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.”
China will rather take a good bite out of outer Manchuria, traditional Chinese clay. There’s a reason they’ve been making so much noise about Taiwan and the South China Sea and it is not because they want you to look anywhere else. Might not even want to keep it, would be a nightmare to administer and justify, but having all of Russia east of the Ural turn into a couple of Mongolias would very much be in their favour. Mongolia is open for business and not a headache for them.
And if taking out imperial Russia finally gets them out of their “century of humiliation” stroppiness then I’m all for it. Oh, and Russia falling is of course also more than welcome.
When peace finally returns, a Trans-Siberian Railway upgraded to Chinese Belt And Road high-speed standards will be an improvement.