Kurt Volker warned European countries not to anger the U.S. president.
The former U.S. ambassador to NATO is urging British and European politicians not to alienate Donald Trump by criticizing his administration’s handling of the Iran war and its fallout.
Kurt Volker, the U.S. envoy to NATO in 2008-2009 who then served as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine during the first Trump administration, warned that European figures who have condemned the U.S. president’s approach are “making some very big mistakes.”
“You might think that this is a huge folly and going to have terrible consequences, but you don’t have to say it,” Volker told Anne McElvoy for POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast, published Friday. “By saying it, you alienate Donald Trump and you run the risk that he will then link your unhappiness with his policies to his unhappiness for some of your policies.”
Volker added that it risked, “fragmenting a transatlantic relationship that is still valuable to both of us. So I don’t think that’s a wise way to handle the president.”
European leaders have been engaged in escalating clashes with the U.S. administration over the war in Iran, launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28. Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. military bases and its regional allies and then blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway responsible for about a fifth of the world’s oil needs.
Trump has lashed out at NATO countries that have restricted access to their military bases for U.S. use — singling out the U.K. and Spain — while praising more supportive countries.
U.S. allies have repeatedly pledged to help restart shipping along the trade chokepoint — but only once the fighting fully stops — which is angering Trump.
The UK pushed back
In the U.K., Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clear he doesn’t support the war.
“It is not our war … I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield,” he told the British parliament earlier this month.
Rachel Reeves, the U.K.’s finance minister, said last week on the eve of a trip to Washington that Trump’s decision to start a war without a clear strategy was “folly” and “I’m not convinced that we are safer today than we were a few weeks ago.”
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy called Trump’s threats against Starmer “small and petty.”
French President Emmanuel Macron called the war launched by Trump a violation of international law.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has led the pack in lambasting the war as “illegal, unjustified and dangerous.”
Volker defended Trump’s rationale for launching the war, saying he was correct to attack to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, something Trump called a “spectacular military success,” which he said destroyed the country’s ability to make the bomb.
Iran has denied that it plans to build a bomb, but Volker dismissed that.
“They do want to build a nuclear weapon, and they have been trying this for decades, and even if they agree that they won’t do it, they probably will do it anyway. And the U.S. is going to have to face the reality,” he said.
He also supported Trump’s 2018 decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama that limited Iran’s nuclear program and put it under inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“I think that was a flawed agreement and should not have been entered into,” he said.
That clashes with the views of many European countries, which had been involved in the original Iranian nuclear talks.
The Trump administration is increasingly angry about the lack of enthusiasm in Europe over the war, and is working on something like a “naughty and nice” list of NATO countries to punish those that have caused problems, POLITICO reported.
Volker said that European leaders should be more cautious in responding to domestic public opinion — which is strongly against the war — by taking positions that anger Trump.
There are “ways to be proactive … without taking gratuitous shots at President Trump that don’t actually help,” he said.
Be nice to Trump
Instead, European leaders should follow the example of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who has been careful not to anger Trump by backing the war against Iran. “Working with President Trump, being complimentary, being enthusiastic, because … he is doing them a service,” is the approach they should take, Volker said.
He also called on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to turn up the charm on Trump. Germany has not restricted the use of its crucial Ramstein air base and Merz has not clashed with the U.S. president, although he has observed that relations with the U.S. are “just difficult” at the moment.
Merz has been more circumspect with the president than Starmer, and Trump has not retaliated against him as he has with the British prime minister. “Unlike Keir Starmer, where President Trump seems to like to go after him a little bit, to poke him a little bit, he doesn’t do that with Merz personally,” Volker said.
Merz has invited Trump to visit the birthplace of his grandfather in western Germany. If that happens, “I would just make sure that President Trump comes away from it feeling that he’s been shown respect, because that’s what he craves.”
Volker also defended Trump’s positions on Iran, which have alarmed many European leaders. The president has shifted dramatically from proclaiming an end to the fighting to threatening to “wipe out” Iranian civilization and destroying the country’s civilian infrastructure.
“He is trying to use harsh rhetoric and extreme positions to demonstrate strength and toughness in machismo and get the Iranians to pay attention,” Volker said.