On August 18, 2025, a rare convergence of international and domestic tensions is set to play out in Washington, D.C., as European and NATO leaders join Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pivotal meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House. The gathering, announced just a day prior by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is no ordinary diplomatic affair. Instead, it’s a calculated show of unity by Europe and NATO, designed to bolster Zelenskyy’s position and prevent a repeat of the contentious Oval Office meeting he endured with Trump earlier this year.
Von der Leyen, who leads the European Union’s executive branch, made her intentions clear on social media: “At the request of President Zelenskyy, I will join the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House tomorrow.” Her statement underscores the deep concern among European capitals that Trump may pressure Zelenskyy into a peace deal with Russia, a deal that many in Kyiv and beyond view as premature and potentially damaging to Ukraine’s sovereignty. The European presence is meant not only to lend moral support but to act as a counterweight to Trump’s famously unpredictable negotiating style.
Joining von der Leyen at the White House will be French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Their collective attendance, confirmed in a flurry of announcements on Sunday, signals Europe’s determination to have its voice heard in any peace-making efforts concerning Ukraine. This determination has only grown since Trump’s recent summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin—a meeting notable for its exclusion of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian perspective.
“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,” retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand told TNND. “It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump.” The February meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy reportedly turned heated, leaving European leaders wary of what might transpire behind closed doors if Zelenskyy faces Trump alone. Their united front is intended to ensure that Ukraine is not maneuvered into an unfavorable position—especially with so much at stake for European security and the future of NATO.
This high-stakes diplomatic choreography comes as President Trump’s domestic agenda is causing its own share of controversy. On August 17, Trump declared Washington, D.C. a “crime-ridden wasteland” in need of federal intervention, and threatened to extend similar measures to other major cities—specifically those led by Black mayors, such as Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland. His administration has already deployed the first of 800 National Guard members to patrol the nation’s capital, a move that’s drawn sharp criticism from city leaders and community advocates alike.
Yet, as mayors and activists are quick to point out, the president’s bleak portrayal of urban America doesn’t square with the facts. According to statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police, violent crime in the city has declined since a pandemic-era peak in 2023. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson highlighted his city’s “historic progress driving down homicides by more than 30% and shootings by almost 40% in the last year alone.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cited a 14% drop in homicides from 2023 to 2024, dismissing the federal intervention as a performative “power grab.”
Baltimore, too, has seen historic decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings, with city officials crediting a “public health” approach to violence prevention. Under Mayor Brandon Scott’s leadership, Baltimore launched a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan in 2021 that invested in community intervention and services for crime victims. Scott accused Trump of exploiting crime as a “wedge issue and dog whistle,” arguing that the president “has actively undermined efforts that are making a difference saving lives in cities across the country in favor of militarized policing of Black communities.”
Community organizations have played a pivotal role in these successes, particularly in Oakland, where officials recently touted a 21% drop in homicides and a 29% decrease in all violent crime in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year. “These results show that we’re on the right track,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee told reporters, crediting collaborations with community organizations and crisis response services through the city’s Department of Violence Prevention. Nicole Lee, executive director of Urban Peace Movement, echoed this sentiment: “We really want to acknowledge all of the hard work that our network of community partners and community organizations have been doing over the past couple of years coming out of the pandemic to really create real community safety. The things we are doing are working.”
Despite these achievements, Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. has raised fears of federal overreach. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson confirmed that guard troops would not be armed, but declined to specify their assignments beyond safety patrols and beautification efforts. The move has sparked speculation that federal intervention could soon include youth curfews—a measure that community leaders warn would disproportionately impact young people of color and risk criminalizing youth for simply being outside after certain hours. “Not only does that not solve anything in regard to violence and crime, it puts young people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system,” Nicole Lee warned.
Mayors across the country, particularly those in the African American Mayors Association, see the federal intervention as a political maneuver rather than a genuine effort to curb violence. “It gives us an opportunity to say we need to amplify our voices to confront the rhetoric that crime is just running rampant around major U.S. cities. It’s just not true,” said Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, and president of the association. Johnson noted that the cities targeted by Trump’s interventions have one thing in common: Black leadership. “It was not lost on any member of our organization that the mayors either were Black or perceived to be Democrats. And that’s unfortunate. For mayors, we play with whoever’s on the field.”
The situation in Washington is being closely watched by other city leaders, who see Mayor Muriel Bowser’s response to the federal intervention as a test case. Bowser has tried to balance critique and cooperation, but tensions escalated when city officials filed suit to block the federal takeover. “Black mayors are resilient. We are intrinsically children of struggle,” Johnson reflected. “We learn to adapt quickly, and I believe that we will and we are.”
As European and NATO leaders rally behind Zelenskyy in the White House, and as America’s mayors push back against federal interventions in their cities, the events of August 18, 2025, are shaping up to be a defining moment for both international diplomacy and the future of urban governance in the United States. The world is watching to see not just what deals are struck in Washington, but whose voices will truly shape the future.
