‘It’s Trump’s world’: European leaders divided on how to navigate ‘cacophony’

Many feel JD Vance's speech in Munich shows Trump 2.0 is a far more disruptive and chaotic force than their worst fears

As European leaders meet in Paris to prepare an answer to their apparent exclusion from the talks about Ukraine's future, the existential and all encompassing question of how to influence an unchained US president occupies every European leader.

The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, offered some Nordic advice. We Finns in these situations are cool, calm and collected so what we do first is have an ice bath and after that we go to the sauna and then we reflect." Faced by what he described as a cacophony" of het-up and shocked diplomacy, he suggested: We need to talk less and do more."