President Trump thinks not only like an old-fashioned leader of a major superpower, dating back to the era of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, but also like a gangster. He tried to extort Ukraine by offering to sign contracts for the transfer of mineral rights worth $500 billion in exchange for aid, and also got angry when a sane Ukraine refused.
By Bill EMMOTT
Since the US presidential election in November, people have hoped every day that Donald Trump would prove himself as a statesman, more concrete and coherent than he appeared during the election campaign. During his inauguration ceremony on January 20, he used this, claiming to be “a peacemaker and a unifier”. Instead, every day since then, this hope has proven seriously empty. In fact, Trump has proven himself much worse than his campaign implied and has clearly emerged as a disruptor, not a unifier.
In the US he is preparing what can only be described as a coup. Abroad he is putting American alliances and values “in the wood chipper,” to borrow the words of his friend Elon Musk. This week has been (so far) more shocking, especially for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and for anyone who believed that under the Trump administration the United States would continue to stand for justice, democracy, and national sovereignty.
Indeed, it was no surprise to learn from the talks between the US and Russia that President Trump believes in a world made up of a limited number of great powers, rather than a world in which what matters are the old mechanisms of rules and alliances between countries with similar mentalities and political values. We have learned since his first term that Trump feels more comfortable talking to dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un than with the leaders of democratic countries. What comes as a complete surprise, however, is that he would have shown more sympathy and political alignment with the authoritarian Russian president – a man who killed his rivals and whose men kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children – than with President Zelensky, even before the start of the relevant peace talks.
The moment when the end was truly reached (for now) was when Trump accused Zelensky of being “an unelected dictator,” questioning his democratic legitimacy, and then exonerated the real dictator, Putin, who had initially invaded the country bordering Russia.
When he did so, at a press conference, Trump lied, of course, but lying is natural to him. He lied when he said that Zelensky’s approval rating in Ukraine is only 4 percent, while recent polls show it at almost 60 percent. He lied when he said that America has spent $350 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, when the figure is barely a third of that. Even more important than the lies, however, is when he said that for the Ukrainian government to be considered democratic and legitimate, Ukraine would have to hold elections. That is also a lie. In fact, worse: it is Russian propaganda.
The truth is that the Ukrainian parliament last year approved the postponement of the presidential elections that were supposed to be held in April 2024, because it is impossible to vote in times of war and when a country is under martial law.
The decision was democratically approved and supported by all parties that agreed to hold elections within six months of the end of martial law. Some readers may recall that on December 21 in these same pages I wrote that Zelensky might have to make a “final gesture of heroism” and declare that he would not run for re-election when presidential elections could be held. My statement drew criticism from some prominent Italian commentators, who feared that such a move would work in Putin’s favor. Perhaps, I did not explain myself clearly enough: what I proposed was that Zelensky announce his withdrawal at the end of the peace talks, a kind of gesture at their conclusion.
I have not advised that this should happen before negotiations begin, as Trump has. The US president’s attack on Zelensky now will probably increase Ukrainian support for the latter and will not make his retirement possible or desirable from a Ukrainian perspective.
Even the Russians were surprised by Trump’s words and did not hesitate to confirm it. Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, wrote on X that “if someone had told me, even just three months ago, that these words would be uttered by the president of the United States, I would have burst out laughing.” Three conclusions are inevitable.
The first is that European countries and all other allies must stand with Ukraine, not with vague plans, but immediately and decisively, so that they are stronger when peace talks begin. Ukraine is European, it is fighting for the security of Europe, and it must be defended and embraced by Europeans, now protected by American and Russian monsters. Since Germany will not have a new government for at least several months after Sunday’s elections, others will have to take this initiative, perhaps Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. No one expects Italy to step forward, although it would be a pleasant surprise if it did.
The second conclusion is that President Trump thinks not only like an old-fashioned leader of a major superpower, dating back to the era of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, but also like a gangster.
He tried to extort Ukraine by offering to sign contracts for the transfer of mineral rights worth $500 billion in exchange for aid, and was also furious when Ukraine, in its right mind, refused. Surely there is something that all medium-sized and small countries can learn from this episode when dealing with this American gangster. The third conclusion is that all international associations in which the United States has played a central role – such as the G7, NATO, and the expanded G20 – will now have to act and think like the G6, a NATO without the US, the G19.
This does not mean that they will have to push the United States away, but that non-American partners will have to talk to each other separately in order to be stronger in the face of American behavior.
Last week, the Trump administration refused to accept a draft G7 statement on the anniversary of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, because it included the phrase “Russian aggression.” Now the other six members (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, and Canada) absolutely must make their statements separately, as they have done in the past, and tell the truth. Otherwise, Russia will have even more good reasons to laugh, while we all cry.
