Donald Trump did not invent the American tradition to abandon our friends as a bad graduation date (ask the Kurds, Afghan interpreters or anyone who sit through “Rambo: First Blood Part II”). But since he returned to office, he has taken this bad habit too frequent and made him an official policy of the United States.
The last example? Trump's conclusion that Volodymyr Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, already knows, the country currently becomes rubble by Russian missiles, “is not ready for peace” and that “he did not respect the United States of America.” This last statement (made live on television during a heated meeting of the Oval office), arrived immediately after Trump took social networks to call him a “dictator.”
If irony were a renewable energy source, Trump's rhetoric could feed the United States for a century. Because while Trump throws Zelensky under the bus, his real crush, Vladimir Putin, the guy accused in series of poisoning journalistsThe type whose Critics tend to end dead, imprisoned or exiledThe boy who Win “elections” of suspicious and predictable earth landslides – You are running a current dictatorship. His troops are rape Ukrainian womenaccording to the researchers; Their forces are Kidnapping of children and Flattener cities. But yes, the real The problem is the elected leader who tries to stop them.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the speed with which this relationship has collapsed. In case you have lost it, Trump was in charge of Negotiate the destiny of Ukraine Without having Ukraine in the room. His team also raised an “offer” to Ukraine directly from “The Godfather”: deliver some mineral rights such as “recovery” for our past help, and maybe let's think about letting him continue defending his country. Maybe.
And if that was not humiliating enough, during that meeting of the Oval Office mentioned above, Trump and vice president JD Vance intensified things to a new minimum, organizing an attack by the televised oval office against Zelensky in a more suitable show for WWE's international diplomacy.
During the exchange, Vance called Zelensky “disrespectful” and said he should be more grateful to Trump. The clash, transmitted for the world to see, was not just a movement of political power: it was a calculated act of degradation, reinforcing the message that, under Trump, Ukraine is expected to be exhausted for each bullet. It was a diplomatic disaster and a propaganda gift for Moscow, all in one.
No matter the fact that we assure Ukraine (before and after the invasion of Russia) that we would support him. If we break that promise now, as it seems that we are prepared to do, the consequences will not stop in Kyiv. The message will travel much beyond Ukraine to our allies (who are looking nervously) and our enemies (who are taking notes).
During the most part of a century, United States foreign policy has been reduced to this: we pay most of the invoices and prevent stalkers from going over weaker sovereign states. In return, we get a world that (mostly) behaves itself.
Trump, however, analyzes this mutually beneficial treatment and assumes that he is being “scammed.” He sees NATO as a group dinner where everyone else orders the lobster, and believes that he is caught with the bill.
Why should we pay for security? Why should we defend our allies?
Uh, because it prevents the world from becoming a fire in the garbage container.
The alternative is much worse: the rearmed allies (including nuclear weapons) or begin to make new and less tasty friends. None of the scenarios ends well for the United States
Let's talk about our allies. Germany is praying, which, if you have even read a single history book published after 1945, could make you a little uncomfortable.
That said, the free world can need Germany will step forward if the United States withdraw from the global stage as Homer Simpson disappearing in the bushes.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that … we can really achieve the independence of the United States”, Germany's chancellor waiting Friedrich Merz said Before the final results of your choice were announced. “After Donald Trump's statements last week no later than the Americans … they are largely indifferent to Europe's destination.”
Among the most recent statements, Trump reclaimed: “The European Union was formed to fuck the United States. … And they have done a good job. “Actually, As block, The EU represents our largest commercial partner.
It is not just Europe. Friends for a long time Australia, Taiwan and Canada (or as Trump calls our neighbor, the 51st state of the United States) begin to look around and get nervous. Even Japan, yes, that ancient empire that we call that they will not conquer the Pacific again It has begun from the first Trump administration To stock up arms as if there was a sale of Apocalypse fires.
All this marks a fairly marked deviation from the nuclear umbrella and the liberal order of the postwar period that, except for some notable exceptions, has allowed Americans to enjoy a happy and air conditioning, complete with garages with two cars, well -managed Céspedes and shopping centers since 1945.
But well, who needs stability when you can have emotion? After all, maintaining these alliances struggled. On the one hand, you must continue sucking people who are not as strong as you, and probably do not contribute as much effective as they could.
Let's take, for example, President Reagan's speech commemorates the 40th anniversary of the day D. I remember hearing it as a child and thinking: “Why do you talk about the allies?” I mean, Reagan is excited about the “impossible value of the poles”, “the forces of free France” and “unparalleled courage of Canadians.” And launches seemingly strange references to the British troops listening to bagpipes and Lord Lovat de Scotia.
Because? Because at that time, we knew that the world worked better when our friends believed we were in this existential struggle together. Trump seems to be doing everything possible to send the opposite message: You are alone!
But the most important reason why abandoning our allies is silly can be summarized in a word: China. You remember China, right? Does the country that sends us Fentanilo and Tiktok propaganda and surpasses four to one? Well, guess what: if the free world joins, we combine them in population, land and strength. But only yes stick.
Trump, the calling best merchant, is here making the worst treatment in American history giving the influence of the United States, alienating the allies, destroying American soft power by dismantling exterior help and giving power to the people who In fact I want to fuck us. Nothing says “America first” how to leave your friends the last. And here is the thing: it is easy to discard our power, but it would be a struggle of decades to recover the influence once it has left.
How does your moral authority, allies and position in the world lose super power? Slowly … and then everything at once.
Matt K. Lewis is the author of “dirty political” and “too dumb to fail.”
