Trump's Capitulation on Ukraine
Trump's Peace Plan Bears Nothing But Repeated Concessions to Putin
Callous, riddled with falsehoods, and incredibly dangerous—those are the words that best summarize President Donald Trump's plan to bring an end to the Ukraine war and his latest comments to reporters from his "winter White House" residence, Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump laid the blame on Ukraine for the war with Russia, their refusal to hold elections during wartime, and reiterated his disappointment at Ukraine's protest of not being invited to the peace talks, which commenced at the onset of this week between the United States and Russia.
In their haste to resolve the conflict, the Trump administration seems to have conceded almost everything to Russia—cessation of the Donbass region and Crimea (which always seemed likely), a withdrawal of American troops from Eastern European bases, sanctions relief, and no NATO membership for Ukraine—all of this without Vladimir Putin forfeiting anything. These have been Russia's demands from the beginning. The Russians claim, as always, that "NATO expansionism" is the all-powerful threat and that the Western Alliance exists as some belligerent force dead set on inflicting its wrath on Mother Russia. Reality paints a different picture; Ukraine joining NATO, and the alliance itself, does not threaten Russia's peace but rather Russia's ability to wage war.
The amateur nature of the negotiations, if they can even be called that, are hardly characteristic of the great negotiator who is purportedly the master of the "Art of the Deal." Mr. Trump is pushing towards ending the war so that he may boast the grandiloquence of his success in doing so vis-à-vis Joe Biden. Such is his desire that he will give up everything to achieve that aim—something Mr. Putin knows all too well and has factored in. It is a reasonable assumption that a former agent of the feared KGB would know how to prey upon personalities ripe with deficiencies.
Most distressing is the weakness in the face of Mr. Putin himself; Mr. Trump can't bring himself to denounce the bellicose despot who has sanctioned the indiscriminate bombardment of hospitals, energy grids, torture, civilian massacres, rape, and the execution of prisoners of war. Rather, he chooses to blame Mr. Zelensky for the allegedly heinous crime of defending one's way of life, the right of an ethnic people to safety and self-determination in their homeland in the face of odious Russian subjugation.
Vladimir Putin has not won, and Russia has not held a free and fair election since 2000—yet recently, Mr. Trump and Russia, who seek to insert a candidate sympathetic to the Kremlin, have fixated repeatedly on how President Zelensky hasn't held an election, even though Ukraine's constitution prohibits elections during martial law. The double standard is ridiculous.
Writing for the New York Post, Noah Rothman lamented the sickening desire of Mr. Trump to "squeeze the war-crippled country for all we can, simply because we can"—not only does Mr. Trump intend for Ukraine to capitulate in all but name, but he intends to exert a mafia boss-style shakedown for half of Ukraine's national wealth in the form of their rare earth minerals, in exchange for no security guarantees, which is a damning proposal. Perhaps Zelensky could leverage these materials in exchange for ascension to NATO, but it seems the Trump administration has ruled out that possibility from the start.
It is encouraging that Mr. Zelensky has indicated that any agreement between the United States without Ukraine's input will not be viewed as legitimate. Mr. Trump can dangle the threat of American aid, and indeed, the Ukrainians do rely heavily on the support of the United States—but Europe has been pulling its weight equally. If anything, Mr. Trump suspending aid would simply remove whatever leverage he holds over Mr. Zelensky, thus allowing the Ukrainians to seek more favorable peace terms independently.
European nations, notably the British, French, and Germans, seem willing to assume the burden of aiding Ukraine, based on recent talks in Paris, should the Trump administration pull aid for Ukraine, and of enforcing a peace agreement—though these states face a crisis of military readiness they must solve before enforcing any deterrence.
No one can deny the imperative of bringing about a lasting peace and ending this destructive conflict, but it is outrageous to blame Ukraine for being invaded, attempt to trivialize the atrocities committed by Russia, and to force Ukraine into a surrender agreement it neither desires nor can afford to bear. Ensuring Ukraine has as much leverage as possible and in no way legitimizes Russia's criminal behavior is paramount, and under those conditions, the Trump administration's peace talks have been a laughable failure that will eradicate whatever goodwill the United States still holds around the world and shatter the Pax Americana world order, perhaps irreparably.
Mr. Putin is not Hitler, this is not Munich, but the proposed surrender of Ukrainian lands to Putin without the Ukrainians having any say bears a frightening degree of similarity to the French and British surrender of the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler and Germany—this Munich Agreement was also reached without the consent and presence of the Czechoslovakian government. Perhaps Mr. Trump will cement himself as a redux of Neville Chamberlain, rather than the start of something new; a man so consumed by a desire for peace, with anything else being unacceptable, he naively plunged Europe, and the World, into its most destructive war and its darkest hour. Hardly the “peace for our time” that was promised.