The Artlessness of the Deal
Applying rational analysis to attitude and instinct.
In yesterday’s post lamenting that President Trump seems to be abdicating America’s role as leader of the free world, I offered that,
To the extent there’s a rational American foreign policy goal here, it’s to get European nations to pick up a larger share of the burden of defending Ukraine and containing Russia so that our resources can be allocated to the threat in the Indo-Pacific. And that might in fact happen as a result of all of this.
This generated strong pushback that, by seeing any foreign policy goal at all at work, I was justifying the policy. Given the broader context of the post, I found that rather odd. But I’ll unpack it further here, in what’s going to be a long one.
Constraints and Restraints on My Writing
As I noted a few days back, the current atmosphere has created a chilling effect such that, “While I will never publish things that conflict with my beliefs, I will almost certainly be considerably more constrained until circumstances change.”
In some cases, this will mean that I simply won’t write about topics where saying what I think could put my livelihood in jeopardy. In other cases, the voices I highlight in the posts will have to say what I can’t.
With respect to yesterday’s post, “To the extent there’s a rational American foreign policy goal here” does a lot of work. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, I think there are many, many factors at play, some of which seem obvious and some of which can only be intuited.
Transactional Leadership
Friday’s episode of The Daily podcast, “Trump 2.0: The Art of the Deal,” which predated the Oval Office spectacle, influenced my analysis heavily. It was a roundtable discussion featuring NYT White House and congressional correspondents, and focused on how Trump has handled two sets of negotiations: the attempt to get a budget through the House and to extract a mineral rights deal from Ukraine. The former is pretty simple: he strongarmed them. The second is, well, more complicated.
Here are some key excerpts:
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: So we’ve talked about how President Trump’s approach to foreign policy can best be described as transactional. And we got some examples of that early on when, after coming into office, when it came to aid for Ukraine, it started out as sort of a musing over having an exchange of the natural resources in Ukraine for aid to Ukraine. And that has really become a focus of the negotiations that we’ve now seen in recent days and in recent weeks.
So a pivotal point in this is when Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, took a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, and presented an initial version of this deal. And the initial version, Ukraine balked at it.
Michael Barbaro: What was the initial version?
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: First, the US basically wants back-pay for the aid they already sent to Ukraine. Trump is basically saying, you have these critical earth minerals in Ukraine, and the US is going to get a significant amount, half of the revenue from that up to $500 billion.
Michael Barbaro: That’s a lot.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: The maybe even more significant thing is what’s not in that proposal. And that’s the assurance Zelenskyy wants of a long-term security guarantee. The concern for Ukraine is that any pause in fighting that US and Russia agree to. Well, what if Russia uses that to build up its forces, and then Ukraine is left without the assurance, the knowledge that the United States will come to their defense, that the United States will actually support Ukraine.
Michael Barbaro: And it might be left without some rare earth minerals that would help it pay for its own defense if it were to accept this deal. Maggie, how should we understand this initial offer that, on its face, seems like a very good deal for the US, and not much of a deal at all for Ukraine.
Maggie Haberman: I think you just answered your own question. I mean, essentially, Trump has separated out Russia and Ukraine from one another, as he is saying that he is trying to negotiate a peace deal. He’s got Russia at one table with the US. He’s got Ukraine at another table with the US.
Michael Barbaro: A smaller table.
Maggie Haberman: A much smaller table with Ukraine. Trump said it himself, and it’s really true. Ukraine basically has no cards to play. Trump has rejected the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine, and Trump also does not want to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. He wants Europe to do it. And that is going to require a heave of the will by Europeans, and we’ll see what that looks like. So the new deal that is being negotiated —
Michael Barbaro: Because the first one kind of got rejected.
Maggie Haberman: — first one was rejected, and then other iterations of it were rejected. And then the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, jumped in. And that complicated matters.
Michael Barbaro: Yeah, how do we get to a deal?
