Friday’s meeting between President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disgraced the Oval Office, and not because of the foreign leader. Trump’s shocking berating of Zelenskyy was a huge victory for Vladimir Putin and a defeat for liberty.
Over several contentious minutes, Vance and Trump berated Zelenskyy, telling the Ukrainian leader that the U.S. had nothing to fear from Russia, disparaging him for ostensibly campaigning with “the opposition” — apparently upset that Zelenskyy had dared to have close ties to the previous administration — and demanding that the wartime president thank them more effusively all the support Kyiv had received from the U.S. government.
How fragile of an ego Trump must have to sit at the Resolute desk and demand that the Ukrainian leader, who has been a beacon of hope and resistance to a beleaguered population under invasion from the world’s most aggressive imperialist, heap praise for the cameras. As Zelenskyy repeatedly pointed out, he has often and loudly thanked the American public and government for their support, including the immense military provisions that have kept the Ukrainian war effort going.
Actually, Trump and Vance and all Americans should say thank you to Zelenskyy and Ukrainians for holding off Putin’s invading legions for three years at a huge cost of fallen Ukrainians. American arms and money have supported the heroic defense and should continue until the war ends with Russia’s full withdrawal.
In the midst of the verbal melee, Trump said it was “a very hard thing to do business like this,” because in his mind, this is all the same as if he were negotiating a commercial lease in Midtown, where he has to be the tough guy negotiator or the deal’s off. After Zelenskyy wouldn’t genuflect, Trump got toadies Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz to ask the Ukrainian to leave.
Trump and his administration have made it abundantly clear that after years of grueling war and the broader threat to world stability, they are happy to ice out Ukraine and putative European allies and let Putin substantively win, keeping swaths of Ukrainian territory that he is very unlikely to ultimately be satisfied with.
Even the deal that was on the table for this White House visit was hardly about strategic maneuvering around the adversary of Putin’s Russia and more about outright extortion, with Trump dangling continued assistance while demanding access to Ukraine’s substantial rare earth minerals.
Now that deal might be dead, and with it the last dregs of strong U.S.-Ukraine cooperation to face off against an aggressive Russia, with the U.S. president parroting Putin talking points in the Oval Office. Is it because Trump is captured by Putin somehow, is an admirer of the strongman’s approach, wants to bring Ukraine and Europe to heel as opposed to seeing them as global partners or simply is too dense and short-sighted to understand any of this?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The result is the same, as are the remedies: Europe is going to have to stick it alone, and fast, with powers like Germany, France and the U.K. especially doing more to build up their defense infrastructure and creating pressure for a peace that preserves Ukraine’s territorial integrity and dissuades Russia. In less than six weeks, Trump has reorganized the post-WWII global order to sap the U.S. of much of its global influence.