There are words and moments that define a man and perhaps his policies. US President Donald Trump's remarks on Ukraine on February 18 and 19 fall into this category. They reveal, or rather confirm, a personality susceptible to blackmail, intimidation and 180-degree reversals. They are words that could well mark the end of an era and of a strategic whole, the transatlantic family.
The head of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement was speaking shortly before the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. What does he think of his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky? "A dictator." OK, what else? "A modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start," Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. Adding a touch of blackmail: "Zelensky better hurry up, otherwise there will be no country left," he said on February 19.
Let's leave aside the lies and fibs that are the hallmark of the 47th US president. Let's avoid moralizing, which can be a useless tactic when it comes to assessing relations between states. But we would be looking in vain for a modicum of decency in this affair.
Trump is, on the one hand, a man who escaped conscription during the Vietnam War because of a foot deformity (it seems fine today). Born rich, Trump has the tanned complexion of a healthy man. He's always between rounds of golf in Florida, where he spends a quarter of his time, his evenings lulled by the gentle Atlantic chop. On the other hand, pale, with drawn features, indefatigable, heroic, Zelensky presides over the destiny of a country at war for three years, bombed every night by Russia. He doesn't have time to play golf.
A fractured Alliance
As always, Trump must be taken seriously. In diplomacy, style counts; it's already a message. Trump's rhetoric melds with Putin's. In less than two weeks, concessions to Moscow have piled up. Even if they had already been in the pipeline since Joe Biden's administration: No Ukraine in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); no NATO forces to monitor a possible ceasefire; necessary territorial concessions from Kyiv. But there's more. Even before peace in Ukraine, Trump is preparing to normalize relations with Putin. He's sticking to the Kremlin's disinformation. At the United Nations and the G7, the US refuses to say that Russia was the aggressor!
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