What are we to make of Trump’s Ukraine policy? | Matt Duss

2 weeks ago 21

It’s been quite a week for US foreign policy. Following a phone call last week between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Russian delegates met in Saudi Arabia to smooth relations between the two countries and discuss possible paths to ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine was not invited to the talks. Quite reasonably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country would not be bound by decisions taken without their participation. Trump responded to this by falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, and sought to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy by claiming in a Truth Social post that he “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls … A Dictator without Elections.”

In reality, Zelenskyy’s current approval rating is more than 50%, which is higher than Trump’s. And while it’s fair to ask whether Ukraine should have elections during the war, only a total rube would believe that Trump is bringing this up because he cares about democracy.

In terms of optics, the talks themselves are a clear victory for Putin, a validation of his well-known aspiration to restore the great power status to which he believes Russia is historically entitled. In this view, the future of Ukraine, and of Europe, is something to be determined by the United States and Russia irrespective of the populations involved.

For Trump’s part, it fits neatly with his modus operandi that Russia and the United States would get to make those decisions. Just as with the spectacle of the US president and Israeli prime minister a few weeks ago determining the future of the Palestinians who weren’t even in the room, in Trump’s jungle the powerful make decisions that the weak must simply accept, international law and human rights be damned.

You can say this for Trump: at least he’s consistent. The previous administration’s approach to two major wars – Ukraine and Gaza – was characterized by a glaring double standard in which Russia’s blatant violations of the laws of war were rightly condemned, while Israel’s commission of the same were shamefully excused and supported. The rights of the Ukrainian people to freedom and self-determination were treated as unquestionable, while those same rights for the Palestinian people were considered negotiable, if considered at all.

Trump now appears to be resolving this tension by throwing the Ukrainians under the bus along with the Palestinians. And as with his forced-displacement proposal for Gaza, he seems to see Russian talks over Ukraine as primarily a business venture, with the state department readout of the meeting highlighting possible new “investment opportunities” in warming US-Russia relations. (This shows again how wildly off the mark the Washington establishment’s “isolationist” criticisms of Trump have been. In truth, Trump is much more an old-school imperialist, always looking for new spoils to be enjoyed. The amount of time and energy devoted to the idea that Trump is a “Russian asset” obscured the more prosaic homegrown danger posed by his predatory authoritarian capitalism.)

That said, it’s important not to overreact to these talks by dismissing the notion of diplomacy to end the war, nor lose sight of the larger problem in what Trump is doing and how these foreign policy moves tie into his broader agenda. While Trump’s comments indicate a troubling direction of travel and a propaganda victory for Putin, that in and of itself is not enough reason not to avoid negotiations. We should be talking to our adversaries more, not less. The question is what we get from them. And if this initial dialogue helps lead to a durable end to the war, that’s positive. The details will matter.

As will Ukrainian buy-in. There’s some evidence that Ukrainians could support an agreement that comes short of total victory. According to a November Gallup poll, 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. According to the same poll, more than half of this group (52%) believe that Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as part of such an agreement.

But for any such agreement to be more than just a temporary halt to conflict, it will need to ensure Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. Simply imposing an agreement that returns Ukraine to Russian vassal state status is not only unjust, but it will also not work. No people would accept decisions about their fate made over their heads, nor should they be expected to. The Ukrainians won’t, just as the Palestinians won’t.

European allies have responded with understandable alarm to Trump’s abrupt policy shift, even if they have no excuse not to have seen it coming. Europeans can no more be cut out of negotiations over the future of their region than Ukraine can be excised from talks over its own fate. If this latest shock finally, at long last, spurs our European allies to take greater responsibility for their own region’s security, that would be a positive outcome. But given how quickly the urgency of past “turning points” has faded, we shouldn’t hold our breath.

The tone and choice of location for this week’s talks in Riyadh (itself a propaganda victory for the Saudi regime) are just one piece of a larger picture in which the United States is now aligning itself more fully with the global forces of ethnonationalism, authoritarianism and oligarchy. As the Trump administration draws closer to rightwing autocrats internationally, it is also hard at work here at home dismantling the administrative state and divvying up the spoils among its own oligarch allies.

Until Democrats are willing to look more honestly and critically at the influence that wealthy interests have on their own party and their governing choices, they won’t be able to offer a compelling and convincing alternative.