Trump’s America is falling into autocracy and advocates for Russian victory in Ukraine – it’s time the West saw this and dealt with it. Sam Kiley, world affairs editor, explains how
It may feel like a rip in the time-space continuum. On one side of the tear, there’s a universe in which America is run by a wannabe king who uses the invasion of an ally as an opportunity for profit, who lies, cheats and backstabs his friends. On the other stand America’s closest comrades, insisting that Washington’s a force for good.
There is only one reality, and it is time to confront it.
America is no longer the leader of the West, let alone the rest of the world. It’s got the biggest armed forces. It has the biggest economy and the widest cultural reach the world has ever seen. But its democracy is collapsing, and it has been captured by a cult of ignorant grifters.
They are in bed with tech-bro fantasists who believe they can control the media and bend minds, while genetically engineering their way to a master class ruling the world as high-technocrats.
Europe’s leaders are gathering in Johannesburg for the G20. They’re going into huddles at the meeting to decide how to react to Donald Trump’s latest pro-Russian plan for Ukraine to surrender, and American business (the Trump Organization?) to profit.
The question they need to ask themselves is whether now is the time to stop bothering with the grovelling and flattery, in return for keeping the Toddler-in-Chief from throwing a king-sized tantrum?
The answer, according to a senior Western source intimately involved in the real-world security of Europe and the UK, is to “just tell him to f*** off”.
Sorely tempting, of course.
And the source is right to explain that the time is now overdue for Europe, Canada, the UK and many other allies to establish military and intelligence independence from the US.
Why? Because the US is so busy eviscerating its own democracy that within a year, it will more closely resemble the Russia of Vladimir Putin than anything that would be recognised as a Western democracy.
Trump has been defoliating every branch of America’s complex constitutional structures. The judiciary itself, the lawyers that serve it, the security and military forces, his Republican Party, the Federal Reserve bank and the media are all being turned to an authoritarian agenda that will endure among his heirs, political or personal.
Trump’s 28-point plan for “peace” in Ukraine was cooked up between Steve Witkoff, his envoy to the Middle East, and Moscow. Witkoff is witless. He uses his personal cell phone on trips to Moscow and Tel Aviv, where its contents are doubtless plundered in real time.
His pro-Russian plan for Ukraine was agreed with Kirill Alexandrovich Dmitriev, a Russian businessman and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which has at least $10bn of Russian government funds to “co-invest” in the Russian economy. Dmitriev has been sanctioned by the US Treasury – doing business with him is illegal for an American, but Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, was also there.
The US side of this group was also behind the Gaza ceasefire deal. There has been no ceasefire in Gaza, but the deal, worked out with Israel but with no Palestinian participation, will (if it works) effectively outsource the Israeli occupation, or control over, Gaza to foreign armies with no long-term prospect of peace for either Israelis or Palestinians.
No one is telling Trump that. For a sense of why not, here’s part of what Witkoff said during a sycophantic show session of the US cabinet in August this year:
“Your team is nothing short of incredible, and there’s only one thing I wish for, that that Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realises that you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace – this Nobel award – was ever talked about, to receive that reward.
“Your success is game-changing out in the world today, and I hope everybody one day wakes up and realises that. Thank you, sir.”
Witkoff knows how to handle Trump, he thinks.
By saying the 47th president is a finer candidate than Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel and Mother Theresa, he hopes to ensure his role at the centre of things, no matter how little he comprehends of them. He also knows that, along with the flattery, Trump wants to see a profit.
The Ukraine offer is for Putin to be given the pre-prepared defensive lines that Ukraine has built in its fortress belt in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces without a shot being fired.
In return, Ukraine will give up its long-range weapons, halve its armed forces, forever forsake joining Nato, and sign up to Belarus-style vassal status under the Kremlin.
And the new bit of this old Russian set of demands is that American companies get 50 per cent of the profits from a $100bn reconstruction fund for Ukraine, using frozen Kremlin assets.
That’s on top of the extortionate minerals deal that Zelensky signed with the Trump administration, which promises American control of 50 per cent of the profits from Ukraine’s as-yet-untapped mineral resources.
Both are great deals for Russia. And for Trump’s industry buddies. Moscow smashes it, America rebuilds it, and Ukraine pays protection money to Washington – forever.
Trump has set next Thursday for Ukraine to sign up. It’s unclear what the “or else” can be because the US no longer supplies Ukraine with weapons.
Intelligence support does come from Washington – but the European Union, the UK and others have been working hard to prepare Ukraine for when this flow of critical data is cut, because America cannot be trusted as an ally.
Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia, set out a route to a smarter way to deal with Trump’s plan to profit from Ukraine’s surrender – without ever mentioning America’s president herself.
“Our position has not changed. For any peace plan to succeed, it has to be supported by Ukraine, and it has to be supported by Europe. If Russia really wanted peace, they would have accepted the unconditional ceasefire offer already in March.
“Russia’s hybrid actions in Europe are increasingly brazen. Russia is committing state-sponsored terrorism,” she said, adding that the EU, which has no forces, has “many ways we can respond”.
One of these should be not to tell Trump to eff off. As every parent knows, when a toddler is heading into a tantrum, the best way to bring it back to reality is… to ignore it.