European Union leaders are confronting one of the biggest challenges in the bloc’s history as an aggressive Russia looms to the east and American support wavers from the west.

On Thursday, they pledged to rise to the challenge.

Leaders gathered at a specially convened meeting in Brussels to discuss how to bolster both Europe’s own defenses and its support for Ukraine amid enormously high stakes. They must figure out how to accomplish these aims without further alienating their tempestuous allies in Washington. At the same time, they are struggling to keep a united front even among their own member countries as Hungary strikes a critical note toward Ukraine.

Officials heading into the meeting expressed a new sense of urgency as they pledged to push for a strong peace for Ukraine and a more independent future for European defense.

“Europe faces a clear and present danger,” Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the E.U. executive arm, said as she walked into the gathering alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, calling this a “watershed moment.”

Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, was even blunter.

“It is about damn time,” she said. “We are ready to put, finally, our money where our mouth is.”

The specially called and much anticipated gathering includes the heads of state or government from the European Union’s 27 member countries and is the latest in a series of quickly arranged summits focused on defense.

Leaders are discussing options to finance a ramp up in European military spending, including a novel way that would offer 150 billion euros — about $160 billion — in loans to fund investments in missile defense, anti-drone systems and other crucial defense technologies. The overarching goal is to make the continent better armed to deal with Russia without as much backup from across the Atlantic.

European nations are also reviewing what a peace plan for Ukraine might look like, and how they can support it both financially and with possible troops — a proposition Russia flatly rejected once again on Thursday. The countries are scrambling to show support for the embattled nation and its leader at a time when the United States has taken a sharp turn toward Russia.

“We are very thankful that we are not alone,” Mr. Zelensky said on Thursday, from the meeting’s venue.

In some ways, the gathering begins a new chapter for the European Union. Created to foster cooperation and peace, the bloc is being forced to contemplate its role in a world rived by conflict and animosity, even among allies.

The pressing question is whether the E.U., with its consensus-focused, clunky structure, can adapt itself quickly enough to ensure that Europe doesn’t get left behind as President Trump rapidly changes the global order.

“The most important thing now is, to be very frank, to rearm Europe, and I don’t think we have a lot of time,” Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, told reporters as she walked into the meeting. “Spend, spend, spend on defense and deterrence.”

In less than two months, Mr. Trump has changed the game when it comes to security in Europe. He is demanding a rapid peace in Ukraine, and has prodded Mr. Zelensky toward negotiations by berating him publicly and halting aid to his nation. He opened talks with Russia without directly involving Europe, or Ukraine. And he has at the same time assailed other European countries for paying too little to protect themselves in an “unfair” system.

“Mr. Trump, he is full of surprises — they are mostly bad surprises for us,” Bart De Wever, the prime minister of Belgium, told reporters on Thursday.

Much of Europe is now making a show of standing by Ukraine: Britain and France have indicated a willingness to send troops as a peacekeeping force if a deal is reached, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain has called for support from a “coalition of the willing.”

Britain convened a meeting on Wednesday of officials from 20 countries — many of them European — to discuss possible military and nonmilitary contributions to such a coalition, according to British officials.

Russia, though, has rebuffed the idea of European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine. Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said on Thursday that there was “no space for a compromise” on the issue and that Russia would not allow it.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Mr. Lavrov said Russia would see the deployment of such troops on Ukrainian territory “in the same way as we have looked at the potential presence of NATO” in the country.

“We would not just observe such actions,” he added.

Nor is it clear yet how the European Union would fit into such a coalition — that is up for discussion on Thursday.

And backing for Ukraine in general may not be unanimous. When asked if Europe would remain united for Ukraine, Mr. De Wever said that “we’re pretty sure of the position of 25 partners.”

Officials have been trying to get Hungary and keep Slovakia on board with their statements of support. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has been especially vocal in his praise of Mr. Trump and in his disagreement with his European colleagues when it comes to Ukraine.

But, Mr. De Wever added, “There’s also the U.K., there’s also Canada and other partners who could join us in a pro-Ukraine coalition that we need to form if we’re to respond to the new order that’s been created by Mr. Trump.”

On Wednesday, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he would talk with European allies about the possibility of using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent in the wake of threats from Russia.

