It is becoming increasingly clear that the changes advocated by Donald Trump, his entourage and a large part of the American high-tech and banking industries should be described as a revolution, or at the very least, a revolutionary approach1. The very principle of MAGA (Make America Great Again) is based not on humanist and moral values, democratic institutions, independent justice, solidarity between Western countries, etc., but on a system of “deals ”, i.e. arrangements, markets, transactions concluded between parties. In these deals, the world’s leading power, the United States, will deal with other countries only from a position of strength.
Canada, don’t you want to become our country’s fifty-first state? We’ll crush you with taxes and worse if you resist. Denmark, since you don’t want to give up Greenland, we’ll take it by force because we need it. Don’t you want to increase your contribution to the common fund to 5% of your respective GDP? Well, I won’t lift a finger to defend you. Russia, won’t you stop this “stupid war” with Ukraine? Despite my personal sympathy for Vladimir Putin, that “ great guy ”, as well as for the Russian people, who are said to have lost 60,000,000 people (sic), helping the United States win the Second World War (sic), if you don’t stop, we’ll strengthen Ukraine’s military power and impose even more taxes on you!
The list is long, and it is likely to get even longer. Trump’s latest idea: relocate the entire Gazan population to Jordan and/or Egypt, to clear it all away and build “beautiful things”. As a real estate developer, he surely dreams of turning the Gaza Strip into a tourist paradise. And as a man of little education, he may never have heard of the existence of the Palestinian refugee camps that have been in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon etc. for decades.
I bring up these ideas of Trump’s to try to understand what to expect from his Ukraine deal. The Ukrainian people have shed and continue to shed their blood so as not to find themselves under Russian domination. They have chosen the European path, are preparing to join the EU and NATO, are fighting corruption, getting rid of the oligarchy, developing civil society and independent justice. Despite the war, the country is slowly making headway. And therein lies the rub. Trump has no empathy or respect for European values or international law. Russian aggression cannot really bother a man who is prepared to seize the territories of other sovereign countries by force. If POTUS does not want the war to continue, it is because it is costing America money, and because stopping the war would enable him to re-establish good relations with Russia and do “excellent business”, both with Russia and with a pacified Ukraine in need of reconstruction. Oh, his real estate flair is always on the lookout for opportunities, let there be no doubt!
Volodymyr Zelensky sensed before Trump’s election that the tide was turning. As a pragmatist, he understood that Trump was capable of “letting go” of Ukraine unless he was offered deals, and indeed suggested that American industrialists should be involved in exploiting Ukraine’s mineral wealth, including rare soil, or that Ukrainian soldiers should be sent to American bases in Europe to replace Americans.
Since the beginning of the war, Zelensky has fought like a lion to obtain international support for Ukraine, to receive arms and much-needed economic aid, and to negotiate a lasting and just peace for his martyred country. But is a deal with Trump possible? And what kind of deal? Let’s not forget that Russia can always offer Trump more, because it is simply richer than Ukraine.
So let’s get back to basics. Europe and several other Western countries got involved in Ukraine to prevent Russia from winning. Not for the sake of deals, but because, until Trump’s election, all Westerners shared the same values with Ukraine: rule of law and democracy. In our paradigm, a cat was a cat, and an aggressor an aggressor. What right do two imperialists, Putin and Trump (after his statements on Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and Gaza, we will have to call him that), have to settle Ukraine’s fate?
Clearly, if Ukraine is abandoned by all its allies, its struggle will turn into Masada, the fortress occupied by a thousand Hebrews who, in the 1st Century A.D., having endured a Roman siege lasting several months, chose to die rather than become slaves. Fortunately, this scenario will not come true. Ukraine does not need to make deals with the Trump administration because its fight is not only on the battlefields, but also in the spheres of morality and justice. If Europe, despite the sirens of Trump or Putin who are trying to seduce certain leaders of European countries, wants to remain the worthy heiress of the Greek city, of the Enlightenment, of Tocqueville, of Churchill, of Jan Palach, it will stand by Ukraine until victory.
At the start of my editorial, I used the word “revolution” when talking about the regime that Donald Trump wants to establish in America: run it like a business, silence critical voices, influence the population via social network algorithms, chase millions of migrants away manu militari, treat them like criminals, abolish “diversity and inclusion” programs in the administration, expel transgender people from the army, and so on. If he succeeds, it will be a rude awakening for Europe, which will have to oppose not only the Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis, but also… the United States.
Once again, this scenario is unlikely to materialize. Unlike Russia, the American people, who have fought for democracy and freedom for nearly two centuries, are strong enough to prevent the United States from self-destructing under Donald Trump. For example, the executive order withdrawing the right to land under certain conditions was immediately challenged in court by twenty-two American states. And this is just the beginning.
Born in Moscow, she has been living in France since 1984. After 25 years of working at RFI, she now devotes herself to writing. Her latest works include: Le Régiment immortel. La Guerre sacrée de Poutine, Premier Parallèle 2019; Traverser Tchernobyl Premier Parallèle, 2016.
