EU Relationship

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The past two weeks of United States–European relations have seen a flurry of activity, beginning with the visit of a US delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, to the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris and the Munich Security Conference.

As the Trump administration lays out its next steps, join Hudson for an event with Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice president of the European Commission. She will join Senior Fellow Peter Rough for a fireside chat on the war in Ukraine, EU relations with the new US government, and the future of the transatlantic alliance.

Kallas is one of Europe’s most clear-eyed leaders, a reputation she earned while serving as prime minister of Estonia from 2021 until 2024. Kallas distinguished herself as a key partner of Ukraine and a dedicated ally of the United States. She is off to a running start in the European Commission, putting forward ideas for how Europe can support Ukraine going forward.

Episode Transcript

This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.

Peter Rough:

Hi, good morning and welcome to the Betsy and Walter P. Stern Conferencing Center at Hudson Institute. My name is Peter Rough. I’m a Senior Fellow here and Director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia, and it’s truly a high honor and privilege to have with us today Kaja Kallas, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. And dare I say, the Vice-President of the still new European Commission, although much has happened since you’ve assumed your vice presidency of the commission. So for starters, thank you so much for taking the time. Welcome to Washington and thanks for carving out a bit of time for us here at Hudson today.

Kaja Kallas:

Thank you for having me.

Peter Rough:

So Kaja Kallas was previously Prime Minister of Estonia, as many of you know, and I haven’t told you this story yet, and I’m telling it here for the first time, but you actually taught me the importance of staying off of your cell phone at times because two years ago, I believe it was, I was in Brussels for a conference that Hudson co-organizes with the Martin Center, a Brussels-based think tank. And I was taking the elevator down in Brussels the day of a European council meeting on my phone reading about the European Council. The elevator opens, two individuals get off. I keep reading without looking up. We get to the bottom floor, I finish the article, and as I look up the elevator’s opening and Kaja Kallas is exiting with her security personnel.

So I wish this was the second time we were meeting, but in fact it’s the first time here today. So anyways, stay off your phone kids. It can hurt your networking opportunities. But let’s begin with news-

Kaja Kallas:

Before we start actually, coming here and seeing the agenda and Hudson Institute and also the background of Hudson Institute, and I was reading also, the coincidences. Herman Kahn, so the founder of the institute, I read a book by him. It was written in 1963, I think. It was called The Year 2000. And when I had lectures in schools, I always brought this example because it’s super interesting. The photologist at that time could very well predict the technologies we are using in 2000, but the cars, they get totally wrong all the time, but that point aside, but what they got wrong is that actually we change, our behavior changes. So they predicted mobile phones, basically, networking like we do, you use telephone in 1963, being at the table or stuck to the wall. So it was super fascinating, and so it’s good to be here.

Peter Rough:

Great. Well wonderful. Thanks for being here. Speaking of changes, I would say the U.S government’s treatment of the European Union has changed in the last several months. You were here to meet Secretary Rubio. That meeting has been canceled extensively for scheduling reasons, and of course everyone saw the president’s remarks in the Cabinet Room yesterday, which you were asked about on NPR this morning. I listened to your interview. You’re coming to us from CBS. I assume you’re asked the same question by every media outlet wherever you go. So I won’t repeat the question of what’s your reaction, but I would like to know how do you think about the EU’s engagement strategy of the U.S government? What’s your strategic approach towards the Trump administration and how do you navigate what is now a new government in reality here in Washington?

Kaja Kallas:

Well, the new administration has been in office for a bit more than a month, and of course we are establishing the relationship and also adopting ourselves to the new style of the new administration. I mean, every administration works differently and we have to work with every administration. We are able to do so. I mean, so far, we have had good meetings in Europe when it comes to Secretary of State Rubio. We had good meetings in Munich and we will have good meetings in G7 in two days time. So what is our strategy? I mean, we have been good friends and allies and I think the transatlantic relationship is beneficial for both sides, and we really want to stress that. Of course, it doesn’t mean that we always see eye to eye on different issues, but friends and allies sit down and discuss what are the worries and come to solutions and come to compromises.

