Donald Trump’s apparent willingness for the US to work with allies on a “security guarantee” for Ukraine represents a diplomatic coup for Europe and is a volte face by the US President.
It has come most likely because an uncomfortable truth is creeping up his spine – America’s power is fast dwindling.
European power has surged, though. And all thanks to the 47th president of the United States who wanted to Make America Great Again but has enfeebled its influence by forcing allies to look after themselves.
The result is that he has backed away from his previous refusal to consider any US part in future Ukrainian security guarantees – because if he’s not going to be in that tent, he’ll have no voice around the campfire.
European leaders have worked every version of flattery and guile to try to get Trump to comprehend the gravity of the summit between himself and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
They have been panic stricken that he would meander into a session with the former KGB agent – a master of detail, credible obfuscation, trained interrogator, charmer and ruthless autocrat – without any preparation.
Their concerns spring from the fact that Trump foreign policy team has become something of a joke in the international community. There’s no US ambassador to Moscow or Kyiv.
Former property tycoon Steve Witkoff – and now Trump’s special envoy – is seen as a man of spectacular incompetence in the face of the Kremlin’s ferociously efficient operations that draw on more than 100 years of uninterrupted effort to subvert the West.
Witkoff has repeatedly used an unsecured mobile phone in Russia – the equivalent of handing over state secrets in lovely wrapped gift boxes. In meetings with Putin, he relies on Russia’s official translator, brings no US officials with him, takes no notes, and then relies on his memory to brief the president.
In March he was roundly criticised for being unable to name the four Ukrainian provinces Russia annexed in September 2022 alongside Crimea which was stolen by force in 2014.
No wonder his team has been briefing the impossible and bizarre idea that Putin may be offered a “West Bank” style occupation of eastern Ukraine modelled on Israel’s occupation of lands it captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
Witkoff doesn’t comprehend that under Russian law the four eastern provinces partly held by Russia are all, entirely, now already part of Russia itself.
Israel has built vast Jewish-only colonies on the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law. It is also the scene of relentless conflict and violence from settlers who, human rights groups say, kill Palestinians with impunity.
It would be impossible to find a more legally or practically flawed example of a “successful” occupation.
But circulating the idea indicates just how low-brow Trump’s top foreign policy advisers are as he prepares to meet with Putin.
The US National Security Council has been eviscerated. About a quarter of the state department’s staff have left office since January. Trump’s Director of National Intelligence is supposed to coordinate all data from the CIA, FBI, state department and all other agencies to stove pipe the best advice to the Oval Office.
That job is currently held by Tulsi Gabbard – who has been a fulsome supporter of Bashar al Assad’s dictatorship in Syria and Putin’s rule over Russia. She has also been accused of being a noted conspiracy theorist.
In July she used her office to launch an attack on Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama for what she said were their efforts to subvert American democracy in 2016 – this was when US intelligence agencies had concluded that it was Russia that had been doing just that.
Her office said: “Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard [has] revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”
They haven’t produced any evidence for the allegation, but her effort will be noted with delight by Putin, who has worked very hard in the US, EU and UK, to subvert democracy and encourage self-harming policies like Brexit.
In term of the Alaska summit, it is the equivalent – as one senior Whitehall official said to me – of “sending flat earthers to talks on astronomy”.
Unfortunately, Trump’s team have no grasp on facts, or truth, and therefore no grasp on reality either.
Except, perhaps, that this may be the last chance Trump has to be a player in the Ukraine theatre before he’s reduced to a mere purveyor of arms.
Trump demanded that Nato’s European members and Canada stand on their own and pay their way for defence. His campaign was effective.
Nato’s non-US allies now see America as an unreliable ally and have rushed to rearm and expand their military capabilities. They’ll soon be able to stand and operate independently of the US.
Ukraine, too, has surged its weapons manufacture and is now a world leader in the latest drone technology. Nato will never again assume it can rely on the US. This means American leverage and power is much diminished.
In Ukraine, the US has spent €114 billion with Trump now cutting all foreign military aid. In contrast, Europe and the UK have spent, or pledged, €250 billion, including a recent order worth €1.5 billion worth of US arms.
These are arms, in many cases, that can be bought elsewhere. The US has become an arms supermarket not a market maker.
Trump has found diplomacy much harder than he anticipated, as he himself admits when it come to Ukraine. The Nobel Prize he so believes he already deserves is far away too. That is frustrating enough. But not as mortifying as not being a player at all.
He’s learning that if he wants a part on the international stage he may have to take an ensemble role – or stay in the wings.