In a sign that Europe is pulling together more, several countries outside the European Union — including Britain, Norway and Turkey — are expected to be briefed by top E.U. officials after the Thursday meeting, according to an E.U. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

While E.U. officials have been discussing further aid for Ukraine, plans for giving it a fresh pot of money are unlikely to be finalized on Thursday, according to a senior E.U. diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans.

But Thursday’s discussions could result in clearer plans for how Europe can better protect itself as a whole.

Ms. von der Leyen’s plan to “rearm” Europe includes the €150 billion loan program and would also make E.U. budget rules more flexible to enable countries to invest more without breaching tough deficit limits.

The goal, in part, is to help “Ukraine in its existential fight for its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said on Thursday.

Ivan Nechepurenko and Marc Santora contributed reporting.

Three gunshots rang out as an honor guard fired into the air over the snow-covered cemetery. Soldiers lifted a Ukrainian flag from a coffin and handed it to family members. Then a trumpet, accompanied by a drum, bid farewell to the fallen soldier.

After playing a Ukrainian version of taps, the two musicians from the military band walked slowly away, leaving the mourners to grieve.

“Unfortunately, we cannot raise them from their graves, but we can play taps,” Maj. Oleksandr Holub said of the daily visits that members of the band he conducts make to the cemetery, where hundreds of new graves have been dug for Ukrainian soldiers.

Over the three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Ukraine has experienced tremendous losses. In an interview published last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that at least 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that more than 350,000 had been wounded, figures that are widely seen as underestimates.

For the past year, the Russian Army has been on the offensive, capturing Ukrainian territory regularly and killing Ukrainian soldiers in increasing numbers.

Then comes the work of the band of the 101st Separate Guard Brigade of the General Staff.

“We treat every funeral like it’s our most important concert, as we are saying farewell to those because of whom we are still here,” said Pvt. Lev Remenev, a song writer in civilian life who volunteered to fight in the army but instead wound up in the 101st Separate Guard band, where he plays the piano.

The mission of the band’s 21 members is to show two sides of Ukraine’s struggle three years into the war: acknowledging the unbearable toll and keeping up the spirits of those who press ahead with the fighting.

They support soldiers and civilians by playing uplifting concerts in schools and at universities and rehabilitation centers. But the tune they play most frequently is a version of taps, to honor their fallen comrades.

The musicians say it is often difficult to transition to the cheerful mood of a concert for schoolchildren or for soldiers in hospitals right after playing at a funeral.

“If you did not manage to switch, and go on being grim, kids feel it,” said Major Holub, 45, the conductor, who has been with the band for 18 years. “Kids are the easiest audience, and it is very easy to get them to have fun,” he said. “Soldiers are the hardest.”

But for the musicians, funerals are the hardest.

They played a version of taps at funerals before the war, too, but mostly for retired soldiers who died of old age, Major Holub said. It became harder in 2014, when Russia invaded the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and soldiers were killed in battle. It has become much harder since the full-scale invasion, he said.

He recalls the funeral that affected him the most: “I will always remember a young boy called Andriy, from our brigade,” he said. “He wanted us to play at his wedding, and in summer 2023, we played at his wedding. And then a year later, in summer 2024, we played at his funeral.”

He added: “I will say honestly that when I see mothers burying their sons, I have tears coming up — it is very hard.”

Private Remenev joined the army in 2022 and was sent to the Donbas region to fight. That July, he was assigned to join the band.

He still writes songs and his comrades have asked him to write an anthem to celebrate victory, he said. “This is a very high bar,” Private Remenev said of the expectations for an anthem, adding that he had yet to produce one.

“The main thing is for the victory to actually come, and then I will write better normal songs,” he said. “People do not listen to anthems; people like normal songs.”

Since joining the army, he has played more than 200 concerts in hospitals and schools and at other events. But like the others in the band, he has played at even more funerals.

“I always feel gratitude first of all, and then the grief, and then the pain that boys and girls are dying — that our nation is dying,” he said.

He, like his colleagues, says it is hard to be in good spirits after the funerals. At concerts, they need to raise morale. “We are no different from the entire country in this,” he said. “All people who live in war have to force themselves to switch to a false good mood. This ability comes with practice.”