So this is our strategy that we are trying to do, not start any kind of quarrels or wars with the United States because if you look what is going on in the world, we really need to stick together. We see Russia, Iran, North Korea, very openly working together, more covertly also China, and we need to counter these threats and we need to do this together.

Peter Rough:

Do you worry that as the Trump administration seemingly is looking to split Russia from China, that in fact the Russians will split us from the Europeans?

Kaja Kallas:

It is very hard for us to see the Russian narratives now so strongly represented in America. It’s quite surprising for us, this regard. And of course it creates a lot of questions. The United Nations vote that we had on Monday, we were together with the United States, we were co-sponsoring a resolution on Ukraine and then suddenly, not only United States withdraw its signature, but started to actively lobby against this. And then the end we saw with whom United States voted together. Of course, one can say that United Nations doesn’t really matter, but it shows how then you have new friends, Russia, Belorussia, Nicaragua, Haiti, Mali, Central Africa. So I mean, it raises a lot of questions.

So what we trying to understand also meetings here, we try to understand what America is doing or what is the goal or what is the strategy because we have always been on the same side with our biggest ally and we want it to be so. So if there are worries, then we need to understand what are these so that we can work together.

Peter Rough:

All right, well let’s turn towards areas of agreement or opportunity. Obviously the U.S sanctions campaign remains in place and sanctions are being applied. Weapons continue to flow to Ukraine. And now very interestingly, there is an apparent agreement on. . . well, I shouldn’t even say apparent. There is now an agreement confirmed by both sides on critical minerals between Ukraine and the US We’re thrilled that Hudson to have here on the same stage tomorrow. President Zelensky for an event. What do you make of the critical minerals agreement? How does Europe look at it and how does Kaja Kallas look at it?

Kaja Kallas:

If this agreement increases the economic interest of America in Ukraine and in the end that turns the interest of America also giving security to Ukraine. I think it’s a very good development. So you have to protect and defend your economic interests that are there in Ukraine. Then, for me, it has to go together with the security guarantees. So what I hear is that economic agreement as such is already a security guarantee, but I don’t think it’s so, I think there are also companies, American companies right now in Ukraine operating there and the country still gets bombed every day. So it doesn’t really work that way that if you have the Americans present, then the Russians say, “Okay, we are not bombing them anymore.” So you need some credible security guarantees. So I think agreements between Ukraine and America are good in a sense that if it is a foundation of broader cooperation.

Peter Rough:

Let’s move from the outright hot war in Southeastern Europe towards what I think is already a hybrid war in a area very close to your own country, the Baltic Sea. I read again in the category of agreement and cooperation, a good piece recently about a detachment of American Marines that have deployed, I think into coastal Finland to help monitor some of these critical infrastructures which have been sabotaged, attacked. How does the European Union look at the present state of play on critical infrastructure on the Baltic region?

Kaja Kallas:

Well, it’s not only the Baltic region. I mean, this is one of the things where I think we should also cooperate more to develop the international law further. Because if you think about the UNCLOS and the maritime rules that we have, they are not in place for the times when we have actually cables running on the seabed. I mean, the cables between Taiwan and Islands and Taiwan have been cut over 30 times. It is a pattern. And what we see, I mean, the cable cutting in the Baltic Sea is one part of the bigger picture that we see the hybrid war that is going on against Europe. Now the Secretary General of NATO said, “Why are we using the hybrid war? Because it seems like it’s a soft and something not serious enough,” where what it actually is state-sponsored terrorism. We see arsons of warehouses, we see sabotage acts, we also see cyber attacks, we see different destabilization acts going on.

Peter Rough:

Cargo that could be loaded on airplanes, which can be catastrophic anyway.

