I have not been so shocked by news from US since January 6th '21. I foresaw that Trump would suck up to Putin, but this just five weeks into the four years. It’s unbelievable.
I still stand by my interpretation. While the US may have the lion’s share of decision making opportunities under the agreement, I still think it’s saying the proceeds of the fund are dedicated solely for the purpose of rebuilding Ukraine.
5. The Fund’s investment process will be designed so as to invest in projects in Ukraine and attract investments to increase the development, processing and monetization of all public and private Ukrainian assets including, but not limited to, deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, infrastructure, ports, and state-owned enterprises as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. The Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine intend that the investment process will lead to opportunities for distribution of additional funds and greater reinvestment, to ensure the sufficient supply of capital for the reconstruction of Ukraine as set out in the Fund Agreement.
My interpretation is that while this allows Trump the opportunity to benefit himself by feeding contracts and directing business in Ukraine to his cronies, the benefit to him is restrained by the condition that all monies be used for the purpose of rebuilding Ukraine.
And I don’t think this is what Trump had in mind, Trump wanted Ukraine to give the US money that he could use for whatever he wanted, like putting giant gold statues of Trump on the moon. I think the deal was too beneficial to Ukraine to ever fly with Trump.
ETA: @wguy123 - I didn’t see Max as Putin apologist at all in his responses so far, I just think we have different interpretations of a document that is probably designed to be misinterpreted.
“To the shock of America’s allies, Mr. Vance traveled to the Munich Security Conference two weeks ago and said nothing about assuring that any armistice or cease-fire would come with security guarantees for Ukraine, or about Russia paying any price for its invasion.” — NY Times
Munich, you say? But of course.
Surprisingly the Economist’s take is a bit different to almost everyone else’s.
They see it as, yes, a disgusting and pre-planned trap. But they think Zelensky walked into it, and spoke too rashly.
Personally I still haven’t been able to watch the whole thing, it’s too rage-inducing. Let alone how it must have felt for Zelensky.
@OldOlds Although it’s paywalled, I think people are allowed one free article a week or something, so it can be OK to still post these occasionally
Also, on the wearing a suit issue: he would have been damned either way.
If he had worn a suit for the first time here, then RW media would have said “Look, see where American dollars are going!” but he didn’t and so the talking point was about “disrespect”.
Oh, sorry. I misunderstood you.
Yeah, the Magat I quoted mentioned that. I responded ‘He is the president of a country fighting off an invasion. He should not be wasting time and money on fancy clothes.’
I didn’t know The Economist allowed any free articles
And regarding the suit, that’s just so dumb. Every politician has a brand, and Zelenskyy’s brand is pseudo-military during war. Trump wouldn’t even understand that.
And based on what I was just told, this is the article I mentioned upthread about the Nato hole left by an absent US
I agree Zelensky walked into it. He had to see it coming. But what other choice did he have?
Whether he spoke too rashly…I am not sure. I think he would have been better being more aggressive with Trump/Vance. Tough call.
With Trump it is always money. Penny pincher on anything away from US in any foreign aid. Zelinskyy is just one more foreign thing. War is also just money to Trump.
What he has done is ruined is his own “under US authority” claim that he used with Gaza. No country will follow his claim as he has little to follow up the threat with.
Trump and Vance needed to be schooled, literally. They needed to be taught that allowing – nay, helping – Russia to win this war will have consequences even for the ocean-buffered US.
Trump and Vance chose to be schooled on global television. That was their choice. The Economist is often right, but they blew this one.
There’s that brainwashing I was talking about.
The good guys of the 21st century are going to be the ones who stop the American/Russian axis.
“New York Times” columnist, conservative Bret Stephens wrote “A Day of American Infamy.”
“While Trump’s abuse of Zelensky might delight the MAGA crowd, it isn’t likely to play well with most voters, including the almost 30 percent of Republicans who, even now, believe it’s in our interest to stand with Ukraine. And while most Americans may want to see the war in Ukraine end, they almost surely don’t want to see it end on Vladimir Putin’s terms.”
“Those are points honorable conservatives should press: Can Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska — two Republicans who haven’t sold their souls on Ukraine — lead a delegation of like-minded conservatives to Kyiv?”
