Trump Ready To Play Ball With Putin

Initially, it seemed as if the US president was really interested in getting the Russia-Ukraine war ended, but subsequent developments have showed that he is doing so by getting his pound of the Ukrainian flesh, in the form of its rare earth mineral deposits, and also clamouring to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, the way Donald Trump has sought to do so, makes it clear that he is hell-bent on giving the Russian President Vladimir Putin a respectful seat at the table, in addition to antagonising America’s European and Nato partners. In a matter of days, the United States has brought Russia in from the cold, bringing the US and Russia too close, ignoring the European countries and the rest of the world.

This has also resulted in changing the anti-West narrative in Russia, though President Trump’s first steps toward getting his deal in Ukraine were met with a storm of emotions in Moscow.

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, senior fellows at the Centre for European Policy Analysis in their analysis of the situation for Politico magazine wrote that never before has Russian media cited its Western counterparts so extensively.

After all, for the last three years, Russian society was told to turn away from the treacherous, decadent West and look toward the East — namely, China and North Korea. And yet, even the country’s most influential daily Kommersant — typically known for its reasonable and rational tone — ran the headline “Putin’s triumph” in its review of international coverage surrounding Trump’s phone call with the Russian president.

This move apparently assuage Putin’s ego, and his desire to be seen as the leader of Europe. In fact, it translates into a new narrative in which Putin is seen as being met with respect by Trump as an equal partner and the emerging scenario in which Europe and Ukraine will be pushed to the margins.

Further what appals everyone is that as more bizarre details of the US-Russia deal, not the peace plan that emerged, it became apparent that in a most extraordinary move, Trump has tried to claim half of Ukraine’s rare earth metals wealth — in a play that exploited an invaded nation’s desperate vulnerability, as reported by CNN. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately rejected the “deal.”

In his analysis of the situation, CNN’s Stephen Collinson rightly points out that Trump appears to have little understanding of the historical hazards either in Ukraine or indeed in the Middle East, given his plan to move the Palestinians from Gaza so he can build beach resorts.

Collinson opines further that Trump’s view of every geopolitical crisis as a real estate deal waiting to be clinched, suggests he might embrace an agreement that lets Putin keep all of the land he’s stolen just to stop the killing.

A hurried peace deal that strengthens Russia and weakens European security by validating Putin’s expansionism would likely sow the seeds for an even worse future war, he says.

At the end of the Cold War, President George HW Bush managed the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe – sometimes overruling regional leaders in the wider interests of the West and their own security. There’s no sign that Trump feels any such affinity for Europe or its future.

In retrospect, it’s baffling why European governments were so surprised. Trump is only doing what he said he’d do on the campaign trail. Their misreading of the US president led to the embarrassing spectacle of key European leaders rushing to Paris for emergency talks on Monday last, to work out how to respond to being cut out of the game.

According to the US president, Ukraine’s underground mineral reserves should now belong to America. Last week, the new US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, visited Kyiv. He presented Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with a surprise claim to half of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, as well as to its oil, gas, and infrastructure such as ports. The $500bn bill was “payback” for previous US military assistance to Ukraine, the White House explained.

Zelenskyy refused to sign the agreement. He made it clear Washington had to give security guarantees before any deal could be reached on the country’s vast natural resources, about 5% of global mineral reserves. He also pointed out that the US had given $69.2bn in military aid – less than the sum Trump was now demanding – and added that other partners such as the EU, Canada and the UK might be interested in investing, too.

Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz is trying hard to portray Trump as a peacemaker. “He’s going to end the war in Europe. He is going to end the wars in the Middle East. He is going to reinvest the United States and our leadership in our own hemisphere, from the Arctic to the border to Panama,” he said.

“By the end of this all, we’re going to have the Nobel Peace Prize sitting next to the name of Donald J Trump,” he added.

Fortune magazine reports that Trump’s proposed contract has drawn comparisons to the reparations imposed by the Allies on a defeated Germany in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. Germany accepted liability for roughly $32 billion, or about $560 billion today. Most historians cite German resentment of the treaty and the country’s resulting economic malaise as a significant cause of the rise of the Nazi Party and the outbreak of World War II.

However, a detailed analysis of the situation reveals that by demanding a lion’s share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, Trump wants to get access to rare earth minerals, which at the moment are in China’s control.

Essentially Trump is not bothered by how he sidelines Europe and gives a boost to Putin’s ego, in reality as a trader and a businessman, he wants to control these mineral resources for the benefit of maintaining the US hegemony in emerging critical areas of defence and space technology, and in the meanwhile also try to get nominated as a candidate for the Noble Peace Prize, and the manner in which he’ll manage that campaign, will become tomorrow’s headlines.

(Asad Mirza is a New Delhi-based senior commentator on national, international, defence and strategic affairs, environmental issues, an interfaith practitioner, and a media consultant.)