Before Trump’s top officials descended on Europe this past week, Donald Trump seemed to have three ideas for ending the Ukraine war: abandon ship, meaning depriving Ukraine of US aid and thereby forcing it to agree to a settlement with Russia; deploy European troops in Ukraine to deter Russia after a peace agreement; and give Ukraine aid in return for “guaranteed” access to its rare earth mineral deposits. Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, confirmed all these points and reiterated what he said was the Trump administration’s “underlying principle”: that the Europeans “have to own this conflict going forward.”