Sometimes, the military band members chat on the bus to the cemetery, giving one another moral support. Sometimes, they say, it is just too sad, and they drive in silence.

Pvt. Oleksiy Prykhodko, 29, has been performing in the band for five years, but he only starting playing regularly at funerals after the full-scale invasion in 2022. “It is possible to adapt to everything,” he said. “But it is very hard to see the tears of relatives who lost their loved ones.”

The first funeral he played at stuck in his memory. “We went to the cemetery, but there were no relatives,” he said. “It was the very beginning of the war, and the mother of the fallen soldier had evacuated and could not make it back in time.” She had fled and was a refugee. “One woman called her,” he said. “And she was saying goodbye to her dead son over the phone.”

He added: “I have no answers as to how to cope, but somehow I go on.”

Every morning, he goes out to a parade ground at the base in Kyiv, the capital, at 9 a.m. with his trumpet and plays a version of taps for soldiers at the base. Most days, he plays the music again at a funeral, he said.

On one such day in December, there was a power cut from Russian missile attacks on power plants in the middle of a funeral, he said. The church went dark, and mourners were asked to switch on the flashlight on their phones to find the coffin inside the dark room and bid farewell to the fallen soldier.

Then Private Prykhodko played a version of taps.

“Relatives never say anything to us — they do not think about us at that moment,” he said. “When their loved one dies, we are the last thing on their minds, but we still come and play taps,” he said. “It is a ritual, and it is important.”

Yurii Shyvala contributed reporting.

Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform U.K. party has attracted more than a dozen donors from Britain’s once dominant Conservative Party, an analysis of new data reveals, underlining the threat the Tories face from a right-wing populist party that models itself on President Trump’s MAGA movement.

In total, Reform U.K. raised 4.75 million pounds ($6.1 million) last year, a sharp increase from the less than $200,000 that the party raised in 2023. A third of the money came from former donors to the Conservatives.

The New York Times analyzed every donation that Reform U.K. reported to Britain’s campaign finance watchdog in 2024, including figures for the final quarter of the year that were released on Thursday, to get the first major snapshot of who is funding the party.

The biggest single donation in the last quarter came from Roger Nagioff, a former Conservative donor, former Lehman Brothers banker and Monaco-based investor, who donated £100,000 in December. Other major donations in 2024 included one million pounds from a company owned by Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and £500,000 from Fiona Cottrell.

The Conservative exodus began after Mr. Farage, an ideological ally of Mr. Trump, took over last year as Reform’s leader just before Britain’s July general election. A longtime political disrupter and former commodities trader who campaigned for Brexit, Mr. Farage has pledged to remake British conservatism, pushing the movement to the right on a nationalistic platform that he frames as anti-establishment and anti-immigration.

Reform has surged in national polls, overtaking the Conservative Party, and taken its first municipal seats. Although the governing Labour Party does not have to hold a general election until 2029, Reform’s fund-raising success underlines Mr. Farage’s momentum and could help his party professionalize as it challenges the two main parties at local elections in May.

While Mr. Farage has described support for Reform as a “revolt against the establishment,” 34 percent of the party’s new funders are former donors to the Conservatives, the centuries-old right-wing party that held power for 14 years in Britain before last year’s general election.

Sam Power, a political finance expert at Bristol University, said that the latest data was a stark warning to the Conservative Party, which is led by Kemi Badenoch.

“The movement of donors from the Conservative Party to Reform already I think will be causing alarm bells in Conservative Party HQ,” Mr. Power said.

“Money talks, and what you can see, if money is moving from one party to another, then that is a major sign that the sands are shifting,” he said. “Not just in terms of elections and the public being Reform-curious, but that donors are increasingly Reform curious, too.”

Other major donors bankrolling Reform in 2024 included multimillionaires, individuals based in overseas jurisdictions or with offshore investments, climate change skeptics and those with investments in fossil fuels or other climate-polluting industries, The Times found.

The Conservative Party has been approached for comment.