Maggie Haberman: So what is now there, because of various forces, is a smaller deal in terms of what the US will get. Trump keeps saying $350 billion. My understanding is the actual number is smaller than that, but it still does not include a security piece. And that was clearly a red line for Trump. And Zelenskyy clearly realizes that and is taking what he can get.
Michael Barbaro: But that doesn’t seem like a deal the president of Ukraine would sign. And yet, Zolan, he’s about to arrive in Washington and sign it. So at some point, he decides that even though he’s not really getting anything from it, it’s still somehow worthwhile. Why?
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Well, for one, I mean, a late version of a US proposal did vaguely say that the US would support Ukraine’s security. But then Trump came around the next day in a cabinet meeting and said, essentially, that was going to be the responsibility of European nations that are closer to Ukraine. Zelenskyy is in a really tight spot here. I mean, he knows Ukraine has been relying on a lot of US aid. And he’s now put in a position where, like many other world leaders, he now needs to come to Washington and try to placate Trump, try to use old fashioned diplomacy to try and secure any kind of assurance for Ukraine.
[…]
Michael Barbaro: Well, to that point, if you subscribe to this ascendant now victorious America-first worldview that has now dominated the party under Trump, isn’t this quite an achievement? The United States is going to recoup the money it spent in Ukraine, with no commitment to spend much more, or to ever put American troops in harm’s way in Ukraine in a war that Trump and many Republicans don’t think the US has a real interest in?
Maggie Haberman: Yes, I mean, this is — look, in a long line of things that Donald Trump promised during the campaign and is doing, this is one. He made very clear that he did not support the aid to Ukraine. Trump also looks at all of these engagements through an economic lens. He does not look at them through a foreign policy end, as some kind of a moral exercise.
He is looking at it as what is the best deal for the US. He sees Ukraine as a tiny country. Russia is obviously not the superpower it once was, but in Trump’s mind, it looms much larger from its stature decades ago. And he sees more business opportunities for the country, as he has said, with Russia than he does with Ukraine.zolan kanno-youngs
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: It’s interesting. Even when the administration is trying to reassure Ukraine that the United States will be here, they actually point to the fact that, look, if we have an investment in your critical earth minerals, that is, in a form, the best kind of security assurance that you could get because we don’t want Russia to take over all of this territory. If we have an agreement with you to continue to financially benefit from these critical earth minerals, isn’t it more likely that we will continue to support your defense of your land, which I think says a lot about Trump.
Michael Barbaro: That’s fascinating.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: it says a lot about him.
Michael Barbaro: Right. The best way to get America’s support is to allow us to have a financial interest in you not being overrun by your larger neighbor.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: That’s right.
Michael Barbaro: Which in this case, he’s just struck.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: That’s right. It’s also worth noting just some of the criticism that’s come from some other European leaders who have said that this does echo colonialism as well. And a colonialist approach where you are looking to extract the resources of a country that you have leverage over or even power over.
Michael Barbaro: I just want to end by asking for a larger reflection on all this dealmaking. We started, of course, in Congress. Now, we’ve gotten to this deal with Ukraine. But if you zoom out even further and you think about all the Trump deals that have been struck since he was inaugurated, you’ve got a deal with Canada on tariffs. You’ve got a deal with Mexico on tariffs.
On top of that, the prime minister of the UK was just at the White House offering Trump a deal of his own to increase the UK’s defense spending, something that as we’ve hinted at here, Trump has asked all European countries to do so that they are less reliant on United States defense spending. And when you think about it, the common thread here is Trump’s allies — and stay with me, this is one of those heady, stretch ending questions — his allies, both within his party and America’s allies across the world, are all kind of bending to him in ways that don’t seem to hew to tradition, or in some cases, to their own best interests.
[…]
Zolan Kanno-Youngs: I think that’s right. And it’s a little bit of what have you done for me lately approach to foreign policy. And you’re seeing other nations react in a way to try and give him something that he can cite that they’ve done for him lately. And it’s not just today.
The Japanese Prime Minister came to the White House and was showering Trump with compliments, complimenting his appearance on TV. Netanyahu also showered him with compliments. When he threatened tariffs against Mexico —
Michael Barbaro: Right.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs:— Mexico agreed to new border security measures. You saw Canada also threatened with tariffs and talked about different things they were going to do at their northern border. So you’re seeing Trump make clear what his approach to foreign policy is. And you’re seeing other world leaders respond by giving him something, whether it be something tangible on the ground or simply even the appearance of placating at the White House.
The upshot of all of this is that, while I don’t think Trump has a grand strategy in the way that Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, or Ronald Reagan did, he very much has a foreign policy instinct. It’s that of someone who has spent decades in the world of commercial real estate, which he sees as a system to be played and where rules are for suckers.
He sees the American foreign policy vision of the last century, where we have borne an outsized share of the burden of creating and maintaining a rules-based order and a global commons, as a mug’s game. The most powerful nation in the world should win every transaction by virtue of that power. If we do something for you, you should do something for us.
Similarly, he’s the most powerful man in the world. Everyone who meets him should make it clear they understand that fact and accord him the appropriate deference.
Trump, Russia, and Ukraine
Now, in the particular case of Russia-Ukraine, there are clearly other factors playing in.
With regard to Ukraine, he obviously holds a grudge against President Zelensky going back to the scandal that led to his first impeachment. He remains baffled as to why trying to strongarm the leader of a weak country to get dirt on his political opponent is problematic. Who wouldn’t do that? A sucker, that’s who.
There’s also clearly something going on with Russia and Putin. While there has been plenty of speculation as to blackmail, I have no direct evidence for it. But it’s not just Trump. There has been a growing fascination with Putin among factions of the Republican Party going back to the Obama administration—well before Trump came down the golden escalator and announced his run for the Republican nomination. I’ve never really understood it, although it clearly has something to do with the struggle over masculinity. The images of Putin practicing karate or riding bareback on a horse have been seized on as what real men should look like. His crackdown on Russian LGBTQ communities also factors in.
Trump clearly admires Putin and other strongmen like Hungary’s Victor Orban. He enjoys displays of power and the pomp and circumstance that comes with it. (Left out of the Daily Show excerpt above is a longish discussion of his fascination with the British royal family.) He rather clearly wants to be more like them.
Trump on NATO
With regard to NATO, I honestly don’t fully understand his motivations. But his transactional worldview seems a perfectly adequate explanation for most of what he’s said and done. Going back to the 2016 campaign, he has expressed resentment that the European allies have not paid their fair share. And, while I get accused of “bothsidesing” when I point it out, it’s simply irrefutable that American leaders have been frustrated by the burden sharing issue for decades. Bob Gates warned them in his 2011 valedictory that the American public was losing patience. Trump was the manifestation of that.
While I find his approach reckless and uncouth, the frustration with free-riding is not unreasonable. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had already galvanized European allies into upping their spending and, indeed, got Finland and Sweden off the fence and into the fold.
Similarly, while I think our investment in Ukraine’s defense has been worth every penny on both moral and strategic grounds, it’s not unreasonable to believe the stakes are higher for our European allies than for us and they should therefore be picking up more of the tab. I just don’t believe it’s worth risking the Western alliance to get them to do it.
I’ll write more on Trump’s larger foreign policy vision, such as it is, in a separate post.
He’s weak, and subservient to Putin.
He’s also a serial sex offender and a convicted fraud.
Deference?
Zelensky should have played him better, given how easily he’s manipulated. But that doesn’t mean he deserves deference.
@Daryl: He is POTUS. He is definitionally the most powerful man in the world. The rest may be true as well, but it doesn’t change what office he holds. Certainly, for his own ego POV, that is why he wants to be president. He does expect to be treated like a king.
It is true that if a person wants something from him, they have to take this into account.
The truth of this does not change his character, nor does it change how gross and awful the situation is.
“deserves” isn’t the issue.
@Daryl:
He is insisting on being treated in accordance with his own self-image and worldview, which is not what other people think, or what I think is objective reality.
James,
A large part of my problem with your analysis is in this paragraph near the end:
“Similarly, while I think our investment in Ukraine’s defense has been worth every penny on both moral and strategic grounds, it’s not unreasonable to believe the stakes are higher for our European allies than for us and they should therefore be picking up more of the tab. I just don’t believe it’s worth risking the Western alliance to get them to do it.”
It looks like a totally predictable other result is developing, where Europe does spend more for Ukraine’s defense, and provides them with security guarantees the Americans won’t. If so, what is Ukraine getting out of it to justify handing any interest in its mineral rights to the US? Surely a person who looks at everything in a transactional manner would see the possibility of him getting cut out of such a deal and ending up with nothing.
@Steven L. Taylor:
To the extent he is lucid and awake, and not being manipulated by people who can do so.
Power has value to the extent it is employed effectively, Trump does not seem so great at foreseeing the effects of his behavior.
Trump’s never been a builder, a doer, or a maker. He stuck his name on crap and went down with the show in Atlantic City, and his presence in NYC was a joke past the 80s. He’s an absolute idiot with built-in terrible instincts except when it comes to selling himself to extremely dumb people.
Look at this stupid rare earth deal. America probably won’t see a single cent from any mines that end up cutting a small profit 20 years from now. Notice that Trump isn’t saying we need to create a quasi-national fund to invest in the low-ROI industries which are nevertheless important to national security, which would be, actually, an instinctive move. He can’t even articulate that sentiment and the Republicans are so braindead after four decades of Reaganomics. All they can talk about is regulations and firing the government workers who are smarter and fitter than them.
And I don’t think Putin has any compromising material on Trump. The GOP elite really takes to Putin and Russia because the society Putin advertises is appeals to people who feel they can’t compete in the high-achieving west where the social order is more complicated and suggests values money can’t buy.
@Steven L. Taylor:
With Canada and Mexico, it seems that both countries have the advantage of having to do the work his advisors should have been doing with him. They’re getting him unmediated. I think Zelensky was screwed regardless, but Claudia Sheinbaum is going to be running circles around him while acting deferential.
That’s just dumb and counterproductive.
Let’s say, Trump gets his wish and the Europeans (with 3 times the population and 10 times the GDP of Russia) spend 5% of their GDP on defense. Why even need American leadership then? (Let alone bad and selfish leadership.)
And why should the global west support American leadership – including the dollar supremacy – if they get nothing in return?
And can there even be a dollar supremacy without the tacit acceptance of the rest of the developed world, i.e., Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc.? And without dollar supremacy, how long can the US remain the world’s single superpower?
It’s all stupid, counterproductive, and, ultimately, self-destructive.
Moreover, this is plain to see, which makes the argument that there is some rational foreign policy goal hidden somewhere in the selling out of Ukraine completely baffling – to such an extent, even, that (IMO) the argument itself is dishonest.
@Moosebreath:
Zolan Kanno-Youngs put it this way: “look, if we have an investment in your critical earth minerals, that is, in a form, the best kind of security assurance that you could get because we don’t want Russia to take over all of this territory. If we have an agreement with you to continue to financially benefit from these critical earth minerals, isn’t it more likely that we will continue to support your defense of your land”?
But that doesn’t explain why Trump blew the deal up in the Oval Office ambush. I honestly can’t explain that.
@drj:
That’s how decades of administrations of both parties have seen it and why they have done little to twist Europe’s arm to get them to increase their spending. I’m just trying to analyze how I think Trump sees it. And I don’t think his version of game theory is iterative. He sees the transaction in front on him without looking at how it will impact future interactions.