Kaja Kallas:

Exactly. So I mean, all these things we see, and a bit, it feels like it’s a boiling of a frog that every next time they’re bolder and we don’t have a strong reaction. So what we do right now, I think very important is to exchange information really, to be open about this, to prepare. The second thing, it is all the forces that we have gathered, also in NATO, but also European missions that we concentrate on really, the protection of critical infrastructure. Because under the sea, the visibility is not as it is on the ground and it is much more complicated. But I think it is a broader picture when it comes to space as well. There’s a lot going on in space. And now the big question is whether international law as we know it also applies in cyberspace or in space. When I think it was 2022, Estonia was also a member of the United Nations Security Council, and I was chairing the first ever meeting on cybersecurity. And it was interesting, the discussion was whether the international law should also apply in cyberspace, and you can guess which were the two countries that didn’t agree to this. It was China and Russia. And I think the same applies for space, and this is very, very dangerous because if you think about cyberspace, 10 years ago, hospitals for example, their only security risk was some drug addict coming and stealing the morphine of a hospital or the narcotics. Now the security risk of hospitals is also the cyber risk because if they’re cyber attacked, there could be civilian casualties if systems don’t function.

And at the same time we see this movement. If you see when President Xi was visiting Russia and made a statement there saying to Putin that change is not foreseen in 100 years led by us together, change is in the international law. And my feeling is that their wish is that we are back to the place where might makes right and you don’t have the protection of international law really.

Peter Rough:

I think that’s also probably something that welds together, Putin and Xi, they are highly personalized authoritarian systems at this point and they are fundamentally hostile to the American and Western European built order, which makes it so difficult to think that one can take one of those actors and peel it away from the other. But that’s my own editorial comment.

A second editorial comment, which I’ll frame as a question, we have lots of Europeans come through and I put this question on critical infrastructure to a lot of them in private and public settings, and I often get the information sharing component as an initial building block of a unified response. I think one of the challenges is that the political economy of this is really beneficial to the attacker, which is to say it’s very cheap for them to take out a cable, but it’s horrendously expensive for us to rebuild this. And so to take a defensive posture, which is our seemingly current stance, might not be sufficient to deter this activity going forward. Is that something that worries you? Is there a response to this that we can think through on the policy side?

Kaja Kallas:

It worries me because it’s exactly like you say. I mean, cutting the cable, just lowering the anchor and towing the anchor, it is easy. It’s super, super easy. Whereas I mean repairing the cable, expensive, time-consuming and has a lot of consequences for the countries really concerned and consumers, people really. So that’s why I think that we need to have that discussion really how we have the rules in place. Although, I mean considering that Russia doesn’t really abide by the rules, so maybe it’s not worth the effort, but I mean the point is what more can we really do in this regard? Okay, putting the cables so that you can’t cut them with the anchors, but it’s again, investment. There are a lot of cables under or on the seabed really. So I don’t really have a good answer.

Peter Rough:

That’s okay. I listened very, very carefully to the interview that Secretary Rubio, flanked by his co negotiators, gave after his meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Russian team in Riyadh, and almost as an aside, he said, I thought rather interestingly, “Of course,” and I’m paraphrasing, “but of course others will need to be at the table including the Europeans because they have their own sanctions package and their own sanctions regime.” Just I think three days ago the 16 sanctions package was ratified, an incremental change, but nonetheless, a demonstration that Europe remains steadfast in its sanctions on the Russian Federation. Has there been any talk or coordination on the sanctions front with the new US administration to date? No?

Kaja Kallas:

No. I mean the new administration was very helpful in convincing our Hungarian colleagues to the rollover of sanctions. And I mean it is not wise to let go some good cards that you have in your hands, so we shouldn’t do that. That’s very clear.

Peter Rough:

And I have read JD Vance on Twitter, the Vice President, say that the US maintains leverage and presumably he’s referring to the sanctions. How dependent or co-dependent are European sanctions on the American sanctions regime, which is to say if the US decides to go for sanctions relief, does Europe then feel obligated to go to the same course? Do you think it’s possible to maintain your own sanctions regime on the Russians?

