Is Trump making a deal with the devil in his Ukraine-Russia strategy? - opinion
Many believe Putin may have some leverage over the American president, or it could just be a matter of Trump’s desire to impress him.
Promises made, promises broken. That is the real theme of the second Trump administration, which launched like one of Elon Musk’s big rockets last week.
Space X’s second consecutive failed Starship 8 liftoff last week was symbolic of Donald Trump’s launch of his second term.
Lots of hype, lots of promises, and a big explosion followed by lots of excuses and a deep plunge. It’s a lesson Israel’s current leader should ignore at his own peril.
Remember those Day One promises – “I will immediately bring prices down” and “I’ll [end the Ukraine war] in 24 hours”?
The price of eggs has doubled since then, and inflation has reversed and is again rising, unlike co-president Musk’s taxpayer subsidized rockets, which took off from Texas and ran into trouble over the Gulf of Trump.
He totally undercut Ukraine’s negotiating position in talks being held this week in Saudi Arabia; Russia won’t be there, but Trump’s team can be expected to look out for Moscow’s interests and decide how much territory to give Russian President Vladimir Putin as a reward for launching this unprovoked war.
Trump is demanding access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources but refuses to offer any security guarantees in return.
NBC reports that even signing the deal won’t be enough to restart arms and intelligence sharing.
After his Oval Office mugging, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seems to have little choice but to go along.
Trump sees Zelensky standing in the way of restoring his personal relations with the Russian president. He has even defended Putin’s missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine as “what anybody else would do.”
Putin-Trump relations
Putin, however, could care less about Trump, said former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. He is just using Trump to take control of Ukraine, divide NATO, and weaken America – and he might just succeed, McFaul added.AMERICA’S DEMOCRATIC allies are watching Ukraine and wondering whether they’re next.
If Trump can cut off weapons and intelligence sharing during a war, insult their leaders, and embrace their enemy, how can he ever be trusted on anything, they’re asking?
None is more worried than Poland, which borders Ukraine and fears, with Kyiv out of the way, it will be Putin’s next target in rebuilding the Soviet-Russian empire.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said Poland may have to acquire nuclear weapons of its own if the Western alliance collapses. “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians. More bombs, more aggression, more victims,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must be prepared to go it alone in defending Ukraine and Europe because they can’t be sure where Putin will stop. “Russia has become, and will remain, a threat to France and Europe,” he said.
The lesson Europe and other democratic allies are getting is that they must rebuild their own alliances and defenses and nuclear umbrella because America, led by Trump and his minions, is unreliable – and potentially worse, as Ukraine has found.
Claude Malhuret, a center-right member of the French senate, said, “Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
“Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally, since he will not defend you,” Malhuret said, referring to the president’s frequent threats of “If they don’t pay, I won’t defend them.” When Trump talks of peace in Ukraine, the senator said, “peace is capitulation.”
Trump has consistently taken a transactional approach to foreign policy, one based on deals, not the national interest. In 1987, he took out full-page ads in leading newspapers saying the United States was wasting money protecting allies who “can afford to defend themselves.”
China’s Xi Jinping sees Trump succumbing to Putin, and he envisions clear sailing for invading Taiwan, Malhuret noted.
Will Trump have to learn a lesson the hard way?
TRUMP CANNOT be relied on to stand with friends or keep their secrets, a lesson Israel learned the hard way in 2017 when, in a White House meeting, the president shared highly sensitive Israeli secrets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which were then likely passed on to Iran. A Russian reporter was in the room, but American media had been barred.American intelligence officials reportedly warned their Israeli counterparts to be careful of what they shared with Trump, who often likes to brag about the secrets he knows, not just with foreign leaders but even with dinner guests he wants to impress.
There have been reports that the CIA and other intelligence officers began holding back some information in their daily presidential briefings during Trump’s first term because they weren’t sure how much he could be trusted.
They remember the 2018 Helsinki summit where Trump said he believed the Russian dictator more than the US intelligence community.
Many believe Putin may have some leverage over the American president, or it could just be a matter of Trump’s desire to impress him with how much he knows.
Especially worrisome is that Trump later went on X/Twitter to insist he has an “absolute right” to share information with whomever he wishes.
NBC reports that Washington’s partners in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia, may be more reluctant to share secrets and sources following the Ukraine sellout.
KATHERINE VINER, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, writes that Trump and Vice President JD Vance are “fracturing the Western alliance,” which leads to the realization that “the United States may no longer be considered an ally.”
She said Vance, in the wake of his aggressiveness in the Oval Office blowup with Zelensky and his embrace of extreme right-wing European parties, is “the chief saboteur of the transatlantic relationship.”
Vance, who has become a leading isolationist voice, has said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
The pre-World War II America First isolationists used to say the same thing – Europe is not our problem, and we have a big ocean to protect us.
Today, the 5,000 miles from Russia to North America is only 30 minutes away by intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio used to care a lot about Ukraine and keeping NATO strong. As a senator from Florida, he was a staunch supporter of both, but he apparently changed sides when he changed jobs.
Back in the Senate he called Putin a “war criminal” and “a gangster and a thug.” Now, he’s not so sure.
“Under Trump, we are no longer the leader of the free world,” McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, posted on X.
Trump thinks ending the Ukraine war will win him the Nobel Peace Prize, but it’s more likely he’ll get the Order of Lenin – the highest civilian award of the former USSR – columnist Simon Tisdale wrote in the Guardian.
Trump has a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office. He should swap it out for one of his role models, Neville Chamberlain, another man so anxious for “peace” that he made a deal with the devil.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and a former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
