From the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, a question has lingered in Athens: If a Greek-Turkish crisis erupts, how will the new American administration respond?
Would Washington follow the traditional approach of diplomatic mediation, in the style of Richard Holbrooke, to defuse tensions quickly? Would it react in a new, unpredictable and less balanced way? Or would it refrain from intervening, allowing the crisis to develop and create new realities before taking a position?
Answering these questions first requires understanding which channel in Washington would handle such a crisis: the traditional machinery of the State Department, operating according to established rules, or the White House itself, where presidential instincts could take precedence.
If the latter scenario prevailed, Athens would also have to consider how to balance Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s direct access to Trump, who has made no secret of his personal regard for the Turkish leader. “I like him a lot,” Trump said in his most recently recorded public statement about Erdogan.
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Rubio’s visit offers brief reassurance
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Athens was seen by Greek officials as a reassuring answer to this uncertainty, beyond its high-profile public dimension.
The visit appeared to restore a functional channel of communication with an official who heads both the State Department and the National Security Council and can therefore have direct access to the president, according to the assessment within the Greek government.
That optimism lasted just 48 hours.
The announcement of a Trump-Putin agreement allowing Russian diesel to reach the U.S. and other markets has dispelled any illusions about how decisions are made in Washington. The implications extend beyond energy prices to the war in Ukraine, U.S.-European relations and political balances within Europe itself.
Trump’s abrupt reversal on Russia
Trump had just signed legislation providing for tougher sanctions against Russia and severe tariff penalties for any country caught purchasing Russian oil.
Only three weeks later, he made an abrupt and entirely unannounced 180-degree turn, announcing an agreement that would allow Russia to sell hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel in markets from which it had been excluded.
What changed? The article points to several rounds of opinion polls offering increasingly bleak forecasts for Republican candidates in the November 3 elections.
The shift was particularly significant in states with substantial agricultural production, where farming depends on diesel. States such as Texas, Kansas and Iowa, traditionally Republican strongholds, had suddenly become difficult battlegrounds in closely contested elections.
The move raises several unanswered questions. How will the release of Russian diesel exports affect prices? What impact will Trump’s concession to Putin have on the military balance in Ukraine? How will Europe respond, and how will the additional political pressure affect its internal political dynamics?
At this stage, none of these questions has a clear answer, including the question of energy prices. Some experts, in their initial assessments, fear the agreement could have serious political consequences while producing only a marginal effect on prices.
What the deal means for Greece
For Athens, however, the implications appear more direct and troubling.
Trump’s move was accompanied by a call for Ukraine to change its president and find someone willing to compromise with Russia’s demands. That position sits uneasily with Greece’s declared support for Ukraine and its emphasis on international law and the inviolability of borders.
Only the previous Friday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had reiterated that Greece had supported Ukraine from the outset because it was the country under attack, facing an attempt by another state to invade and conquer it.
Greece has also presented itself as a country whose foreign policy is built on international law and respect for the inviolability of national borders.
Those principles now face a test that goes beyond diplomatic rhetoric.
The test of the Pnyx speech is in Kyiv
Rubio’s references during his Athens visit to classical Greece and the debt the West owes to its heritage were greeted with enthusiasm by some observers. But the events that followed, the article argues, exposed the gap between invoking those ideals and applying them in practice.
The Pnyx, the historic hill in Athens associated with the democratic assemblies of ancient Athens, serves here as a symbol of the principles invoked during Rubio’s visit. Kyiv, by contrast, represents the test of whether those principles will guide policy when they conflict with the interests of a powerful state.
For a country such as Greece, which grounds its foreign policy in international law and the inviolability of borders, the consequences are significant if the national interests of a powerful state are treated as superior to rules, alliances and international institutions.
Within 48 hours of Rubio’s visit, the central question facing Athens had become clearer: whether the principles celebrated in Greece will also be upheld in Ukraine.