Kaja Kallas:

It is possible to maintain our own sanctions regime, and even if the rollover is not decided on the European level, then the individual countries who are the coalition of the willing can do the sanctions on their own. If we don’t have. . . This is one of the things when I’m very often asked that, “Oh, Americans are talking to the Russians, they are agreeing something and you are not part of it,” then I always ask back in very, very practical terms, how do you really see this? How do you see an agreement between Russia and America working regarding Europe that Europe has no say because we need to implement those agreements. If we don’t agree to this, you can agree whatever, but it just doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. So you need the Europeans on board.

Peter Rough:

Yeah, presumably that’s what Secretary Rubio was referring to. Coalitions of the willing, I like that phrase because I’m watching the external action service under your leadership and your guidance put forward some proposals in recent weeks on plussing up Ukrainian arms. I think the number I’ve seen reported is up to 20 billion euros and rather than it being an officially blessed EU-wide deal, it looks like you’re coordinating amongst individual member states for a coalition of the willing of sorts. Can you tell us more about this initiative, its size and scope and what you’re attempting to accomplish with it?

Kaja Kallas:

Yes. What I’m attempting to accomplish with it is in short-term really the support to Ukraine that it needs. The stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are behind the negotiation table. I mean, they have to be as strong as they would be able to say no to a bad deal. I think this is important. So the new initiative, it is based on the GNI key of the country. And so basically either you chip in with the ammunition capabilities or you provide the funds so that we can purchase this from elsewhere.

And we had the foreign affairs minister’s meeting on Monday. There was a broad support for that initiative. When it comes to numbers, then we didn’t intentionally, I mean first we had the numbers in, but then we heard back from some member states saying that let the leaders decide on the numbers, leave the numbers blank, let’s decide on the principle. And we have the meeting on the 6th of March where the leaders are meeting and we should agree. I mean, I tried to say that, fine, if you say we need to discuss and look into details, fine, but take this time right now because we really need to show our resolve to Ukrainians, also Americans that we are doing this. So I’m quite optimistic. I’m always optimistic, but yeah, sometimes disappointed. But yeah, so we are working on that.

The other topic or the other track that we are working with is our own defense. So of course the big question is the funding. So where do we get the funding-

Peter Rough:

Always comes down to money, doesn’t it?

Kaja Kallas:

It does. It does because it costs a lot of money. And then, I mean there are different options where we get the money, but what I’m trying to say to my fellow leaders in Europe is that if somebody thinks that we can get away with not making any difficult decisions, I mean, it’s an illusion. I mean, as Prime Minister of Estonia, I had to raise taxes in order to get more funding for defense. And I can tell you it’s not popular. It’s not popular, but you have to talk to your people to make them understand that if we don’t do this, then everything, everything, what we want to have is at stake.

And by the way, there is one thing that I also bring from America to Europe. So basically I hear what the Americans are saying. They say, “You have all the nice things in Europe. You have the medications, you have the social security, you have the public healthcare, you have social security, you have all of this that we don’t have. We invest in defense. So now you’re saying that we should defend your good life and you’re not willing to give one part of it away from all this pot that you have. And that’s not fair.” And I think that’s a valid point.

That means it requires from us to do some difficult decisions. So from some member states, you hear this that they are maybe further from the war. So you hear this, that “You don’t possibly think that we can’t invest in the roads and we will put this in defense. What will the people say?” But it was Plato who said that the role of the leaders is also to educate people. So you have to explain that if we have a defense issue, then you don’t have to care about the roads because they get hit anyway. And the problem with defense spending is that you need to spend and invest in defense at the time where you actually don’t need it. It’s peace. People don’t understand, why are we spending this? But when you need it, it’s too late. So that is the dilemma that leaders have to deal with. And that requires a lot of explaining to the public.

Peter Rough:

We in the US have famously atrophied our defense industrial base, but Europe has as well. I think, interestingly, and this might be somewhat lost in American audiences, but our defense spending, because we’ve been allies and we see threats similarly, have actually risen and fallen similarly. Now, they might’ve been at different levels, but we took a peace dividend in the 1990s. So did Europe. How’s it going? I know this is. . . there are more commissioners than just Kayakalos, but how do you think it’s going on the defense industrial base?

