This is not a peace process: it is favoring Russia and will not only have effects for Ukraine

A few hours ago, Donald Trump took a new step in this farce that he has disguised as a "peace process," but which is something very different.

Trump, a treason to Ukraine and the West that many conservatives reject
Trump's shameful attitude towards Zelensky: rudeness to the victim and praise to the aggressor

Trump suspends military aid to Ukraine: a victory for Putin

US President has suspended all military aid to Ukraine, something that Putin can celebrate as a complete triumph. It is worth asking whether everything that has happened in recent days was aimed at finding excuses to make that decision and turn its back on the Ukrainian people, because all the actions of the Trump administration seem to have been directed towards that purpose, far from being the shrewd negotiating strategy that Trump's staunch defenders claimed.

An unjust peace without security guarantees would mean another war in a few years

Ultimately, Trump offered Zelensky an unfair peace without security guarantees, which would mean allowing Putin to keep the parts of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia and have time to prepare a new attack in a few years. Such a peace would entail a serious risk of a repeat of the war, but Trump did not care: if anything has become clear in recent weeks, it is that the US president seeks to get closer to Russia in order to distance it from China, a very illusory and mistaken strategy, since Russia depends heavily on China and is its main ally.

Trump administration actions that signal rapprochement with Russia

Given this, the ambush against Zelensky in the White House was not accidental: it was an attempt by Trump to obtain the excuse he was looking for to stop helping Ukraine. This explains other events that we have seen in recent days from the Trump administration:

• Saying that "Putin wants peace", words spoken by Trump while the Russian dictator continued to attack Ukraine.
• Blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion which was ordered by Putin.
• Calling Zelensky a "dictator" but not Putin, whose regime is a full-fledged dictatorship.
• Voting alongside Russia and North Korea at the UN against a resolution rejecting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, something truly unusual.
• Repeating the slogans of Russian propaganda about Ukraine, as Trump's national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, did yesterday, without uttering even the slightest criticism of Putin.

This is not what one would expect from a mediator in a peace process, and even less so from a president who claims to support Ukraine while at the same time hurling such infamies at the attacked country. This is favouring Russia, just as it is cutting off the supply of military aid to Ukraine because that country has refused to accept the unjust peace without security guarantees that Trump wanted to impose on it.

Did Trump hide this plan from US citizens before the election?

The question now is: Did Trump already plan to do this before the election and did he hide it from the US citizens? Of course, at no point during the election campaign did the current president reveal what this magic solution was that he intended to quickly end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If Trump believed that his solution was admirable and morally impeccable, why would he hide it from the voters? The fact that he did hide it suggests that Trump intended to do something that many US citizens would have considered immoral and that would have cost him votes.

The consequences of this policy for other countries: the case of Australia

Beyond this possible electoral fraud, Trump's decision does not only have consequences for Ukraine. This decision blows up the security guarantees on which the defence policy of many US allied countries was based, not only NATO members, but also Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Australia. It no longer matters that they have Russia among their main threats, as is the case for the last four countries mentioned.

For several days now, Chinese warships have been making a show of force near the Australian coast, something that has logically generated alarm in that country. Trump pretends that he wants to disengage from Europe in order to focus on China, but the reality is that a few days ago he ordered cuts of 50 billion dollars from the defense budget by 2026. Of course, it does not seem like a decision consistent with a strategy to confront the Chinese threat.

A policy that increases the risk of new wars

On the contrary, what Trump is doing is emboldening great powers like China and Russia, something Biden had already done to some extent with his display of weakness these past four years. But whereas Biden emboldened those bullies by displaying weakness, Trump emboldens them by turning his back on his allies, in the name of an isolationist nationalism that ignores the problems of the world and which happens to be the same policy that the US advocated when World War II broke out, a policy that favored the bullies of that time, leaving the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth to defend themselves against Germany, Italy and Japan for two years. With his crazy international policy, Trump is not bringing peace: what he is is considerably increasing the risk of new wars.

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Photo: Reuters.