Reform, which Mr. Farage originally created in 2019 as the Brexit Party, won 14.3 percent of the vote in last year’s general election. But in recent weeks, it has reached around 25 percent in several polls, at times overtaking the Conservatives and Labour.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan on Thursday sought to reassure his citizens that a plan by a Taiwanese chip giant to spend $100 billion in the United States would benefit the island, after the company’s pledge this week raised concerns at home.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip manufacturer, announced on Monday that over the next four years it would expand its operations in Arizona to make chips for artificial intelligence and other high-tech applications. President Trump has pressed Taiwan to loosen its dominance in advanced semiconductors and to move production to the United States, and he has warned of hefty tariffs if his demands are not met.

But TSMC’s announcement also stirred debate and misgivings in Taiwan, a democratically governed island where many people see the chip sector as a vital economic pillar and a shield against possible aggression by China, which claims it is part of its territory. The commitment from TSMC would lift its planned spending in the United States to $165 billion, more than double its previous commitments there.

Mr. Lai, in a news conference in Taipei on Thursday with C.C. Wei, the chief executive of TSMC, asserted that the plan was good for TSMC, Taiwan and the United States.

“We have seen every time that with each initiative by TSMC, TSMC has grown even stronger and more competitive, while also providing Taiwan’s businesses with opportunities for international cooperation and contributing to Taiwan’s greater strength,” Mr. Lai told reporters at the presidential office. He said that Taiwan could now “confidently cross the Pacific Ocean and expand eastward to the American continent.”

Mr. Wei asserted that TSMC’s decision was based on business considerations — implying that the company was not bending to political pressure. “We have done a lot of analysis, and I’ve communicated with all our customers,” he said. “It turns out that TSMC’s current expansion plan in the United States is not enough to meet their demand.”

The company’s production in Taiwan would not be hurt by its growing investment in the United States, Mr. Wei said.

Not everyone in Taiwan is convinced. “When TSMC invests so much capital and takes its most advanced manufacturing processes to the United States, what has Taiwan gained in return?” Wang Hung-wei, a legislator from Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party, said at a news conference this week.

TSMC executives have previously insisted that the company would keep its most advanced factories in Taiwan. The company has invested billions growing deep roots and a network of highly specialized suppliers in Taiwan. While it has opened new factories in Japan and Arizona, its most cutting-edge chips are still made in Taiwan.

Mr. Lai’s government has been trying to respond to complaints from Mr. Trump that Taiwan spends too little on its own defense, has a disproportionate trade surplus with the United States, and has stolen the semiconductor business from American companies.

Any rupture with Mr. Trump would be a crisis for Taiwan, which has for decades turned to the United States as its chief political and military supporter against potential threats from China. Beijing claims the island as its territory and says it could use force to take it if its leaders see no hope for peaceful unification.

Last month, Mr. Lai promised to increase Taiwan’s military spending to over 3 percent of its economic output, from about 2.45 percent this year. Mr. Trump and officials around him have said that Taiwan should be devoting 5 percent, or even 10 percent, of its economy to its military.

Mr. Trump announced TSMC’s new commitments with Mr. Wei by his side at the White House on Monday. The investment would help TSMC avoid tariffs on chips made in Taiwan, Mr. Trump said.

The investment will expand TSMC’s footprint in Arizona from three manufacturing plants to six, add 25,000 jobs and create a research and development center to develop production processes. Apple is the facility’s largest customer. TSMC also makes chips for Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom.

Despite its global importance, TSMC has shied away from media attention, and its executives rarely take questions from journalists. Mr. Wei, the chief executive, suggested that he did not relish the attention.

“Life has been a bit stressful lately,” he said, “meeting two presidents in such a short time, and to also have to meet with friends from the media, and then answer questions.”

A Russian missile slammed into a hotel before dawn on Thursday in the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky in central Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring more than 30 others, the Ukrainian authorities said.

“Just before the attack, volunteers from a humanitarian organization — citizens of Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom — had checked into the hotel,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement. “They survived because they managed to get down from their rooms in time. Unfortunately, four people were killed in this attack.”

“There must be no pause in the pressure on Russia to stop this war and terror against life,” he said.

As rescue workers raced to pull wounded civilians from the ruined building in Mr. Zelensky’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, air-defense crews across the country scrambled to defend against bombardments that have become routine during the winter.

In total, the Ukrainian Air Force reported, Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 112 drones — including some with dummy warheads designed to expose and exhaust air defenses.

Most of the deadly drones were shot down, the Air Force reported, but it did not say whether either of the missiles had been downed.

