Trump's Zelenskyy ambush shows the end of our alliance
Trump invited Zelenskyy into a meeting to sign a bad deal and then aggressively tried to humiliate Ukraine's President. Now, Europe must take note of the end of our alliance and learn to fight alone.
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Last night saw a diplomatic horror show that, somehow, we didn’t expect even of President Donald Trump and his merry far-right circus.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, was invited by Donald Trump to the White House for a meeting where he was expected to sign a multi-billion dollars critical raw materials deal with the United States.
Forming a part of Donald Trumps “plan” to bring an end to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, much of this was intended to recover some of the billions of dollars spent on military, financial and humanitarian aid that the American far-right claim was unjustly sent to Ukraine.
Which is ridiculous, when you consider that a significant chunk of the $115 billion of funding “to” Ukraine was actually spent in the United States and producing tax-paying jobs in the United States.
Bref.
Things went pear shaped rapidly, when Zelenskyy arrived at the White House and was immediately mocked by President Trump, who received him with an “Oh look, he’s all dressed up today!” which was an appetiser for the undiplomatic, shameful, and embarrassing behaviour that shocked the world.
The ambush
Firstly, if you have access and want to see the disgusting interaction yourself, Foreign Policy Magazine produced a transcript here.
Zelenskyy found himself in the middle of a circus act where Donald Trump comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington was one of the high points of the meeting.
Throughout this orchestrated ambush, the Ukrainian President found himself surrounded by Donald Trump’s fawning supporters as Donald Trump worked to humiliate and extract submission from Zelenskyy.
A journalist from the far-right channel One America News asked President Trump where he had found the "moral courage" to renew dialogue with Vladimir Putin. "Very good question," responded the American, to the bafflement of many listening.
Fighting against the room, Zelenskyy highlighted that “a ceasefire will not work”, with the repeated violations of ceasefires by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the simple fact that he does not respect them. “That's why we will never accept a ceasefire. It will not move without security guarantees.”
And he’s right. The current invasion is widely attributed to the fact that Vladimir Putin did not receive enough pushback after the invasion of Crimea or his repeated attacks on Ukraine in Donetsk and Luhansk.
However, that didn’t stop Donald Trump from going off on one of his typically delirious tirades:
“I've stopped a lot of wars, and people will tell you that I stopped wars that no one has heard of. I stopped wars before they started.”
The meeting continued to spiral out of control, with Vice-President and hillbilly in Chief, JD Vance choosing to attack Zelenskyy for attacking the White House in another bizarre attempt to publicly undermine the Ukrainian cause:
“Do you think that is respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”
And of course, whenever Zelenskyy pushed back, tried to answer the questions, and telling JD Vance that he should visit Ukraine at least once to see what the reality on the ground was, he was systematically interrupted by JD Vance and Donald Trump, who angrily shouted him down, or telling him off for “attempting to litigate this in front of the American Media”.
Of course, these cowards had to take advantage of a man whose first language is clearly not English, and who cannot just rapidly vomit words.
We even saw a bizarre scene where the Hillbilly in Chief demanded to know whether Zelenskyy had “said thank you once?” for the support given to Ukraine by the US.
To which the answer, if you have even rudimentary reading skills, is yes:
There was even a CNN fact check on this topic which found that Zelenskyy thanked American at least 33 times since the beginning of the Russian invasion, in a non-exhaustive list.
One of the worst things about this entire circus, however, wasn’t the bizarre attempts to subjugate a sovereign leader of a sovereign state, who you have repeatedly insulted and called a dictator.
It was the bizarre attempt to paint Zelenskyy as “disrespectful” because he does not wear a suit, similar to other wartime leaders in history, because his country is at war, and he doesn’t want to put himself above the others around him.
Yet, he found himself tackled by Brian Glenn from ‘Real America’s Voice”, who happens to be Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend, who demanded to know why he doesn’t wear a suit.
I’ll let the video speak for itself, and highlight that nobody has ever made the same comment about this child who continues to run around the White House playing President:
Now, leaving aside the fact that nothing would have changed in their treatment of Zelenskyy even if he was wearing a suit or the fact that Donald Trump would not be less friendly towards Vladimir Putin if Putin turned up shirtless sitting on his horse in the Oval Office, the whole charade was clearly orchestrated to try to cow the Ukrainian president.
You can see this from all the pro-Trump, pro-Putin actors across social media who repeated the same talking points, the same attitudes, and the same weak view of the world.
Immediately after the meeting, Donald Trump accused Zelenskyy of saying “all negative things” Putin, demanding that he say he “wants to make peace, [he doesn’t] want to fight a war any longer”, alluding to the fact that he told Zelenskyy to leave the White House, and threatening to abandon Ukraine.