Kaja Kallas:

There’s a lot of work to do. Three years ago, when the war started, I thought that now the industry also understands. If you are in the business, you read the room. It’s like, “Okay, now everybody’s going to invest in defense, so we are going to increase our production.” But I was meeting also with some of the defense industry representatives. They were like, “Show me the money. I will produce you the tanks.” I’m ordering, I don’t know, 100 tanks. I’m producing 100 tanks and not one more.

So next one comes. . . and so the procurement times are very, very long. And they’re not taking 1 percent risk, because they have always operated so that your only customer is the government. So government comes with the money, they have the agreement, and fine. But I think there is a lot to learn from the Ukrainian defense industry.

And we have now taken the initiative also to invest in Ukrainian defense industry. And why? Because they are testing all these things on the battlefield, real time, what works, what doesn’t work. They are bringing down the procurement times, they are bringing down the costs. And that is what we need to do. We need to bring down the cost as well, because we all need this. But they need the push. And on the other hand or the other side of the coin is the funding still.

So one of the elements is also how to get more private funding into defense. We have the European Investment Bank, and so far investing in defense is the same box like investing in gambling, for example. So it’s not recommended or not allowed. But if they had these rules that it is in the same box like gambling and other things like this, then also the private funds get. . . this is the taxonomy, so to say. So they don’t also invest in defense. If it is so, then the banks don’t open bank accounts for the startups because they are in the defense sector, and that is the forbidden sector. So we are really pushing hard, the European Investment Bank, to change this.

There is a letter of over 20. I think it was 24 member states that really pushed. And there are different layers, where to get the funding as well. Not only the public money, but also bringing the private money on board.

Peter Rough:

It seems to me like after a NATO summit is always before the next NATO summit.

Kaja Kallas:

Yeah.

Peter Rough:

And so the Washington Summit, of course we were thrilled to host here in Washington, is now in the recesses of our mind, and everyone’s already looking forward to The Hague. What is the EU hoping to get from the NATO summit? Or have you begun to think about, obviously EU-NATO issues, but pertaining to the summit itself?

Kaja Kallas:

First, we have the European summit before the NATO summit. And there I think it is in our interest that we also have some very strong decisions from there in order to go to the NATO summit to show also what we are doing. So yeah, I think this is the way we operate. But-

Peter Rough:

So to show the Americans you’re for real, in a way? Is that what you’re-

Kaja Kallas:

Yeah, yeah. But have all the decisions we have made. And also, President Trump, the last time he was in the office, I think a lot has changed since then. Europeans have invested more in defense. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t need to do more, because Russia is investing more than 9 percent of its GDP on military. They will want to use it again unless we are strong enough so that he doesn’t dare to take this up. But yeah, for the NATO summit, we have so many things happening before that I haven’t really thought about the NATO summit. But at one point, yeah, we’ll start to prepare, probably, as well.

Peter Rough:

Great. Let’s switch gears a little bit because, while the future of the European order is being decided in Ukraine, there is more to the world, and you have a global mandate as high rep. Can you describe for American audiences how you think about the PRC and China policy? You can’t get away with a conversation in Washington without somebody asking about Beijing. So tell us a little bit about how the new commission is approaching China.

Kaja Kallas:

Well, we have of course the de-risking policies, so really not to make the same mistakes that we have done with Russia. But now, seeing America really bonding with Russia, then that of course raises a lot of questions regarding China as well. And of course China is very friendly with us now, but we need to have the discussions on our China policy. So far it has been so that de-risking, really not to put all the eggs in one basket. De-risking in the areas where the risks are higher, and cooperating in other areas with China. And of course here, what America does plays a big role.

And by the way, one of the questions nobody is able to answer here about China. If I hear the statements by some American officials saying that you can’t possibly beat Russia. Russia is so much bigger, and you need to give in to Russia because it’s not beatable, which is not true, by the way. But then you’re trying to signal to your Asian counterparts that if China is attacking them, then you are there. But China is so much bigger economy than Russia is with so much bigger military than Russia is. So if you’re saying that we collectively are not able to really pressure Russia so much that it would have an effect, then how do you say that you’re able to take on China risk? If somebody is able to answer me this question, I would be very happy.

