A staple of Donald Trump’s rally repertoire for years has been his claim that, under him, the United States is respected again in the world. Like so much that he says, the president’s boast has been demonstrably wrong since his first term, according to repeated global surveys.
But give Trump some benefit of the doubt: He must have meant respected in the anti-democratic world, the one led by the actual dictators he so admires, not least Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Even within that sorry circle, including the tyrants of China and North Korea, it’s unclear that Trump is respected so much as he’s appreciated as a useful idiot, giving new meaning to that Cold War term for easily manipulated fools.
That Trump would so publicly embrace their world and forfeit his nation’s 80-year leadership of the free world is what made his shameful showdown in the Oval Office on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Putin’s nemesis, so historic in all the wrong ways.
If only the nearby bust of Winston Churchill could have talked.
He’d no doubt have demanded that Trump remove him from the room rather than witness a U.S. president giving the back of his hand to an ally resisting an invader, with Vice President JD Vance piling on. Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t try to extract from Churchill half of Britain’s coal wealth in return for American assistance in World War II, much as Trump is seeking Ukraine’s mineral treasure. Nor did FDR mock Churchill’s wartime “siren suit” onesie that the prime minister wore on U.S. visits, as Trump’s crowd did the dressed-down Zelensky.
The fallout from the Friday debacle could be calamitous. In his first term, Trump shook U.S. allies with his disdain for international alliances and his flirtation with fascists. But after his 2020 defeat and President Biden’s repair of America’s global ties, especially in support of Ukraine, allies could — and did — hope that Trump had been an aberration. But that hope is all but gone with Trump restored to power, the despair exacerbated by the performance of the young vice president who represents the Trumpian future of the Republican Party.
Perhaps Trump wasn’t all that proud of the clash with Zelensky, despite the over-the-top praise from sycophantic Cabinet members, near verbatim, that he’d stood up for America. He didn’t mention the spat in his 99-minute address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. He did note that he’d gotten a letter that day from Zelensky expressing Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate peace and to sign a minerals deal.
Trump hit on a lot of other notes from the “America first” playlist that vex democratic allies. Although French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer each corrected Trump last week during their separate visits to the White House, the truth-immune Trump still told Congress and a national TV audience that the United States has spent about $350 billion to aid Ukraine — “like taking candy from a baby” — while Europe has provided only $100 billion. In fact, the United States has spent about one-third of the amount that Trump claims, and Europe more.
He said of the Panama Canal, “We’re taking it back.” As for Greenland, a self-governing territory of North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally Denmark, Trump proclaimed, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” Republicans erupted in laughter, because, you know, hearing a supposed leader of the free world threatening a sovereign nation’s land is so funny. Trump bragged about withdrawing the United States (again) from the 196-nation Paris climate pact — he falsely claimed it was costing trillions of dollars that other countries don’t pay — as well as from “the corrupt [not] World Health Organization.”
For U.S. allies, none of that talk was as shocking as the convulsion that Trump and his lackeys delivered throughout February — a new world order that included restoring U.S. relations with Putin, even siding with Russia against a pro-Ukraine vote at the United Nations; scolding Europe and all but endorsing Germany’s neo-Nazi party, and then humiliating Zelensky in the Oval Office.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, immediately wrote on social media words that I, as an American, never expected to read: “Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader.” Just as unbelievable: The pinch-me glee of Igor Korotchenko, a well-known Russian military analyst, who exulted on X that he never thought he’d applaud a U.S. president, until Trump tossed out Zelensky “like a garbage alley cat.” Russian analysts predicted Putin would take Trump’s favor as a license to grab more land in advance of any peace deal.
Over the weekend, to offset Trump’s affront, 18 European allies embraced Zelensky, literally, at an emergency meeting in London of a new “coalition of the willing” to secure a peace agreement less advantageous to Russia than what Trump has in mind. Starmer said the United Kingdom would back Ukraine “for as long as it takes” — echoing then-President Biden’s now-dead words about the United States.
Trump’s tariffs against neighbors Canada and Mexico this week are icing on a rancid cake. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the action Tuesday with rare venom: “The United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
You can’t. Respected in the world again? Another Trump lie.
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