“Either we're going to end it or let him fight it out. If he fights it out, it's not going to be pretty because without us he doesn't win."
Having spent the meeting scolding Zelenskyy like a child, playing up a comical view of American influence over the world, and appearing to forget that the US is fast running out of allies and actively harming its trade relations, they continued the charade after.
Senator Lindsey Graham came out and said that the meeting was a “complete utter disaster” and that “What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful...I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again...He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with or he needs to change.”
Senator Ted Cruz, whose father Donald Trump famously accused of helping John F Kennedy’s assassin, likewise prostrated himself to the Trump messaging cycle with this clearly serious statement.
America the betrayer, Europe alone.
Throughout this whole shambolic mess, where grown men behaved like little boys, being egged on by beggars looking for attention and favours, all ignoring the carnage breaking out in a world catching fire, I find myself thinking of this quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt as he announced the Lend Lease act on 11 March 1941:
“Suppose my neighbour’’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that operation, “Neighbour, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it.” What is the transaction that goes on? I don’t want $15—I want my garden hose back after the fire is over.”
Donald Trump, JD Vance, and every person who constantly attempts to bully the Ukrainians who are living through hell, and any other ally in any way, have made a clear and very public decision:
They are no longer our allies. At best, they’re a competitor; at worst, they’re our enemies.
As we’ve seen repeatedly stated since the Zelenskyy ambush, there is only one aggressor, and there is only one victim when it comes to the ongoing war in Ukraine. It’s very clear that Ukraine is the one suffering at the hands of an imperialist, genocidal power.
There is a vast geopolitical shift occurring that will mean this year lives in history: America is no longer our ally.
Europe stands alone and now must find a way to separate itself from the sociopathic bullies across the ocean who just humiliated a leader whose men, women, and children are being murdered, raped, and kidnapped by Russia.
Trump and Vance know that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want any serious truce backed by any meaningful security guarantees, and they set this up to blame Zelenskyy and the Europeans for any failure of a deal. This is abundantly transparent.
And now, European leaders will begin to understand that we cannot sit on the fence here. We now must confront Russian aggression alone while the United States while some hillbillies dance in the White House.
Our only goal as Europeans must now be to completely revamp our way of working, separate our military and industrial capacity from the Americans as much as we can, develop the manufacturing and societal models we need to survive in a burning world, and achieve strategic autonomy.
And we can do this. You just have to look at the support we have given to Ukraine to see that we’ve given more than the Americans, despite our strict financial structures and straightjacketed economic model.
We can do this; we just need to look at what we are and what we’re trying to do.
Whether we need to federalise, form a multi-speed Europe, revise who is a member of the European Union, and reform our structures and treaties, is what will form the basis for our discussions in future.
For one, we need to stop letting perfection be the enemy of good. We need to start taking the baby steps, and we can all make an effort, as shown by this excellent chart by buy-european-made.eu
But on top of this, we need to be more devious, cunning, and aggressive in reaching our goals.
First, there’s a simple geopolitical fact: we must deal with the American far-right in the short term, regardless of what is happening. So, our leaders will have to act to deceive them into helping us reach our goals regardless of what we honestly think of them or what they genuinely think of us.
They need to continue flattering Trump and his circus and convince him of his greatness, intellect, and power over the world, and Zelenskyy will play a big part in this.
This must, of course, be combined with an aggressive effort to divest from the American economy, however possible, by investing aggressively into competitors who must be enabled to challenge the American companies currently holding a firm grip over global markets.
Simultaneously, our European leaders must aggressively invest into buying European military and technological equipment and aggressively move away from using American weaponry and vehicles. The Trump administration has made it clear that they will pull the rug out from under anyone, and we cannot allow this to happen.
Finally, we must take our destiny into our hands and make the European Project the geopolitical titan we know it can be.
It’s unacceptable that 500 million Europeans have left themselves exposed and dependent on 340 million Americans to protect them from 140 million Russians, who have been unable to win against 40 million Ukrainians in a three-day war that has lasted for three years.
It is unacceptable that we have left ourselves exposed to the whims of a hillbilly who failed his way to the vice presidency, and a multi-bankruptcy charlatan who has been found liable for sexually abusing women, and who has taken advantage of the poor education of the average American and flounced his way into the white house.
And it is categorically unacceptable that we Europeans sit here with foolish looks on our faces, cowering in the face of dictatorships and authoritarians when we have overcome such danger and tragedy throughout our history.
No more. It’s time for change.
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Excellent summation of yesterday's debacle and analysis of future implications. As an American with French citizenship, I stand with Ukraine and Europe and lament the pathetic state of the current US administration.
Thank you for your eyes wide open assessment of what is happening in my country. I am ashamed to admit I am an American these days.