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Donald Trump’s admirers like to trumpet his unpredictability as his diplomatic superpower. Keeping your enemies and allies on their toes can indeed work to your advantage. In his first year back on the world stage the US president has clearly enjoyed playing up the impression of a whimsical approach to the world to keep his aides, too, guessing about his thinking. But this was the week when any ambiguity surely disappeared. The true cynical, money-grabbing and self-interested nature of his world view was laid bare.
First came the White House reception for the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman: a glorification of deals worth up to $1tn accompanied grotesquely by Trump’s implicit ridiculing of concerns about the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents. Realpolitik if not cynicism has of course usually won the day over idealism in US foreign policy. But there is a huge difference between an implicit and understood sometime hypocrisy, and an outright trampling over the core democratic and ethical principles that the US, in better days, has enshrined.
When asked by a journalist about Khashoggi’s murder, Trump replied “things happen”. Anyone with a shred of conscience on his staff should be appalled by such callous public disregard for the values the US has long liked to promote. The clear message to autocracies and fragile democracies alike seemed to be that they can disregard America’s history of promoting justice and liberty; all that matters is money.
Then came the revelation of the latest US peace proposal for Ukraine. In recent weeks European officials had cautiously started to believe Trump was coming around to their view that the only way to end the war was by intensifying pressure on Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin. US sanctions on Russia’s oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil, and the selling of American arms, financed by European states, to Ukraine reinforced this sense that Trump had finally lost patience with Putin and his refusal to compromise in his bid to dominate Ukraine.
The Trump administration’s 28-point plan lays bare that such thinking was hopelessly naive. Its authors have clearly learned nothing in the past year. Their proposals call on Ukraine to cede territory it still controls and reduce the size of its army in return for no clear security guarantees from the west. Adding salt to the wounds, the plan depicts peacemaking as a juicy business opportunity for America; $100bn of frozen Russian assets would be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild Ukraine’s shattered economy — with America receiving 50 per cent of any profits.
The clear impression is that Trump wants an agreement as soon as possible and at just about whatever cost to Ukraine. This would enable him to claim another peace deal as part of his obsessional quest for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is also under pressure at home to pivot to the economy. It can be no coincidence the deal is being promoted at a time of weakness for Kyiv, amid a corruption scandal and as Russia grinds forward on the frontline. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine faced an agonising choice between losing its dignity and losing a key ally.
The blueprint has not met all Russia’s wishes: the territory occupied by Russia would still formally be part of Ukraine; Moscow was pushing for a demilitarised vassal state. Trump may reverse course again, though each time he pivots to Moscow he encourages Putin to hold out for more. But the shabby lesson of this week is clear. America is making no pretence that it aspires to be a “shining city on a hill” as Ronald Reagan liked to say. Rather it is happy to hang up a sign saying it is open for business with anyone — especially when deals are in play.
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