@James Joyner:
““look, if we have an investment in your critical earth minerals, that is, in a form, the best kind of security assurance that you could get because we don’t want Russia to take over all of this territory. If we have an agreement with you to continue to financially benefit from these critical earth minerals, isn’t it more likely that we will continue to support your defense of your land””
Ukraine on gets something under that scenario only if the US won’t:
1. Let Ukraine fall after cutting a deal with Russia to get the same share of materials after they take over Ukraine, or
2. Demand a larger percentage of the materials at the time Ukraine looks for assistance.
I see zero reason why Zelensky should assume these would not be the case if Trump is not willing to give any assurances now. So no, that isn’t an answer at all.
@Moosebreath: From Trump’s POV, Zelensky is a powerless man with no cards to play who’s come begging for help. He’s lucky to be getting anything.
@James Joyner:
“From Trump’s POV, Zelensky is a powerless man with no cards to play who’s come begging for help. He’s lucky to be getting anything.”
And as I pointed out above, Zelensky has a very strong card still in his hand, to make a deal with Europe which cuts out the US. And that card is being played as we speak.
So Trump either badly misjudged the other party’s strength, or was so blinded by his hatred of Zelensky to see this.
Muscular athoritarians that harass gays makes Rod Dreher’s knees go all wobbly. And he’s not quite sure why.
@James Joyner:
Vance was the person who actually blew it up; Trump just joined in because he’s one of the most credulous people ever and super easy to manipulate
So I guess the answer is that Peter Thiel didn’t like the deal, likely to protect his Greenland investments
Trump and his people lie about everything. No “deal” with the US is worth the paper it is printed on. I assume a rare earth mineral deal would be to enrich Trump’s friends and Trump himself. Zelensky should have worn a suit to the meeting, other than that he did nothing wrong. Trump lied about the amount of aid given to the Ukraine. Vance treated Zelensky like an errand boy. There is no reason to think that any “deal” the US is involved in would be anything other than a giveaway to Putin.
@Moosebreath: The key part of James’ comment is “Trump’s POV.”
In regards to cards, relying on Europe ain’t nothing, but losing US support will be devastating should it come to that. I am not certain Europe can truly fill the gap.
@Steven L. Taylor:
That’s my point. Zelensky should have played him like every other world leader does. Deserves doesn’t enter the equation.
Having said that, Zelensky walked into a rigged game and I don’t think the results would have changed no matter how much phony deference Zelensky laid on.
Trump entered into unilateral negotiations with Russia, called Zelensky a dictator, blamed Ukraine for starting the war, and outright lied about the amount of US Aid given to date. Top it off with Trump wanting massive mineral rights in exchange for exactly nothing tangible.
Zelensky, Ukraine, and Democracy were getting boned in the arse no matter what happened.
@Steven L. Taylor:
“The key part of James’ comment is “Trump’s POV.””
True, but a basic part of knowing how to make deals is reading the situation accurately. And if Trump is unable or unwilling to do that, he is far less adept at making deals than he claims to be.
@James Joyner:
But that doesn’t explain why Trump blew the deal up in the Oval Office ambush. I honestly can’t explain that.
Here’s one hypothesis:
1. Trump wants to throw Ukraine under the bus, abandon Europe, and become a Russian ally.
2. He, or someone around him, suggests the pretext of a bogus, nonsensical deal. Because they really want the Ukrainians to reject it, they make it completely one-sided, abusive, and insulting.
3. Since Zelensky didn’t take the bait initially, he, Vance, and probably someone else concoct the Oval Office ambush, on equally bogus pretexts (not wearing a suit, not grateful enough, whatever transparent excuse works best).
4. No matter how well Zelensky responds (he could have done better, but that’s irrelevant), they use it as an excuse to deep-six the faux deal, proclaim that they can’t work with Ukraine, and go ahead with what they wanted.
The fact that this type of behavior dovetails with the current incumbent’s business tactics lends credence to this possible explanation.
Kingdaddy‘s observations are good, but I think that it also is related to the “leaving money on the table for the satisfaction of having cheated someone” thing that so many people have talked about over his career. As his “abilities” decline, more is being left on the table while he also cheats less successfully.