"Still, there’s no getting around the fact that Friday was a dreadful day — dreadful for Ukraine, for the free world, for the legacy of an America that once stood for the principles of the Atlantic Charter.“Roosevelt and Reagan must be spinning in their graves, as are Churchill and Thatcher. It’s up to the rest of us to reclaim America’s honor from the gangsters who besmirched it in the White House.”
What collection of nations you imagine that is going to rake on an “axis” of the two largest nuclear powers which between them have more than 85% of the world’s active stockpile and systems to deliver them to any country on the planet in a few scores of minutes?
Stranger
Where are the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this? ISTM they, of all people, would have an opinion but, yet again, they remain weirdly silent. Isn’t it their literal job to have an opinion on things like this?
I imagine they are busy chatting with the Supreme Court and the various other groups that have remained silent while Trump violated various laws.
If the question is: who will win in a full nuclear Armageddon? The answer is nobody. Though yes there might be more Americans alive to fight over the ruins.
In the more likely scenario of conventional combat between Europe and Russia and an America giving only soft power support to the latter, it’s complex but I think Europe would ultimately have the advantage.
Glad you asked, I think that the western democracies will need to:
A) do everything in their power to exacerbate America’s political divides, including covert funding for astroturf secessionist movements (both far left and far right).
B) form alliances with China, jihadists, Iranians and anyone else who hates America, support terrorist groups with funding, training and weapons.
C) Trudeau had the right idea when he announced tariffs targeting red state America, when the shooting starts continue that policy by supporting terrorist action that makes red state America bleed. Remember, we’ve dismantled a lot of our intelligence apparatus, now is the time to plant the operatives. America can’t be defeated in the battlefield it has to be defeated by undermining Trumps fascist base’s support of him and driving a further wedge between red America and blue America, which is the economic heart of the US.
D) again, when the shooting starts support blue state governments who refuse to support Trump action and not only feed secessionist sentiment in blue America, but support the creation of independent countries from blue America and/or allowing remnants of the US to join Canada. Basically try to destroy America from within. We are almost halfway there.
E) China is the wild card, if possible bring them in the coalition.
Every century is bloodier and the last and when an empire dies, the result is global war. Defeating the US and Russia is crucial if democracy will survive and the sooner begun the better while Trump’s support is still soft and before he replaces the government he just dismantled. There was a time when Hitler looked unstoppable, but he was stopped.
The thing is, in the past when Trump hasn’t like a deal someone else negotiated, he hasn’t come up with a complex plot to torpedo the deal: he’s gone on Twitter and talked shit about the deal until the Republican negotiators of the deal back away from it. He’s perfectly comfortable doing that even for deals he negotiated himself.
Coming up with a conspiracy to undermine his own deal without ever admitting it was a bad deal seems too complex to me, when there’s another explanation in front of us: Trump is a whiny insecure asshole who wanted a photo-op of Zelensky crying tears of gratitude, and lost his everloving shit when that didn’t happen, and all Trump’s handlers had to attack Zelensky to make Trump feel better about himself. The Republicans who cared about the deal cared about Trump’s ego more.
I negotiated for a living for years and years. One of the overarching problems with Trump’s “Art of the Deal” style of negotiating is …
It plays out like Mediation often plays out: with a presupposition that the answer is
[(Person A’s position + Person B’s position]/2]
ie, a mathematical average.
But the exact middle – as I referenced with my gross rape analogy – can easily be
Just give him your purse, your car keys, your jewelry, and your credit card, and then he’ll stop
where the only answer that contemplates even a scintilla of right/wrong, decency, humanity, history, law, and/or any understanding of the situation whatsoever is …
GET THE FUCK OFF OF HER BEFORE I PUT A BULLET IN YOUR GODDAMNED BRAIN STEM!
TL;DR really, really? Trump’s as bad at negotiating as he is at everything else he does. Bad. Really, really bad. And that’s before we consider deeply the true nature of his apparent fealty to Putin.
Preferably on his knees.
This. Trump sees every encounter – even a handshake – as a contest where there must be a winner and a loser. If both sides are satisfied, then in Trump’s (excuse for a) mind, he lost. And that cannot be.