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Politico (28 January 2026)

Nicholas Vinocur and Zoya Sheftalovich

Slovakia’s prime minister told EU leaders at a summit last week that a meeting with Donald Trump left him shocked by the U.S. president’s state of mind, five European diplomats briefed on the conversation said.

Robert Fico, one of the few EU leaders to frequently support Trump’s stance on Europe’s weaknesses, was concerned about the U.S. president’s “psychological state,” two of the diplomats said. Fico used the word “dangerous” to describe how the U.S. president came across during their face-to-face meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Jan. 17, according to two of the diplomats.

The conversation between Fico and his European counterparts took place in Brussels on Jan. 22 on the sidelines of an emergency EU summit arranged to discuss transatlantic relations in the wake of Trump’s threats to seize Greenland. Leaders used that gathering to try to calm tensions after the U.S. president walked back his threat to slap tariffs on some European countries over the issue a day earlier.

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