@Moosebreath: @Kingdaddy: @just nutha:
You all are overthinking this. Trump’s brain is not wired the way normal brains are, he is incapable of foreseeing the knock on effects that follow his ploys.
“…Trump… is far less adept at making deals than he claims to be.”
Sure, but people who aren’t MAGAts have known this for a long time. (Trump water, casinos, shuttle, menswear, university, beef, the list is almost endless.)
@Moosebreath:
“And as I pointed out above, Zelensky has a very strong card still in his hand, to make a deal with Europe which cuts out the US. And that card is being played as we speak.
So Trump either badly misjudged the other party’s strength, or was so blinded by his hatred of Zelensky to see this.”
I rather think is a bit of both, and also his desire to have Zelensky pay for his first impeachment.
Also, it seems like that will backfire bc Europe is rallying around Ukraine with a speed I never thought possible in the EU.
@Min:
As I said upthread, knock on effects are just not in Trump’s mental toolkit.
@charontwo: Fair point, which is why I said the scheme was probably the product of Trump and some of his cohort. If someone else’s idea conforms to his “How To Be An A**hole In Business” mindset, so much the better.
@JamesJoyner
In a beneficial and mutual relationship where perhaps one partner, a spouse for example, has more physical capability or assets than the other partner, typically they don’t divide output completely down the middle. That would be unrealistic and not recognize the very real limitations involved. Where the positive regard is mutual this is not a problem and things are worked out.
Looking at Trump’s brand and magnitude of chauvinism, we can see where such accomodation breaks down.
And there is an argument to be made, that the US gets “more bang for the buck” in European based deterrence. So while Europe may have contributed less percent-wise to its defense, the US has benefitted interms of efficiency and projection of economic (and political) influence in multiple marketplaces beyond Europe itself.”
What a deal!
The savvy “Dealmaker” doesn’t want the efficiencies generated by this gig, more significantly, he doesn’t want the gig itself. We have to ask why. And this raises questions over “compromise” and conflict of interest.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I am not certain Europe can truly fill the gap.
NATO without the US is still vastly more powerful than Russia. Vastly. Here’s a little video. NATO sans US has 10 times the GDP, far more airpower, and much more modern airpower, including many more mid-air refueling planes and AWACS planes. Judging by the huge imbalance in training aircraft, NATO pilots are also better-trained.
The imbalance in naval assets is just as great, and made greater still by geography. Russia’s navy is trapped in the Black Sea and the Baltic. Their Pacific fleet is a very, very long sail away from Europe and their Arctic fleet is weak even if it isn’t frozen in.
On the ground NATO also has far more armor – especially now that Ukraine has wiped out so much. And bear in mind that NATO does not have a far east or southern flank to defend.
Further, Russia’s military is demonstrably incompetent. Its military-industrial complex is weak, and given lack of capital and workforce, unlikely to recover quickly.
Against that I don’t know how well co-ordinated NATO forces are, or whether the composition of forces is optimal. But given Russia’s performance in Ukraine, I very much doubt they could take on Poland, let alone all of NATO. And with Europe gearing up for trouble, Putin’s window is vanishingly small.
@charontwo: That completely disregards the fact that he has surrounded himself with anti liberal democracy activists pushing policy that aligns with their larger aims. Trump isn’t unaware but nor is he in disagreement. Rather he has appeared over the past 8 years to be allowing a degree of proselytization to talk place.
@Daryl:
Zelenskyy did play Trump. He knows that the US is abandoning Ukraine no matter what, so saving US support isn’t a goal. The real goal is to make sure that Europe blames Trump for the abandonment, which requires the meltdown occurs in public and not behind closed doors where Trump can mischaracterize what happened.
Zelenskyy’s mission has been accomplished.
@Michael Reynolds: You appear to be advocating for a notion that war between NATO and Russia is inevitable. Should we start looking for the war following NATO/Russia as the one to be fought with rocks and sticks, as Einstein suggested?
@Stormy Dragon:
That is certainly a valid viewpoint.
