In the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to instigate his Ukraine “peace plan”, it’s great to hear from US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that “everything is on the table”. Also: would President Putin like to keep the table? I get the feeling that Hegseth would be very willing to throw in the table, which is likely to be hewn by Saudi craftsmen. That’s not a bone-saw euphemism: Trump says the putative peace talks could be hosted by the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. For now, the world had to settle for Hegseth popping into a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels to announce: “Make no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.” So this week offered an opportunity to watch Eisenhower quotes get Disneyfied by a defence secretary with a Crusades tattoo. Good times! Anyway: the peace plan. I expect this lesson is contained in Trump’s seminal business text, The Art of the Deal, but one fairly reliable principle of negotiation is that if you say a number first, you end up negotiating down from it. If you get the other side to say a number first, you can negotiate up from that. For whatever reason, and supposedly before formal negotiations have even begun, Hegseth has already effectively surrendered most or all of the land taken by Russia since 2014, the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato, and the threat of any future European security being guaranteed by the US. I image Vladimir Putin will simply accept the terms by pointing at him and saying, “You’re hired!” This wasn’t the exact way Hegseth billed it in his scene-stealing turn on the eve of the Munich security summit, going instead with the assertion that Trump will be “the perfect dealmaker at the table”. As mentioned, the president’s going to lose the table, but so what? Like he cares. Ever since he got much of a country to kayfabe that he won an election which he definitely lost, he must have known it will be a piece of piss to get them to agree he pulled off the most elegant peace treaty of all time. That, really, is the art of his deal. Also, he has bone spurs. Other interested parties should be engaged in far deeper self-laceration. I kept reading and hearing yesterday about how European leaders were left “in shock”, “reeling” and “blindsided” by the US gambit, but … how? What did they think was going to happen? The signs have been spelled out for more than a year by Trump, who said he was going to end the Ukraine war on day one of his presidency – so if anything he has been slow in pulling the rip cord. Furthermore, I wouldn’t say Hegseth was hard to read. In fact, as indicated, you can quite literally read him. He has a US flag enmeshed with an assault rifle on his bicep, and a number of handy clues to his strategic thinking emblazoned, in writing, down both his forearms. As far as mealy-mouthed statements you’d struggle to fit on a forearm go, hats off to the German foreign minister for responding to Trump’s move on Thursday by declaring: “It is now crucial for us Europeans to make it clear what is important for our own peace.” Now? Hate to be the bazillionth person to point it out, but “now” feels a bit late for Europe to finally get its multiple-cheeked backside in gear on this front. Europe has spent years – diplomatic technicalese ahoy – dicking around and not acting to prepare for the possibility of the US withdrawing support. Shortly after Putin invaded Ukraine three years ago, EU leaders met at Versailles. You would think that this particular location would be sufficient to crystallise the minds of those present in a spirit of “let’s not cock this one up”. And yet. No one could have accused what emerged from Versailles that time round of going too far. Despite the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announcing that while Versailles 1919 divided Europe, Versailles 2022 was bringing it together, that couldn’t meaningfully have been said to be the case. Instead, and unsurprisingly, the declaration that emerged from that meeting found Europe retreating into its happy place of fine words and forever consultations. And here we all are. Nobody but the US administration and Putin is in their happy place, with Ukraine in the unhappiest place of all. Asked whether it was equal partners with Russia in these high-handed negotiations over its own future, Trump replied: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question.” Which I guess is your answer. Not only is Ukraine not in the driving seat, as various people keep mildly observing, but it may well not even be in the car, condemned at best to run along after it, and at worst to be run over by it. In terms of where the UK stands in all of this, the answer increasingly feels like “nowhere particularly”. This morning, Keir Starmer was assuring Ukraine’s president by phone that his country was on “an irreversible path” to Nato membership. Hmm. Meanwhile, Hegseth was on the ground in big-spending Poland saluting it as “the model ally”. The UK’s ego has long been writing cheques its body can’t cash – and certainly that its chancellor refuses to cash. Starmer looks about as likely to make a modern-day Yalta photo with Trump and Putin as he is to be revealed as Dressed Crab on the Masked Singer. As for Trump, he’s never going to get a tattoo. But if he did, it should read APRÈS MOI, LE DÉLUGE. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist