Why Trump wants Ukraine to lose – and what to do about it

In this video, I discuss the rupture in the relationship between the United States and Ukraine following Trump's diesel deal with Putin. By now, it should be clear that the European approach to dealing with Trump has not worked, and that a different approach is needed going forward.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

There is a new low point in the relationship between the United States and Ukraine. Trump has eased sanctions on Russia, and, it seems, at least temporarily, he also reduced intelligence sharing with Ukraine and limited the usability of Starlink. And Zelensky talks about how he feels betrayed by the United States and how it's painful to lose a strong partner that Ukraine has relied upon.

It's too early to say where all this will end, and therefore it's also too early to say what the military consequences would be for the war. But what I want to do in this video is to talk about some of the underlying dynamics of what on earth is going on, and especially about where I think Ukraine has gone wrong in the negotiations with the United States since Trump came into office, and also what they and other European countries can do about it. So let's talk about it.

This week, we saw a rupture in the relationship between Ukraine and the Trump administration. Trump has been talking about how Ukraine needs a new leader and how Zelensky is an obstacle to peace. And on the contrary, Zelensky has said straight out that Trump has chosen Russia over Ukraine and that the United States is on the wrong side of history. So clearly, these two leaders are quite far from each other right now.

And it's remarkable, because since the big fight in the White House more than a year and a half ago, Zelensky has been careful not to be too direct in any kind of criticism of Donald Trump. Ukraine has always also been very eager to demonstrate that they have good faith in the peace negotiations and that they were very supportive of all the initiatives that Trump was taking. But now it's clear that this approach is not working anymore. And they have hit a roadblock where it's impossible for Zelensky to keep up the appearance of being supportive of the steps that Donald Trump is taking.

The reason for that is the diesel deal that Trump has made with Putin. The United States is now easing sanctions on Russia in order to allow Russian export of diesel. And this is something that will give Putin more money that he can use to wage war on Ukraine. But it will also send a message to Putin that Russia is about to be welcomed back into the world economy. And this runs directly against Ukraine's idea of how they are going to end the war. Their idea is that they were going to be pressuring Putin into peace negotiations. But why would he do that when he's getting the benefit of sanctions relief even without actually ending the war in Ukraine?

So with Trump's latest actions, he has crossed a line where it's no longer possible to say that the United States overall is reluctantly supporting Ukraine, for example, or even that they play a role as a neutral mediator. With this diesel deal, the United States is actually helping Ukraine's enemy prevail in the war. And that's obviously something that Ukraine has to respond to in one way or another.

But I think the deep disappointment that we can see from the Ukrainian reactions also says something that is quite important about a misunderstanding that, unfortunately, has been quite widespread in Ukraine about how Trump operates and what it was possible to get out of the negotiations.

And this is actually a bit unusual for me, because normally I talk about how the Ukrainians have the most clear understanding of the war and how it's people in the West or in Russia that misunderstand this or that thing. But in this case, it is a Ukrainian misunderstanding that we need to talk about.

And the misunderstanding is about Trump's psychology. And it's, of course, not all Ukrainians who share this misunderstanding. But I've heard enough say it that I can say that it's a view that many people in Ukraine have had. And we can also see from public statements that even the people that are engaged directly in the negotiations with the Americans have, to a large extent, had this idea.

And that idea is the idea that Trump likes winners and that he respects strength. So if Ukraine can show that they are winning the war and that they are strong, then it would be possible to change Trump's opinion about Ukraine. Because Trump likes to be on the winning team. And this would persuade him that the winning team is Team Ukraine and not Team Russia.

This, unfortunately, is a tragic misunderstanding of how Trump works. There are many reasons why Trump behaves the way he does. Some of them are psychological. Some of them are related to narcissistic personality disorder. For example, Vlad Vexler has some great videos about that. Other reasons are related to corruption. Even though Ukraine is a country that has issues with corruption, there's just no way that they can compete with Russia when it comes to corruption. And Russia just has much more willingness to pay money to Donald Trump's family.

But the misunderstanding that I'm talking about here is the failure to see that behind Donald Trump's actions is actually also ideology. Trump is not an ideologue in the sense that he can formulate these things very clearly. But when you listen to what he says, it is clear that there are some quite strong ideas behind it. And they are related to the mentality that might is right. And that's also why he thinks corruption is okay, for example. If I have the power to enrich myself, then, of course, why should I not do it? But it's also might is right in his understanding of countries and how great powers have the right to establish empires over their neighbors and to exploit those relationships with weaker states.

Trump is, deep in his heart, an imperialist. It's an imperialist mindset that guides many of his foreign policy decisions. It is this mindset we see in relation to Venezuela, to Greenland, to Canada, and also to Ukraine. The difference between the first three and Ukraine is that when it comes to Venezuela, Greenland, and Canada, then we are talking about American imperialism. We are talking about the right of the United States to dominate these countries.