After the United States announced this week that it was suspending both military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, there has been growing concern that the nation’s air-defense capabilities would be among the first elements of its defense to be compromised.

The American-made Patriot system has proved to be Ukraine’s most reliable defense against Russia’s most sophisticated ballistic missiles. The pause in American military assistance could leave Ukrainians short of the sophisticated interceptor missiles that have helped provide a blanket of protection over the capital, Kyiv, and other cities.

At the same time, Ukraine’s air-raid alerts are informed, to some degree, by the early warning data provided by American satellites, which can detect aircraft and missile launches deep in Russian territory. It is not clear if the pause on intelligence sharing included information related to those systems.

Ukrainian authorities sought to reassure the public that they were taking steps to address the fallout from the sudden moves by its primary military ally as Washington increasingly aligns itself with Moscow as it applies pressure to Kyiv ahead of peace negotiations.

Even as Kyiv works to persuade Washington that it should be applying pressure to Russia to bring the war to an end rather than taking steps that weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, Ukraine is also appealing directly to the American public.

Ukrainian operators of Patriot systems have followed the lead of F-16 fighter pilots in calling directly on the American people to stand with Ukraine.

“Thanks to your support, we are still alive, and we are able to protect our cities and the civilians who live there,” said one operator in a video released by the military. “Thank you to the American people!”

President Trump has maintained that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has sent “strong signals” that he is ready for peace.

However, since the two men spoke on Feb. 12, Russia’s unrelenting bombardment of Ukrainian infrastructure and towns and cities from the front has only intensified.

More than 90 civilians have been killed since then, according to publicly available reports from Ukrainian officials compiled by The New York Times.

Most of the worst attacks are in the towns and cities closest to the front.

Russian warplanes have been bombarding the city of Kostiantynivka — an important logistics center for Ukrainian forces fighting in the east — with increasing ferocity.

“The enemy has dropped 108 aerial bombs on the city of Kostiantynivka over the past week alone,“ said Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration. The bombs are among the most powerful in the Russian arsenal, weighing from 500 pounds to 6,000 pounds.

“The attacks have killed 16 people and injured 38,” he said.

As rescue crews in Kryvyi Rih continued to dig through the rubble of the hotel, Liudmyla Taran, the mother of two small children, said the air-raid alert came just two minutes before the missile struck.

“The explosion was massive, the windows were blown out, and the apartment started to smell strongly of smoke,” she said. “We got scared that the apartment was on fire, so we ran outside as we were, without getting dressed, and waited for help.”

Dmytro Klymenko, a 20-year-old local journalist, said the alert indicated that the ballistic missile was launched from Crimea and he barely had time to get dressed and run outside before the strike.

“As I was heading to the shelter, another alert came in, saying there were only seconds left before impact,” he said. “I sped up and made it into the underground shelter just as I heard the explosion.”

“Luckily, I only got away with a scare,” he said. “But I feel so sorry for those who suffered because of Russia.”

Liubov Sholudko and Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting.

A South Korean village near the North Korean border was mistakenly shelled on Thursday by two fighter jets from the South’s own air force, leaving 15 people injured and damaging homes and a church.

The jets were taking part in a joint exercise with the United States military when each of them dropped four bombs, according to the South’s military. The bombs were meant to hit a range several miles from the village, but at least one of the South Korean pilots had entered inaccurate coordinates, the military said.

Four of the injured people were seriously wounded and required surgery, said officials in Pocheon, a town that includes the village of Nogok, where the bombs fell. Of the other 11, seven suffered shock and minor scratches from falling down. Local news outlets said none of the victims was in critical condition.

The military said it was suspending all live-fire drills while an investigation was carried out. The exercise Thursday was connected to annual joint exercises, known as Freedom Shield, that the South Korean and U.S. military carry out every year, and which are set to officially begin on Monday.

A woman in Nogok who runs a shop in her home said she was there when an “earthquake-like” explosion rattled the village, breaking windows in her house and in neighbors’ houses. Her home was 700 feet from the spot where the most serious damage was reported.

Photos carried by local news outlets showed a house in the village with parts of its walls and tiled roof blown away. They also showed damage to a Catholic church, and torn branches from pine trees strewn around.

