With a humiliating draft peace plan for Ukraine being tabled by US President Donald Trump, it’s clear what he thinks about his fellow G7 leaders.
You only need look at decades of fighting and bloodshed in Palestine since the 1917 Balfour Declaration to see how foreign superpowers can cause decades of havoc in a far-flung region. So US President Donald Trump’s draft peace plan to end war in Ukraine by hamstringing their army and gifting their sovereign land to an invading army could just spark more resentment and bloody war.
And all the while you feel flip-flopping Trump is just angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, and to stick two fingers up at the rest of the G7 and those European leaders he feels insult and look down on him. Trump is the uber-ego – wallowing in a mud-bath of praise and sycophancy meaning he can switch his stance in a heartbeat, depending on the wind – in a way not seen on the world stage.
Putin is relying on Trump going it alone in negotiations (Image: Getty)
History’s dictators want unquestioning adoration – from Alexander the Great to Nero, Hitler to Stalin – but most also have an ‘ideology’ that drives their single purpose.
But Trump has no ideology other a constant craving for respect.
Whether Putin has some ‘dirt’ on him that means Trump has to listen to the Russian leader who knows – but Putin is playing Trump’s ego like Shakespeare’s Iago.
And standing neutered in the wings, Europe can only watch helplessly as Trump appears to undermine their years of efforts and gift Putin the land Ukrainian blood and sweat fought for.
Imagine how Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky must feel? It’s like collapsing from a heart attack and ‘Dr Death’ Harold Shipman arrives in an ambulance.
Trump is impatient to end the war in Ukraine. But why? He’s no track record of being overly concerned about the defenders. But he does hate how wars affect global financial markets and the US economy.
His, and JD Vance’s, ambush of an embattled war-weary leader in the White House earlier this year signalled to the world Trump is no friend of Ukraine.
But when Trump has so much potential power over pariah Putin – who’s economy is struggling and dangerously now dependent on the war machine to keep it afloat – the fact he is being so craven to him is alarming.
It reminds me of Neville Chamberlain’s blind refusal in 1938 to accept Hitler could lie to him about his expansive plans to dominate Europe – leaving him forever seen as a naïve dupe.
Why not tell Putin to withdraw his forces or UN peacekeepers led by US troops will enter Ukraine? What could Putin do? He would have to withdraw.
Donald Trump has done a number on Starmer (Image: Getty)
People warn of nuclear war, but the US and UK had tanks and troops and planes stationed around the USSR border from 1945 until the Cold War ended in 1990 and no WWIII ever kicked off.
The idea of a deterrent is it can actually deter. Putin only respects power.
So for Trump to enter peace talks by stressing Ukraine must gift part of their country to an illegal invader is crazy before thrashing out a deal.
Under the widely leaked plan, Kyiv would cede significant areas of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that it still controls, cut the size of its army to just 600,000, and pledge not to join Nato – proposals it has previously ruled out.
For his part, Zelensky says he is ready to work with the US on “their vision” for ending the war with Russia. What else can he say?
European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have been frozen out of the US-Russia plan – powerless to help frame the landscape on their own doorstep.
Will his draft plan see Trump hailed as the world’s top business negotiator or ‘Donald Chamberlain’? We’ll know soon enough.
