WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
Choose language:
SOURCE: Guardian- AUTHOR: M.J. GDNUS
This administration has put authoritarian ambitions above all else – and now the people of Ukraine are paying the price.
If you want to see the true face of Donald Trump, look no further than Ukraine. It is in his handling of this issue that not only all his weaknesses are laid bare, but also the danger he poses to his own country and to the world – not to mention the suffering people of Ukraine.
Don’t be fooled by the mild and slightly theatrical warning Trump issued to Vladimir Putin on Thursday, after Moscow launched deadly drone strikes on Kiev, killing 12 people and wounding dozens more: “Vladimir, STOP!” Instead, consider the fact that in the nearly 100 days since Trump took office, America has effectively switched sides in the conflict between Putin’s Russia and democratic Ukraine, supporting the invader against those under attack.
On Friday, Trump’s real estate cronies and special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, held talks in Moscow with Putin. But any resemblance between the US and an honest broker is pure coincidence. On the contrary, previous meetings between the two have resulted in Witkoff echoing the Kremlin’s views, effectively endorsing Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory. In doing so, he has merely followed his boss’s lead: the so-called peace deal that Trump is now rushing to broker essentially means giving Putin almost everything he wants while asking Ukraine to capitulate.
So it’s no surprise that Trump was furious on Wednesday, when he accused Volodymyr Zelensky of “inflammatory statements.” And what did the Ukrainian president say that made him so angry? He calmly explained that he could not comply with Trump’s demand and recognize Russian rule over Crimea, because the Ukrainian constitution forbids him from doing so. It is significant that Trump is showing such anger toward a president who believes that constitutions must be respected.
Whether or not Trump can force Kiev to give in, the new reality is already clear. The American president is taking an axe to the international order built after a bloody world war—a system that, however imperfect, has endured since 1945. One of his founding principles was that great powers cannot simply swallow smaller ones, that unprovoked aggression and conquest cannot be tolerated. And now we have Trump, determined to reward just such an act of acquisitive aggression—not only condoning Putin’s seizure of Ukrainian territory, but legitimizing that seizure with the support of the most powerful country in the world.
Just look at the way he speaks, as if Putin has every right to seize territory from his neighbor. Asked this week what concessions, if any, he has wrung from Moscow, Trump replied that Putin’s willingness to stop the war rather than swallow up all of Ukraine is “a pretty big concession.”
This is not just a disaster for Ukraine, although that is obvious. This is also the destruction of a world order that has endured for decades—and it is not an isolated incident. Trump’s obsession with tariffs is also undermining the international trading system that has made the world, and the United States in particular, more prosperous. The consequences are already visible—in the collapse of global stock markets, gloomy forecasts for economic growth, and warnings of a recession that will start in America and then spread to the rest of the world.
Trump’s willingness to accept Putin’s takeover of Ukraine is turning international law—with all its prohibitions on aggression—into a dead letter, and that is indicative of a broader pattern of behavior. For Trump is at war with the law, both at home and abroad. In fact, in just three months, it has become an open question whether the rule of law in the United States even exists.
The danger is most clearly seen in Trump’s willingness to defy the decisions of American courts. Judges have issued a series of rulings—trying, for example, to halt or reverse the deportation of migrants without due process—only to be ignored or personally insulted by the president. In the latest episode of the Politics Weekly America podcast, I spoke with Liz Oyer, a former Justice Department official who was fired last month for refusing to restore the gun rights of actor and Trump friend Mel Gibson. Gibson lost those rights when he was convicted of domestic violence in 2011. Oyer, a serious and nonpartisan former civil servant, told me about her fears that the Trump administration would continue to ignore court decisions. “We’re going to have a real crisis. They’re testing the limits,” she said. Part of Trump’s assault on the law has come through a series of executive orders, which have directly targeted certain law firms that have previously represented his opponents. He gave them a choice: either they would be barred from all cases involving the federal government, or they would provide Trump and his administration with free legal services worth of tens of millions of dollars. So many companies have caved in that Trump now has access to about a billion dollars worth of legal support. Trump brags about it, but there is a proper word for what he did: blackmail.
Blackmail is Trump’s favorite weapon, and he demonstrated it in Ukraine. Let’s not forget the “deal” he wanted to make with Zelensky: a degree of American protection in exchange for half the revenue from Ukraine’s natural resources, ports, and infrastructure. This is not the behavior of an ally, but of a gangster.
Everything Trump has done and is doing, he is doing now in Ukraine. Recall his bombastic promise that the war would end “within 24 hours” of his return to the White House. Such overblown promises have accompanied him throughout his career in real estate—and they have been equally unreliable. The same goes for his campaign promise to end inflation “on day one,” while his tariff policy has only further increased prices.
Now he is threatening to abandon Ukraine altogether, eager to strike a deal before his 100th day in office on Tuesday. It’s also typical: Trump’s grand plans often fail because, without a quick reward, he quickly loses interest. Witkoff, who previously worked to broker a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, has now abandoned that topic and moved on to other things. Above all, Trump’s willingness to capitulate to Putin on Ukraine reminds us not only of his authoritarian ambitions—he likes Putin because he wants to be like him—but also of how bad a negotiator Trump is, despite his image as a “master negotiator.” He launched a tariff war with China, thinking he could crush America’s great economic rival. Instead, America’s biggest retailers are now warning that their shelves could soon be empty from the chaos Trump’s tariffs are wreaking on global supply chains. The movement of containers across the Pacific from China has already fallen by up to 60%, meaning Americans will not be able to get the goods they are used to. Those shortages will fuel voter anger directed against Trump. To prevent that, he desperately needs a deal with China. And he comes to the negotiating table weak, facing an opponent he himself has empowered. So much for the master negotiator.
There is no mystery about Trump. Everything is clear before our eyes – the habits of a vandal, an autocrat, a gangster and a fool – and Ukraine shows it like the palm of your hand. Unfortunately, that is no consolation for the people of that suffering country. They do not want to be an example, a warning about Trump’s incompetence and the threat he poses. They want to be a free, independent country. Their great misfortune is that a powerful country that should be their strongest ally is now in the hands of an enemy.
Written by Jonathan Friedland, a columnist for the Guardian and host of the podcast “Politics Weekly America”