Peter Rough:

We’re actually going to delete it from the recording because we don’t want the Chinese to hear that answer that you just gave.

Kaja Kallas:

Okay. Sorry.

Peter Rough:

No, no. I’m just joking. Let me ask you about, again, in the sense. . . and I’ll ask this as a last question, and then if we could go-

Kaja Kallas:

But my point is, I just want-

Peter Rough:

I think we all got the point.

Kaja Kallas:

Yeah. I know. If we don’t get Russia right, we don’t get China right either.

Peter Rough:

Yep.

Kaja Kallas:

That’s my point.

Peter Rough:

I’ll go to the audience for a question or two, if we could get the microphones ready, if that’s okay. But my last question for you is again outside of the immediate Ukraine-Russia file. Where do you think, around the world, are there opportunities to work with the United States?

Kaja Kallas:

Oh, okay. I thought your question is with other countries, because-

Peter Rough:

Well, you can answer that as well, of course.

Kaja Kallas:

What has happened is that we see the queue behind our door is very long. All the Asians, African countries are looking at us, Latin America, because we are the reliable and predictable partner. So actually I see opportunities for European Union to really increase our geopolitical power, because everybody’s turning to us. And of course we have to play it wisely, and we are doing that. In terms of development aid, we are the biggest supporters or biggest providers of development aid, but we need to do it strategically. And I see a lot of opportunities for Europe. Of course we would like to cooperate with America on these issues, but we see a lot of friendships being built with everybody else.

Peter Rough:

Okay. We’ll take a first question. Up to the front. This gentleman right here. He can. . .

Luke Coffey:

Thanks, Peter. Luke Coffey, senior fellow here at Hudson. I wanted to ask about CSDP and potential developments in this area that is in your area of competency as high representative. In 1999 Madeleine Albright, as secretary of state, wrote a op-ed in the Financial Times where she said, “EU defense integration is fine as long as there’s no duplication, discrimination, or decoupling.”

That’s decoupling of the US from European security, discrimination against non-EU members in NATO, and no duplication of what NATO is already doing. I know that, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and some calls for strategic autonomy, there’s been renewed calls for these ideas like European Army and stuff like this. How do you see the best way for the EU to deal with the one issue that is perhaps the last remaining issue of integration? And that is defense.

Kaja Kallas:

Yes. This is a very good question. I think I’ve always been of the opinion that Europe should not create any alternative to NATO because NATO is a military structure, and every NATO member, we have 31 members now. 32 members? 32.

Peter Rough:

32.

Kaja Kallas:

32 members now. So you have 32 different armies, 32 defense planners, and 32 defense budgets. So that means you need those armies to work together. And what now comes to the European’s side is that we need to have the interoperability of all the capabilities and stuff. I’ll bring you one example. In Europe we have 172 different types of ships, vessels, whatever, 172. In America you have 32. And with the Ukraine War, it is very, very obvious. I mean, we all give aid to Ukrainians and these are not interoperable. Everybody has tweaked a little their things, so it’s mine, and it doesn’t work together. But in terms of crisis, you need these things to work together. So that is what we are working on, really, and I’m very happy that the new Secretary General of NATO is Mark Rutte who totally understands this. So we work very closely together. And sharing the standards, NATO standards for the European industry so we could produce the same things.

Now, some are calling, because of the changes we see, some are calling that we should just produce or just buy European, because right now we are buying more than 60 percent, we are buying American. And when the last administration said to Ukrainians, you can’t use the weapons the way you want to use them, then the message that everybody else got that, I mean in terms of crisis, when you actually need to defend yourself, then they’re going to be limits how you can.

So we need our own. That is the call that some are making. But I don’t think it is wise to totally shut into ourselves. We need the others, we need Turkey, we need US, we need also other partners, UK industries. So I don’t think that flies. But strengthening the European industry is definitely one part of it.

