Trump humiliates Zelensky to save his doomed peace process

Hello,

In this video, I share my thoughts on the disastrous meeting between Zelensky and Trump at the White House. Trump is beginning to realize that his peace plan is failing, and he attempted to bully Zelensky into submission. It didn't work.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Hi! I usually do these walk and talk videos for my newsletter, but I think I'm going to release this one on YouTube as well, because the topic is so important, and I think many people would be interested to hear my thoughts on what happened in the White House at the meeting between Trump and Zelensky. But just be aware that this is a much more rough, improvised format than my usual videos, so not so polished.

I do have a new video coming out on a different topic that I was supposed to actually release today, on the size comparison between the Russian defense budget and the European defense budgets, and I might delay that one, postpone that for tomorrow instead. But unfortunately we can say that recent events have just made this topic even more relevant.

So, what happened in the White House? Many people have speculated and come up with different explanations for how could it go so wrong. I think it's quite obvious that this was a terrible display of the worst of American diplomacy, a new low point, really. Two presidents really just quarrelling in the Oval Office. Not at all what you want a state visit to be like.

Some people have made the argument that Zelensky should have acted differently, and that it basically shows that maybe Zelensky is right about the facts in the discussion, but that he did not manage to deal with Trump in the right way, and that this meant that the whole thing escalated. And that if Zelensky had been more like Keir Starmer or Macron, then maybe things would have developed differently.

I think the way I want to say it, to look at it, is that I think what happened should be understood in the light of the peace negotiations that Trump is trying to conduct right now. And that he was looking forward to a quick peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and that what happened was really a way that they were trying to get Zelensky in line with the way that the Americans envision a peace process. So, it was planned that there would be an ambush on Zelensky. I think that was quite clear that this was not incidental. It happened already by the car that they started to push sarcastic remarks in Zelensky's direction. So, it was planned that there would be an ambush. There would be a humiliation of Zelensky. But I also think it was the plan that the minerals deal would be signed. That this would be Zelensky basically submitting to the Americans, demonstrating his willingness to endure whatever embarrassment they would throw at him, whatever humiliation, and then still sign a deal that the Americans would present as a very bad deal for Ukraine and a very good deal for the Americans. So basically that they could push Zelensky into signing whatever, and that this would set a precedent for the next signing, which would be a big deal with Putin.

So, I think that's what the plan was with what happened, and it did not go as intended. So, while the ambush on Zelensky was intentional, it did not have the effects that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance had believed it would have.

I've said multiple times that what we need to be aware of is that the Americans, Trump and the team there, they don't have a plan. They don't know how to actually get peace in Ukraine. They think they have a plan, they thought that this would be much easier than it really is. But it really isn't. And they're now beginning to realize that this won't work. What they have understood now is that basically the positions of Ukraine and Russia are incompatible, so there is no easy deal to be had here. And they believe that it is easier to push the Ukrainians into a deal, into making compromises, than it is to push Russia.

So, I think that's what we're looking at here, that they are trying to save the peace process that they envision. And clearly, Zelensky was not in a position where he could go along with that. It was not an option that he could start saying nice things about Putin and acknowledge that Ukraine was in a really bad position and that the Ukrainian military would more or less surrender, which is basically the plan that appears to be coming out from this American-Russian relationship. It appears more or less to be just that the Ukrainians will have to accept the Russian ideas about a peace settlement.

So, I think that's what we're seeing here. That this was about much more than the minerals deal. It was about much more than just meeting for a discussion about potential future aid. That this was really about establishing a precedent that would set a direction forward for the American-led peace process. And I think we can say that this has pretty much stalled. It's quite clear by now that this will not work out. It will not be possible for Donald Trump to achieve peace in the way that he believed in the short term, and that was quite predictable.

As I've said many times, the interesting thing is not what Donald Trump says that he will do here and now. The interesting thing is what Donald Trump will do when that turns out not to work. So, we now know that Donald Trump appears to be blaming the Ukrainians for the fact that it's not going to be possible in the short term to reach a deal. And that means that he will go ahead and try to push Ukraine into doing that, probably by withholding military support.

And then, I guess, the next realizations in all this will be that withholding military support for Ukraine is also not going to produce any short term results. And especially if the European countries stand up and finally manage to get their act together and really deliver on the big words, then Ukraine will be able to prevail, maybe even indefinitely, but at least for a very, very long time. And it's not guaranteed that Russia will be able to prevail as long as that.

So, Ukraine still has a pretty good shot if the Europeans manage to deliver now. And if that happens, then I think we might be looking into a situation also where Donald Trump is going to try to apply equal pressure on the Europeans to stop helping Ukraine, because it's really detrimental to his ideas about how the war should end. And he has a lot of credibility riding on that project.

There is no doubt that this is the worst crisis in the NATO alliance since the inception. The European countries now really need to stand up, both for Ukraine, but also for their own security. I think it's pretty clear that the treatment that Trump and Vance gave to Zelensky, they might give the same treatment to any European leader that finds his country in trouble.

So, it's unpredictable times now, but still I think we can see this in the context of the bigger plan about a peace process that Donald Trump believed would be possible. A very naive plan. Very clear from the beginning that this is not going to work. But anyways, slowly he is starting to realize that this is actually a problem he has, and he is now trying to work his way through that.

So, that was my sort of quick reaction, first thoughts on the disastrous meeting between Zelensky and Trump in the White House.