The South Korean Air Force did not say how many of the eight bombs dropped had hit Nogok, which is about 20 miles from the heavily fortified North Korean border. It issued an apology and promised compensation for the victims.

“Something that should never have happened just happened,” said Mayor Baek Young-hyun of Pocheon. “The place where the bombs landed is utterly chaotic and looks like a battlefield.”

Mr. Baek said that three large military firing ranges occupy 12,253 acres of land in Pocheon and bullets that ricocheted from there have sometimes endangered villagers. He demanded that the military stop using the firing ranges until it can ensure that accidents like Thursday’s never happen again.

On Thursday, the South Korean and United States militaries said that this year’s Freedom Shield exercises would begin on Monday and last 11 days. But in recent days, they had begun smaller joint drills in connection with the main exercises.

American troops — but no United States Air Force aircraft — were participating in the joint live-fire exercise when the accident happened on Thursday, the U.S. military in Korea said.

“We take this incident very seriously,” said Col. Ryan Donald, a U.S. military spokesman, adding that his command was coordinating closely with South Korea’s defense ministry and was committed to a thorough and transparent investigation.

The United States has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. The allies conduct several joint military exercises each year, calling them defensive in nature. The Carl Vinson American aircraft carrier group steamed into a South Korean port this week to join the Freedom Shield exercise.

North Korea has bristled at the drills, calling them rehearsals for war.

On Monday, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who also acts as his spokeswoman, accused President Trump’s administration of the “most hostile and confrontational will” against her country, citing its continuation of the joint exercises with South Korea.

“We will never confine ourselves to sitting still and commenting on the situation,” Ms. Kim said. She indicated that North Korea might resume testing nuclear-capable weapons.

New Zealand on Thursday recalled its top diplomat in Britain after he made comments questioning President Trump’s understanding of history at a public event, in a sign of the unease and sensitivities around expressing disagreements with the Trump administration.

Phil Goff, New Zealand’s high commissioner to Britain — the equivalent of an ambassador between Commonwealth countries — made the comments in London on Tuesday at an event about the war in Ukraine and peace in Europe.

Mr. Goff spoke up with a question after a speech by Finland’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, at the Chatham House think tank, in which she spoke about the role of Europe in the face of Russian aggression and resolving the war in Ukraine.

Citing Winston Churchill on the choice between dishonor and war, Mr. Goff asked: “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, but do you think he really understands history?”

The audience laughed. Invoking Churchill’s criticism of his predecessor as prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, for reaching a deal with Hitler, Mr. Goff appeared to make a wry allusion to Mr. Trump’s embrace of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Trump has falsely suggested that Ukraine, not Mr. Putin, is responsible for the war.

But Ms. Valtonen deflected, saying that Churchill had “made very timeless remarks.”

In a statement on Thursday, New Zealand’s foreign minister, Winston Peters, described Mr. Goff’s remarks as “deeply disappointing” and said that they made his position “untenable.”

“When you’re in that position, you represent the government and the policies of the day,” Mr. Peters told reporters in New Zealand after summarily dismissing Mr. Goff. “You’re not able to free think — you are the face of New Zealand.”

Mr. Goff is a longtime politician and the former mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. He was appointed to the London post in 2022 under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was often championed as a leading liberal voice against Mr. Trump in his first administration. But New Zealand’s politics have since shifted sharply, with voters electing its most conservative government in decades.

Mr. Peters said that Mr. Goff’s removal was not about the U.S. government, but about conduct as a diplomat. “If he had made that comment about Germany, France, Tonga or Samoa, I’d have been forced to take this action,” Mr. Peters said.

Nevertheless, it reflected how touchy U.S. allies are becoming in trying to stay in Mr. Trump’s good graces. When reporters asked New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, about Mr. Trump’s Oval Office confrontation with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, he appeared to refrain from criticizing Mr. Trump. He went on to say that he still trusted Mr. Trump as an ally.

In recent months, Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, has also faced questions about whether he could continue in the job over his scathing past criticism of Mr. Trump. The comments were made before Mr. Rudd’s appointment to the position.

The Australian government backed Mr. Rudd, who deleted the critical posts from his X account. He later said in a statement that he did not want them to be construed as reflecting the views of Australia’s government.