And now it’s always chicken and egg issue. When we hear messages from America that we don’t really care about Europe, then of course it is also the feeling that, okay, but then why should we buy their weapons? I mean, let’s have our own. So actually you’re going to lose jobs. But then it’s also, I mean, a vicious circle because when Americans are saying that, okay, they’re not even buying our weapons, so why should we care about their security? So I think we need to find a real balance here.

But I don’t think, I mean, on the European side, we don’t hear, oh, actually there is all those who have worked with the armies, they understand how NATO works. And that’s why creating an alternative structure in terms of crises, I think it’s extremely dangerous. Because that means in terms of crises is the European army or the NATO army, actually it’s the same armies. But who gives orders to whom? In the military, it’s the most important, the chain of command, who gives orders to whom? So not to have alternative military structure, but to strengthen our defense industry, really to have our own, and also no duplication in that sense that we don’t duplicate NATO, but also that we share the standards so that we do the same things. Thank you.

Peter Rough:

The gentleman in the front.

Gregor Schwung:

Thank you very much. Gregor Schwung. I’m a US Correspondent for German newspaper Die Welt. I would like to know when President Macron was here at the press conference with Trump, he committed to sending European peace troops in the name of all European nations. And he said that from Trump privately, he got the clear message of “European solidarity” and, excuse me, clear message of American solidarity for those troops and American deterrence, insinuating that there are American security guarantees for those European troops in Ukraine. Now, yesterday there was a report that Macron briefed fellow European leaders, and some European diplomats said to the media that actually Macron got nothing. So my question for you, I guess, is what did Europe get from Trump?

Kaja Kallas:

Today, UK Prime Minister is here as well, and I think as many Europeans who can meet President Trump the better. I think that is one thing. It is clear that everybody’s talking about the security guarantees that America could give to Ukraine because of the promises made before. So you have different administrations, but the country has still is, the promise is given by the country also. I mean, in the future, you can’t just take them back. And if you think about the last NATO summit, it was Ukraine’s path to NATO is irreversible. So that was also the promise given to Ukraine.

By the way, I had a meeting with congressmen and one of them said that we are interested in strong NATO. And I said, “If you are interested in strong NATO, then the strongest army that there is Ukrainian. So get them in and we have a very strong NATO.” But yeah, that’s not the case.

But coming to your question, I haven’t mean, I’ve read the readouts, I wasn’t at the meeting, so I can’t comment on behalf of President Macron, but it’s clear that the mandates we have talking on behalf of Europeans, they come from, we have the European Union that has mandate, for example, European Commission has the mandate to discuss the tariffs, trade, it is European competence. When it comes to defense. We don’t have European competence. Every country decides on their own defense arrangements and can also give promises when it comes to who sends troops to Ukraine.

But what I want to stress is that I think it blurs the picture that we are talking about peacekeepers, because Russia does not want peace. I mean, right now we need to focus so that we put the pressure on Russia so that they would want peace as well. They are in a position where they don’t really want this. So why are we talking about peacekeepers when there’s nothing to keep?

Peter Rough:

Well, hi, Representative Kallas, when your name was floated and then announced as the next high representative and vice president, you could hear the champagne corks going off in the center for Europe here at Hudson Institute.

Kaja Kallas:

Not in Russia, though.

Peter Rough:

Not in Russia, but here. And I think we got a taste of why that is today. Thank you for your friendship with the United States, your extraordinary leadership as prime minister and now as high representative. We’re honored to have be here, thrilled to have such a good partner, and we wish you good luck going forward and hopefully more collaborations to come.

Kaja Kallas:

Yes, and I also hope that we remain friends, I mean friends and allies with American. Again, coming from the time, we as Estonians, we got our independence back when the West, and especially America was at height, really standing for the values, for the freedom, everything. So I refuse to give that up, I must say. We need to stand for that still, because the autocrats in the world are really, really teaming up. And we should really stick together. Thank you.

Peter Rough:

Thank you, ma’am. Please join me in thanking the high rep.