Europe and Ukraine are learning how little the U.S. cares, as the new president aligns himself with their greatest enemy.
The thing about a war is it forces people to pick a side. And Donald Trump, it seems to many in Europe, is siding with Vladimir Putin.
Seven days of presidential interventions in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have made real the nightmares of Ukrainians and many of their allies, upending the transatlantic relationship that has underpinned European security since 1945.
If there were any lingering doubts about the extent of Trump’s willingness to make enemies in Europe, he ended it Tuesday night when he blamed Ukraine for having “started” the war with Russia. Such blatant defiance of the fact of Putin’s unprovoked invasion three years ago shocked even America’s most loyal friends in the region.
“Jesus,” one British government official said privately in response to the president’s outburst.
“We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” another European diplomat observed in recent days, declining to be identified discussing sensitive matters. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”
It’s an unstable country that enabled this to happen. Yes, there are a lot of people who would never do this awful shit but, sorry, this is what the US is and largely has been.
Trump is a symptom, it was the institution that is US and many of its people that allowed to get into power. You can’t just pin it on him and then when he eventually(please let it be soon) dies act like anything is fixed. The US is putin’s ally and there are many unfortunate people along for the ride. That is a truth you need to face or nothing will ever get better.