Trump's policy on Ukraine

Here is a video with my impressions and reflections on the first 10 days of Donald Trump's presidency, and how it's going in relation to the war in Ukraine.

Transcript:

Donald Trump has now been in office for about 10 days and I think it's time to share some thoughts about how it's going in terms of his messaging and his decisions and the war in Ukraine. I think it's quite clear that it has not been as bad as some people had feared that he would shut down the military aid to Ukraine and those things. That has not happened. Clearly Donald Trump has been more harsh on Russia than many people had expected, and he has been more supportive of Ukraine. So, for example, we have seen the military aid continuing. The decisions that the Biden administration made about how to support Ukraine, that aid has more or less continued. The more humanitarian aid has stopped, and that's not only about Ukraine, it's about almost the entire world, that the USAID has put a freeze on their aid. But the military support for Ukraine has continued. The deliveries have indeed continued.

And also there has been some very strong messaging, some threats against the Russians, that if they don't demonstrate some willingness to meet for actual negotiations and have a willingness to do some of the necessary compromises, then Donald Trump will indeed do something to punish Russia into submission. It's been about economic threats, like threats of sanctions, tariffs, those things. So not really threats about how he's going to increase the military support for Ukraine, but still it's quite interesting to see how after taking office, Donald Trump is clearly blaming Putin more than Zelensky for the fact that the war is still ongoing and that we don't have real negotiations.

So I think we can say that has been positive. And it does leave a bit of room for optimism about the continued support for Ukraine.

What's also clear is that Donald Trump absolutely does not have a plan for how to end the war. He pretended many times during the campaign that he did have, in fact, a plan and that it would be super effective and so forth. Now it's very clear he did not have a plan at all. These people that are coming into office, they don't know how to end the war. They don't have any idea about what it will take to actually achieve that aside from just putting Zelensky and Putin together in a room so they can talk it out.

So they are basically just throwing ideas out there. We're seeing that Donald Trump is doing that. We're seeing the special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, doing that, we're seeing other people just more or less throwing ideas into the air to see, well, is there some something here that might work. So it's very clear they don't actually know how to end the war or what they want to do.

It's also, I think, very clear that they don't really have any ideas about what they want to get out of the war. Donald Trump wants the war to end, but he does not seem to have any ideas about how it should end, like what would a good end state look like? From an American point of view, what do they want to achieve? What kind of peace would they like to see in Europe, aside from the fact that they want the fighting to stop, and they kind of want it to be a durable peace, so it doesn't, you know, it's not something that there's another war breaking out in a couple of years. But aside from that, what would victory look like? What is a good end state? We've seen nothing of that. So as long as the fighting stops, then it appears that Donald Trump would be happy.

And that is, I think, a reason for some caution, because it also means that basically there are no ideals in this. If the fighting stops, then, you know, however that looks, that might entail that Putin gets to keep whatever he wants. Ukraine will probably not be a member of NATO. Maybe they will not be a member of the EU. Maybe they will not be an entirely independent country. As long as the fighting stops, that seems to be the primary priority.

So I think even though there is apparently more support for Ukraine now than many people had feared that there would be when Trump took office, there is also a reason to be cautious here just because it seems to be a very fragile kind of support that could turn around and we might suddenly see him take another position if he experiences that at some point it is the Ukrainians that are in opposition to ending the fighting. So that is a reason for caution here. It's just simply the fact that Donald Trump doesn't really seem to have any ideas about what a good outcome of the war would be.

Another thing I think is a bit worrying is the fact that Donald Trump seems okay with the idea of him negotiating with Putin. So there will probably be a meating between Donald Trump and Putin personally without participation from the Ukrainians, without any participation from other governments or maybe the EU. Just Putin and Trump together in a room they will be discussing this. And this is actually something that the Russians have been pushing for a while that they really want this negotiation to be a question between Russia and the United States so it's the great powers that determine the fate of Europe going forward. So I think it's a bit worrying that suddenly what used to be the talking point that "nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine", is suddenly maybe not supported by the American president. And who knows what can come out of that when Donald Trump and Putin are alone in a room and they start talking about how to draw the lines on a future map of spheres of interest, or whatever Putin can persuade Donald Trump to talk about.

So I think that's also a reason for caution. But overall, I would say, I think, we're off to maybe a better start than many people had feared. It looks like the support for Ukraine, at least for now, is continuing from the United States. And it seems that Donald Trump, at least initially, has an understanding that the side that is against actual real negotiations about ending the war is the Russians, and not the Ukrainians. So that's really good.

But I am a bit worried that the motivation behind this seems very shallow. Both a very shallow understanding of the dynamics in the war, and what the two sides actually want, and what the interests of the United States would be. But also about the fact that when it is such a shallow understanding… When Donald Trump doesn't really have any other goals than just the fighting needs to end, then suddenly what started out initially as a pretty good beginning where he is supporting Ukraine, that could turn around if suddenly the Russians are successful in persuading him that it's actually the Ukrainians that have unreasonable demands.

All right, those were just my initial reactions after 10 days with Donald Trump, and I didn't even get to mention Greenland. It's going to be a couple of bumpy years ahead.