@just nutha: Russia is already waging war on NATO. MH17 was shot down eleven years ago.
Trump has followed Obama’s denial and Biden’s better-but-not-strong-enough defensive moves with a lurch towards full surrender. It appears Europe will say no, as should any party under unfair attack.
Trump has ceded his power to Musk, Putin, and thus Xi. So. He should be, but not really.
@just nutha:
On the contrary, I think such a war unlikely, thanks in large part to Ukraine.
The Russians only really have one move – block the Suwalki Gap to block the Poles and attack the Baltic countries. I doubt they have much appetite for a re-match with a Finland which would be instantly backed by Sweden and Norway, as well as air assets from the rest of NATO.
Can they close the gap? Possibly. Can they hold it for more than a few days? Unlikely. And meanwhile, what’s happening to Kaliningrad? So, if they pulled off a well-coordinated attack they might make progress against Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but they’d take a brutal beating from NATO air and naval forces. These clowns can’t take Pokrovsk FFS after something like 8 months.
Also now, thanks to genius Putin, they have a bigger, longer border with NATO that brings NATO to within 100 miles of their second biggest city, actually from two directions. Putin’s scared to draft St. Petersburg kids, how will he like the city being hit with artillery, cruise missiles and bombs?
It’s a useful notion in that it will concentrate minds in Europe. But even without the US, Europe has vastly more manpower, vastly more people, vastly more air and naval power. It would be suicide.
@Min:
“I rather think is a bit of both, and also his desire to have Zelensky pay for his first impeachment.”
The first impeachment of Trump is the cause of Trump’s hatred of Zelinsky.
@James Joyner:
Re: But that doesn’t explain why Trump blew the deal up in the Oval Office ambush. I honestly can’t explain that.
IMO it was because Trump, whatever his thinking, is still an impulsive man highly driven by his ego. Being contradicted on camera over-rid all other issues. He got angry and we saw a spew of emotionally driven nonsense. Russia Russia Russia, Hunter’s laptop, and how poor Vladi suffered. IOW: He “lost it”.
Zelensky gets no credit for speaking English during these meetings; in fact, trump and his gang treat any awkward word or phrase as a vulnerability to exploit.
His English is not perfect, so anyone with a passing knowledge of foreign languages should know to look for the intended meaning and not jump on individual word choices. After responding to the suit question by saying he’d wear a costume after the war, he was derided in the RW media for being a smartass, but the critics probably didn’t know (as I didn’t at the time) that “costume” is basically the same pronunciation as a Russian word for suit. But I suppose that most magas wouldn’t know a cognate if it bit them in the ass.
And trump thought he was onto something when he jumped on Zelensky for saying “you have nice ocean and don’t feel now.” But trump construed “feel” as in feelings, even though Zelensky could just as well have said see, experience, get, have, etc.
Maybe he should do these meetings in Russian or Ukrainian, and leave the rest up to the translator.
Oh, come on, man! Everybody knows Trump’s history of making bad faith deals, and reneging on commitments, usually over pretext to kill the deal!
Zelenskyy has a responsibility to his people. Making a deal with Putin apologist Trump without the bare minimum of security agreements upfront and center is pretty iffy. It would even be iffy with a formalized, documented agreement. This is Trump’s preferred theater of operations, his playground where he cut his teeth under the tutelage of Cohn.
In Trump’s predatory frame of mind, everybody is a potential “chump.”
Okay, I finally watched video of the Trump-JDVance meeting Zelenskyy.
It is clear that Trump and JDVance were the ones being “disrespectful” and extremely “tone deaf.”
Zelenskyy struggled with reading the room, but this is understandable given cultural differences, and especially given dishonesty, bad faith motives of tag-team Trump.
JD Vance came off as the consummate toady with his contrived outrage, which he pathetically attempted to justify by claiming to have “seen videos” of the horror in Ukraine —- and then defaulted to the MAGA response of attacking Ukraine’s propaganda tours, as if to suggest he is justified in confining his education to mere videos. What a jerk. What a feather merchant.
