We should have seen it coming.
The now-predictable approach of President Donald Trump to international diplomacy begins with a full-throated series of bombastic declarations and diversions, targeted character assassinations and the rewriting of history, as necessary to support a particular objective.
Throw in a past social slight, negative comment about Trump or rejection of a Trump offer by the target and mix it with something like the Trump-Putin strongman bromance, and you have all the ingredients for last week’s attack by Trump on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a threatened redirection of U.S. support in the Ukrainian war.
Trump has repeatedly declared that the Ukrainian war and related military atrocities initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the past three years would never have happened if Trump were president when the attack began. And he has pledged to end the war. He wants to meet with Putin to do that deal and started the process with meetings last week in Saudi Arabia between senior U.S. and Russian personnel.
Trump also wants to enter into a deal with Ukraine relating to the country’s massive reserves of rare earth minerals needed for production of modern electronics, batteries and similar items. The Ukrainian mineral stockpile reserves are estimated to be worth
up to $11.5 trillion. Trump wants the U.S. to receive a 50% ownership in those rare earth minerals in exchange for U.S. investment in Ukraine.
Zelensky angered Trump by rejecting his initial offer for the deal. That prompted Trump to attack Zelensky as “a Dictator without Elections” and to issue a warning that “Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.” Trump also referred to Zelensky as “a modestly successful comedian” and claimed that Zelensky “talked the U.S.” into spending billions of dollars in order to “go into a War that couldn’t be won.”
And he closed by claiming to be “successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia.”
After Zelensky complained that Trump was working with Russia behind his back, Trump responded by suggesting that Ukraine started the war and that Zelensky is deeply unpopular with his own people. And Trump defended excluding Ukraine from the meeting in Saudi Arabia with the dismissive assertion that “they had a seat at the table for three years … they could have made a deal long ago.”
Trump’s revisionist history about the origins of the Ukraine war worries Ukrainians and NATO partners, as well as a large segment of the U.S. that is supportive of Ukraine and Zelensky.
Zelensky’s advisors are reportedly telling him to accept the latest version of the Trump offer for partnership in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals to appease Trump and disincentivize him from efforts to punish Ukraine and Zelensky for their refusal to take his deal.
Zelensky’s window of opportunity to cut a deal and staunch the hemorrhaging of Trump’s support is closing as Putin’s visit to meet with Trump approaches. Even if Zelensky accepts Trump’s minerals deal, that is no guarantee that Trump will champion Ukraine’s cause in peace discussions or even invite Zelensky to the negotiation table.
No matter how this plays out, the damage of Trump’s bombast has been done. And his revisionist history has emboldened Putin and frightened our allies. ■
All of Trump’s bombast is designed to end this unwinnable war. He’s negotiating not writing history. The alternative is years more of death and destruction.