“It seemed that the situation could not be darker for Ukraine. Then Donald Trump took the floor.” Cnn Clearly summarizes it: the press conference of the American president this Tuesday, February 18, only strengthens concerns for kyiv at the beginning of the President’s project to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Following a meeting between representatives of Washington and Moscow in Riyadh on Tuesday, Donald Trump again made very virulent remarks with regard to Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine. By reproaching kyiv for having “started” the conflict, but also by declaring himself “very disappointed” by the statements of the Ukrainian president who reproached the American administration for wanting to conduct talks “on Ukraine without Ukraine” , the tenant of the White House now fully assumes him: it is in his eyes Ukraine which is today a brake on stopping fighting on its own soil. Cnn describes a “blatant sign of the way in which the new American administration reversed the position of Washington, which supported the victim of the invasion, and now rewards the aggressor”.
“A 180 degree turn”
This new affinity between the United States and Russia marks a brutal reversal of Washington’s position on the international scene. For the New York Times“Donald Trump has been executing one of the most amazing reversals of American foreign policy for generations. A 180 degree turn that will force friends and enemies to recalibrate in a fundamental way”. The American daily writes as well as “for more than a decade, the West again faced the east in what was largely described as a new Cold War, the return to power of President Trump gives the impression that the United States could change camps. “
This sequence in particular fundamentally calls into question the relationship between the United States and Europe, now treated as best as an insignificant subordinate, at worst and an obstacle to American projects in the world. “It is clear that the United States can no longer be considered a reliable ally for Europeans. But the political ambitions of the Trump administration for Europe mean that, for the moment, America is also an adversary – threatening democracy in Europe and even European territory, in the case of Greenland “, warns on the other side of the Atlantic the British daily Financial Times.
Economic ambitions …
What is hidden behind this strategic turnaround by Donald Trump? The desire to disengage from the European continent, first of all, in the face of what the former businessman considers a dry financial loss. “Donald Trump considers that the cost of defense of Europe is too high, given the other needs. According to him and its allies, a compromise with Moscow would allow the United States to repatriate more troops or to redirect the resources of national security to China, whom they consider to be the greatest threat ‘, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month, “said the New York Times. The whole, by allowing the American president to “claim a personal political victory”, assures CNN, even if the price of the latter could be a total feeling of impunity for Russia of Vladimir Putin.
But these more than warm statements towards Moscow also hide other ambitions, explains Politico. “We have always known that Donald Trump had sympathy for the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. But these discussions in Riyadh suggest that he wishes to continue a series of trade discussions, and see what gains the United States can get this situation, especially in the energy sector. The American media is in particular the presence in Saudi Arabia of Kirill Dmitriev, “a faithful of Putin who directs the sovereign fund of Russia”, and who told journalists present on the spot that he had explained to American officials “how many ‘Money The American companies had lost due to the sanctions imposed on Russia “.
… and an ideological proximity
This rapprochement is also explained by another aspect: a certain proximity between Moscow and Washington in terms of ideas. “The words of the Trump administration show that, in important respects, it now finds more ideological affinities with Putin than with Volodymyr Zelensky. The Russian president is perceived as a warrior who fights for his country and for Conservative values; Financial Times.
JD Vance’s eagerly awaited speech at the Munich security conference seems to have only strengthened this point. Failing to venture into details of the American foreign policy, guarded from Donald Trump, the American vice-president embarked on a lesson in democracy for European governments, under the dumbfounded gaze of EU representatives Who hoped for this event to be able to find points of understanding with the American administration about the outcome of the war in Ukraine. JD Vance said that the greatest threat to the old continent was not “Russia, nor China”, but well “the inner threat and the decline in Europe compared to some of its most fundamental values “, calling into question the freedom of expression” in decline “or” mass immigration “on the continent.
“What JD Vance has done was sweeping away the ideas of freedom, democracy and shared values that have undergone the Western alliance for 80 years. In his world, the battle for freedom in Europe no longer consists of dissuade an autocratic and aggressive Russia, as was the case for Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan. By Elon Musk and others, the double threat of mass immigration and the ‘Wokism Virus’, “said the Financial Times.
A fight shared with Russia by Vladimir Putin, who sees this ideological rapproche from Washington with a very good eye. “The common contempt for European globalism and leaders has been applauded in Moscow. Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative magnate linked to the Kremlin, said that it marked the start of the end for the Davos globalists and the Eurocrats of Brussels'”, thus reports the Washington Postwhich describes that at Moscow, “this convergence of views is considered a chance to fill at least part of the ideological ditches between Russia and the United States”. And to allow them to find points of understanding, including to hope to redraw borders in Ukraine.