@dazedandconfused:
As for why Trump blew the deal up in the Oval Office ambush, maybe it has something to do with the 20 percent of Ukraine that Russia currently occupies. That occupied territory is reported to have about 40 percent of Ukraine’s recoverable metals (iron, manganese, nickel, titanium, etc.) and about 50 percent of its rare earth minerals–keeping in mind the issue of whether or not those rare earth minerals are practical to recover, and over what period of time.
If Trump continues to cast his lot with Russia, then perhaps he’ll make a mineral deal with them, and it would be more lucrative for him personally than a mineral deal between the US and Ukraine.
@Rob1:
I stumbled across a link to the entire interview on Forbes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S_YtXWVfkJE
(Hope that works)
I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but it feels like Zelensky and Trump are talking past each other for the first 10 minutes. The fireworks are in the last 10 minutes. I’m not sure my powers of analysis are acute enough to figure out why it went off the rails in between.
@Michael Reynolds:
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s oft overlooked, but Europe actually has more soldiers than the US, more MBT, more modern fighters, more artillery, more MICV, etc etc.
What Europe lacks is a common command structure as such (that’s NATO) and above all is fragmented on procurement, HQ staff, logistics etc.
Imagine the US having no federal armed forces and DoD/Pentagon but instead 50 separate National Guard forces.
That’s Europe.
The folly of both Putin and MAGA is assuming that that which is, must necessarily be.
The European Defence Community Treaty could be revived quite readily.
@James Joyner:
Because Trump is a grievance-ridden fool, with a short fuse if anyone dares not to be grovellingly obsequious with him.
His inferiority complex is quite epic.
But it’s Vance who is the real scorpion in the fruit bowl.
Vance and his backers.
On the general issue of Europe not spending as much on defence as the US as % GDP.
It sometimes did; but the US always had “big ticket” programmes that Europe had little need of.
When your main issue is the 1st Red Banner Shock Army parked up in Potsdam, neither carrier fleets nor the Vietnam War are likely to be your first concern.
Nor was it obvious why Europeans should pay out for the “privilege” of being mini Me to DC.
That was the lesson of Suez 1956: the US would not permit Europe to act in what it considered to be its key interests.
Fine; but if the US required complaisant “allies” that must follow the determinations of the US, why should those allies shell out more than the bare minimum required for their own security?
Obviously, the calculation as to the minimum required has gone massively askew.
But in turn largely because Russia was not seen as a real threat (which was a major error) and because many military staff and defence ministries oriented to the Special Forces GWOT agenda.
As pushed by the US.
Oops.
I imagine a conversation something like this took place some time early in 2017:
Trump: “What’s this NATO article 5 thing?”
Mattis and Tillerson: “Sir it means if a hostile country attacks one member, every other member has to regard it as an attack on itself.”
“Wait, so you mean if Russia attacks Germany and that bitch Merkel, I have to fight Russia too?”
“Yes sir.”
“The hell with that. Not a chance.”
Re-posting this on this thread, because I’m just a simple girl on a tractor in Wyoming, but this is my take on what’s going on.
@JohnSF: But none of that explains failure to live up to the agreed-upon minimum of 3% of GDP for defense spending, which was lowered to 2% many years ago and largely not lived up to. The UK is the only major NATO member other than the US to have routinely met that obligation. France has only recently met it. But, yes, Poland and several of Russia’s members spend much more given the proximity of the threat.
@James Joyner:
As they say:
“The code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.”
The spend was routinely over 3% before 1990.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, so did that motivation.
As I said, there was little enthusiasm in many countries to shell out just to play Robin to the US Batman in the Middle East or eastern Asia.
The problem was, that so many establishments then failed to see how Russia changed after 2011, and just tried to hit the snooze button and pull the blankets over their heads.
Much easier politically not to have to explain to voters that they can’t have nice things.
And pretend to yourself that Wandel durch Handel is a rule of life, and the US will always be there if it comes to the worst.