But when we're talking about Ukraine, it's more of a mirror reflection. Trump doesn't really see that the United States has any particular interests in being in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, he sees Ukraine as a territory that Russia, quite logically, has the right to dominate. So Donald Trump ideologically actually believes that Putin has a good point. And he supports Russia's cause because it is the same principle that gives Russia the right to dominate Ukraine that also gives the United States the right to dominate Canada.

Donald Trump fundamentally sees Ukraine as a kind of European version of Canada. He doesn't acknowledge Ukraine's right to sovereignty, just as he doesn't acknowledge Canada's right to sovereignty. And he also, and probably rightfully so, believes that if he helps Ukraine prevail against Russia, and Ukraine comes out of this war in a position of strength, then Ukraine will use that strength to support Canada in their struggle against him.

So this is the understanding we need to have about what's going on inside of Trump and how he personally would like to see things go in the war in Ukraine. We need to understand that it is actually an ideological issue for him and that he wants to see Russia win. So the idea that if Ukraine can demonstrate strength and that they are winning over Russia, and then Donald Trump would change his mind and he would suddenly start supporting Ukraine, that's just absolutely wrong. Because it's quite on the contrary that the stronger Ukraine gets and the bigger trouble Russia is in, the more Donald Trump is going to turn against Ukraine, because ultimately he would like to see Russia win.

So that's one thing we need to keep in mind when we are trying to understand what's happening within negotiations and why they haven't really led to anything over the last year and a half. And in itself, that is, of course, pretty bleak that the president of the United States wants to see Ukraine losing the war.

But there is another thing that we also need to understand, and that is that even though Trump looks at it and feels about it this way personally, and he would like to see Russia win, it might still be possible for Ukraine to work with him and to get what they want. Trump is not omnipotent. He is a politician who is exposed to all kinds of pressures that limit his options and that set boundaries for what it's possible for him to do.

And there is still very strong support for Ukraine in the United States, and this creates domestic pressures that Trump has to deal with. And that means that he can't just go ahead and support Russia as much as he would like. And also internationally, Trump runs into the problem that many other countries support Ukraine. And this means that it's not necessarily up to him to make these decisions alone. If the United States abandons Ukraine, but the Europeans keep supporting Ukraine, then Ukraine is not actually going to lose. It just makes him look weak. And if he goes too far, then it's going to push the European countries even more in the direction of abandoning America's weapons technology. And this will hurt American financial interests.

What I'm saying is that the approach to handling Trump is not flattery. It's not about trying to persuade him to see your point or to change his mind or to say the things that he would like to hear. The way to handle Donald Trump is to focus on his weaknesses and to identify the pressure points that you can exploit to push him into giving you what you want, even when he doesn't want to. In other words, it's politics.

The European countries need to acknowledge that there is a genuine clash of political ideas. That the current U.S. administration doesn't actually want a strong European continent that consists of small states that work together and that gain strength through collaboration. What they want is a lot of small, weak European states that empires can then dominate.

So I think it's important that we elevate the discussion in Europe and stop pretending that it's some kind of rhetorical exercise in how to sweet-talk Donald Trump. People have had long debates about whether Zelensky has been too direct in his criticism in different interviews and how Donald Trump would feel about that. But that is totally missing the point. The focus needs to be on how Zelensky and other European leaders, through their words and actions, can target the pressure points that limit the political options that Donald Trump has.

For example, some people have criticized Zelensky's interview with Piers Morgan because he was very direct in his criticism of Donald Trump. But the reality is that the interview was extremely successful because it hit all the right buttons in all the right places in American society. Most Americans don't like to hear that they are on the wrong side of history. Most Americans actually understand where Zelensky is coming from. So that interview generated political pressure on Donald Trump. And it actually looks like afterwards, suddenly, the intelligence sharing started working again, and Starlink also began to operate. We're at a point now where nobody in Washington wants to take responsibility for the decision to shut down these things in the first place. So I think this interview that Zelensky gave was an example of a very successful intervention.

So instead of focusing on how to say things that Donald Trump wants to hear, we should start having a genuine political discussion about how the current U.S. government is not on Europe's side in this conflict and what we can do to still get what we want.

I think in the end, it will be possible for Ukraine to maintain some level of support from the United States. Already now, as I said, Starlink is working again. And my hunch is that intelligence sharing will also continue. Many people actually have a wrong idea about what intelligence sharing actually means. But in reality, it is mostly early warnings about Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities. The intelligence that comes from American satellites allows the Ukrainians to sound the air raid alert, and then people will have time to seek shelter. When Trump talks about stopping intelligence sharing with Ukraine, what he's saying is really that he will remove that possibility for the Ukrainians to save civilian lives. And that is just an idea that's going to be extremely unpopular in the United States. And Donald Trump will realize that taking that step is something that is probably outside the scope of what is politically possible for him.

I'm less certain about the diesel deal. And Trump might still go ahead and ease the sanctions on Russia. I hope the political pressure will be big enough to force him into changing course on that as well. But he might go through with it. Either way, I think he's going to have to realize that it will be impossible for him to stop Ukraine from actually attacking Russian refineries. And also that he's going to discover that even though they do that, then he will still have to maintain some level of support for Ukraine.