Bad company

A man is known by the company he keeps

Judge a man, not by what he says, but by what he does, by how he treats others. When Trump was named the Republican party candidate for the US Presidency, when it became clear that Joe Biden wasn’t a shoo-in for a second term, that there were serious reservations across the American voters about Kamala Harris, my worry was what a Trump victory would mean for Ukraine.

In the past week or so, we have seen Trump label the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a ‘dictator’, claim that Ukraine started the war, and order the US to vote with Russia and against Europe on an issue of European security. The first time this has happened since 1945. That noise you can hear? It’s Senator Joe McCarthy – he of the Reds-under-the-Bed, McCarthy witch-hunts against Communists – spinning in his grave. Ronald Regan too, and probably Gorbachev. The US sided with Russia, with North Korea, with Belarus and other countries that had been off the US Christmas card list for decades, voting against a resolution which blamed Russia for invading Ukraine & supported Ukraine’s sovereignty & territorial integrity.

Now, one could argue that a UN resolution is just words, it’s pieces of paper, digitally signed PDFs that say stuff but don’t do anything. But in this case, it’s the optics that count. And the optics on this are very bad indeed.

The stuff that Trump has said about Ukraine starting the war, and that Zelensky could have stopped it at any point, just by giving in to Russian demands isn’t worth arguing about here. We all know that it’s a pile of what comes out of the back of a horse.

The news this morning that Ukraine has agreed a deal with the US to allow access to Ukraine’s minerals in repayment for the last three years of war help will be music to Trumps ears. Here he is, the big businessman, successfully pulling off a deal, getting his hands on lucrative mineral resources, in just payment for everything that the US has done. What the UK and European countries did because it was the right thing to do, the moral thing to do – supporting an illegally invaded country with weapons and funds – the US has now decided it needs paying for. Great job. Well done. You’re the best. Except, think about this – you, Mr President can be granted all the minerals and resources  you like, but you’ll have to protect them.  Ukraine has not just graphite, uranium and titanium but – also the largest lithium resources in all of Europe.  Why the heck do you think Putin wanted Ukraine in the first place?

Perhaps Trump thinks that his tremendous friendship with Putin will mean the two of them can carve up all the best bits of Ukraine (and God forbid, any other countries that Putin is eyeing up – and you know he is) between them. Maybe he thinks that they can then do that with the rest of the world. Possibly bringing China in on the deal, because, why not? They could just divide the world between the three powers. Maybe call themselves Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.

We judge a man by the company he keeps. Mr US President, I see you. I judge you.