Individuals have hoped that Donald Trump’s election campaign would be more diplomatic, creative, and coherent than he did before the US presidential election in November. He claimed to be” a negotiator and a symbol” at his opening on January 20 and played to this at the time.
But every day since then has demonstrated how really this hope is being misled.
In reality, he has shown himself to be even worse than his plan had indicated and to be, evidently, a gate, not a symbol. He is putting together what can only be described as a coupd’etat at apartment. Worldwide, he is putting National alliances and ideals” through the wood shredder” – to use his stooge Elon Musk’s words.
For those who thought that under Trump, the United States may continue to support democracy, national independence, and was the most startling week so far, particularly for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
President Trump believed in a universe organized by a small number of great power, as was not really surprising to learn from his US-Russia discussions, which used older tools of laws, partnerships of like-minded countries, and social values.
We already knew from his first term in office that talking with tyrants like Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping was more comfortable for him.
But what we didn’t anticipate from him was that he would have shown more love and plan ties to President Zelensky, a person who has had his supporters killed and whose causes have kidnapped tens of thousands of Russian children, than to President Zelensky, even before any genuine peace talks have even begun.
And the lowest moment of all ( so far ) was when he accused Zelensky of being” a dictator without elections”, questioning his democratic legitimacy, and excused the real dictator, Putin, for having invaded Russia’s neighbor in the first place.
When he did so, at a news conference, he told rests, of course, but that is standard for him.
He made up the fabricated claim that Zelenskyy’s support standing in Ukraine is just 4 %, despite recent surveys showing it to be close to 60 %.
And he falsely claimed that since the Russian conquest, America has provided US$ 350 billion in military and financial assistance to Ukraine, despite the truth being that only about a third of that is actually spent.
However, he made the claim that Ukraine needed to hold primaries if its government wanted to be seen as political and genuine, something that is more important than the lies.
This, too, is a rest, but – yet worse – it is a bit of Russian propaganda. The truth is that the Ukrainian Parliament last year voted to prolong presidential elections that were scheduled for April 2024 because it is impossible to hold primaries during a conflict and when the nation is in martial law.
All political events were in favor of the decision, which was political. They agreed that votes may be held within the first six months of fighting law’s finish.
Some users may recall that I wrote on December 21 that Zelenskyy might need to create a “final noble work” by declaring that he would not run for president again when a final election is held. This drew condemnation from some prominent European critics, who feared that this was playing into Putin’s arms.
I was suggesting that Zelenskyy make his retirement announcement at the conclusion of the peace talks as a last act to take them to a close, which is quite probably why I didn’t explain this argument in a clear way. I didn’t suggest that this should be made public before the agreements also started, as Trump has done.
Trump’s criticism of Zelenskyy’s legitimacy makes his defection neither feasible nor desirable from the perspective of Ukraine, and it is now possible to garner more Russian support for him.
Yet the Russians are surprised by what Trump has said, and they don’t shy away from revealing it. Dimitry Medvedev, a former leader who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on X that” If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US senator, I would have laughed out loud”.
Three opinions are obvious. The first is that allies in Europe and other countries must unite around Ukraine’s aspect, not with vague ideas but quickly and decisively, so that it can be strengthened when peace talks begin.
Ukraine is German, is fighting for Europe’s surveillance and must be protected and embraced by Germans, to defend it now from the American and Russian demons.
As Germany will not have a new state for several weeks after Sunday’s votes, the program for this will have to be taken by some, likely Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer. No one is anticipating Italy to advance, but it would be a nice wonder if it did.
The second assumption is that President Trump thinks no just like an conventional great-power head, from the age of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, but even like a gang. He allegedly extorted Ukraine by suggesting that it should surrender material right worth US$ 500 billion in exchange for its previous support, before becoming irritated when Ukraine, on a valid basis, refused.
This lesson should be applied to all small and medium-sized nations dealing with this British gang.
Thirdly, the international organizations in which the United States has a significant role, such as the G7, NATO, and the G20, had presently act and think like the G6, a non-US NATO, and the G19.
This does not think they may push the United States out, but it does imply that the non-American people need to have individual conversations so they can be more effective in their own actions.
This past year, the Trump administration refused to accept a document G7 statement on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, because it included the word” Russian anger”.
What the other six people ( France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan and Canada ) need to do now is to throw out their own individual speech, as in earlier times, telling the truth. Then, Russia will have even more reason for laughing, and the rest of us for grief.
Originally editor-in-chief of The Economist, Bill Emmott is now president of the , Japan Society of the UK, the , International Institute for Strategic Studies , and the , International Trade Institute.
Actually published on his substack, Bill Emmott’s Global View, this is the English classic of an article published on February 22 in European by La Stampa. It is republished these with kind authority.