Trump Shows His Hand as a Putin Partner
Beware of "peace" proposals from autocrats
“If you have a smart president, they’re not enemies. You’ll make them do great,” Donald Trump said of Russia, China, and North Korea at a campaign rally in Virginia in June 2024. Wednesday’s Oval Office performance, where the United States president criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not accepting a “peace” proposal that would make Russian control over Ukraine far more likely, is the latest demonstration that making Russia “do great” is now a central plank of American foreign policy.
In what world does keeping Ukraine out of NATO indefinitely, and forcing Ukraine to recognize Crimea –Ukrainian territory Russia invaded in 2014—as Russian, qualify as peace? That would be the autocratic world, where “peace” has nothing to do with justice or the cessation of violence. In fact, agreeing to “peace proposals” advanced by autocrats almost always sets up the other party to experience more aggression.
In diplomacy, style matters, and the shakedown methods deployed in “peace” negotiations are another indication of the bad faith that permeates the whole Trumpian enterprise. The world got a taste of the decidedly non-peaceful style of United States “diplomacy” in February 2025, when Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance were berating Zelensky: submit to Putin’s demands or we take half of your rare earth minerals.
This was a show put on for an Audience of One in the Kremlin. It was telling that Bill Emmott, a former editor of The Economist who is not given to hyperbole, compared Trump’s behavior towards Zelensky to that of a “gangster boss.”
This time, in another Oval Office performance on April 23, Trump complained that Zelensky was hard to deal with, as in hard to make a deal with, because Zelensky strangely refused to accept a “peace” plan cooked up by the United States to please Putin by forcing Ukraine to surrender its territory and then have no security guarantees or protection.
Two elements of the autocratic worldview come into play here. First, sheer arrogance. Autocrats truly believe that they have the right to bomb, annihilate, plunder and destroy territories that “should” be theirs due to their natural or population resources, common heritage (the “reunification” scam), geopolitical importance, or other attractions.
Scorning all humanitarian and democratic notions of international law and codes of military conduct —it’s no surprise that Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Rodrigo Duterte, and other strongmen face charges from the International Criminal Court —autocrats reserve the right to take what they want and become enraged when their prey does not submit. We saw a version of that rage on Trump’s face in the Feb. Oval Office encounter.
Autocrats want to make the world safe for them to plunder, kill, and steal, and the Trump administration is now the accomplice of such criminal activity. States that are crumbling under the weight of corruption and mismanagement desperately need a hand. Where would Russia be without China, which props up its economy, and even North Korea, which sends soldiers to fight its war? Now Putin has scored big with Trump in power.
Second, it is time that Americans understood that for Trump, democracies, not autocracies, are always the problem in world affairs, and must always be blamed for non-cooperation with the wonderful “peace proposals” autocracies advance.
Trump long ago internalized a view of geopolitics that sees democracies, American democracy included, as hostile actors who deny the rights of autocracies to expand their influence in the world. When Trump suggests that former President Joe Biden’s support of Ukraine’s bid to join NATO provoked Russia’s invasion –“he had to go in,” Trump said, speaking of Putin--he frames the Kremlin’s aggression as a legitimate response to democratic meddling. In this view, it is Russia’s right to possess Ukraine, on the grounds of national self-interest. Surely Zelensky can understand that!
“Whatever forms Russia-U.S. collaboration will take,” I wrote on March 1, “more Americans will come to understand that the man they elected to ‘save the country’ is far more interested in solving Putin’s problems than in governing America.” Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine will continue to make this shameful priority clear.
The most recent polls show that most Americans still support Ukraine and deem Putin as evil, all-the-while Trump’s pixie-dust has blurred the vision and changed the minds of people like Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham who were once staunch supporters of Ukraine. I’ve been protesting at many rallies in DC, but when it comes to foreign policy, it really seems like Trump and his acolytes are holding all the cards. Can our protests make a difference in foreign policy? Zelensky is a world hero as far as I’m concerned, - and the question seems to be whether or not Zelensky can recruit enough support from Europe and other countries to win this war WITHOUT U.S. support? He SHOULD be admitted to NATO but with Trump in office, that will most likely not happen now.
So, Mr. Art of the Deal is a lousy negotiator, what a surprise.
It’s all of a piece, really. Selling Ukraine and the US down the river to suck up to his boss, Vladimir.
Why else would our Manchurian Candidate president come into office and methodically dismember the entire US government, its soft and power, and those parts of civil society that give America its world stature. Even or especially those parts that advance the wellbeing of the citizens he claims to represent.
His actions do not benefit the country he supposedly represents. But it all makes sense when you realize Trump is working for Putin who wants to bring America to its knees.
Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine only makes obvious what is already apparent.
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