reflectivepundit

The Trump/Putin Peace Initiative: Are NATO Allies and Ukraine Sold Down the River?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his book “Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again” Donald J. Trump presented the principles of a “credible foreign policy” in seven bullet points. The third principle stated, “Stay loyal to your friends and suspicious of your enemies.” Never mind what he or his ghostwriters wrote and he said years ago. In the first few weeks of his second presidency, Trump has shown no loyalty to the dependable Western allies and no suspicion but rather friendship to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president’s announcement that he and Putin will meet in Saudi-Arabia to negotiate a Russian-Ukraine peace arrangement sold NATO allies and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky down the river. Zelensky and NATO leaders were informed after Trump and Putin had spoken and found out that they would not be part of the peace negotiations.

The White House did not reveal what the president promised Putin at the expense of Ukraine. But one of his talking heads, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, told European leaders that Ukraine would not get back all the territory Russian captured since 2014. He also nixed the idea of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO and excluded US participation in a possible European peace force between Russia and Ukraine. In short, the U.S. gave away the store before the peace negotiations started. Moscow celebrated the good friendship between the strong Russian and strong American leader.

During his visit at NATO headquarters Hegseth told the allies furthermore that they could no longer count on the full commitment of the U.S. because, as he put is, the “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” The Associated Press reported on this today under the headline, “NATO is in disarray after the US announces that its security priorities lie elsewhere.”

Ultimately, what is playing out now may well transcend the relationships between the U.S., NATO, and Putin.

With Putin leader no longer kept in line by a NATO lead by the U.S., he may act on other territorial ambitions sometime in the future. Trump has his own expansion plans that are no longer laughing matters: He continues to threaten Canada that it must become the 51^st US state, Denmark to hand over Greenland, and Panama to give the Panama Canal back to the United States.

Und China’s Xi’s design for Taiwan is no secret.

Strongmen tend to admire each other’s forceful and ruthless words and deeds. As fantastic it may seem at first sight, the reality of today’s line-up of dominating leaders could result in a new imperialistic world order in which super-strongmen Trump, Putin, and Xi each get and dominate their own sphere of interest.   

The drumbeat of shocking actions inside the U.S. has dominated the news since Trump returned to the Oval Office. That may explain, why there is not much attention in the news to the rapidly changing realities in international relations that could eventually prove as harmful as the domestic challenges.

Similarities and Differences between Car Pioneers Henry Ford and Elon Musk

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, had the foresight to produce the first automobile that was affordable for the middle class. But the successful industrialist, who became one of the wealthiest persons of his time, was also a staunch antisemite. To spread anti-Jewish biases, he purchased in The Dearborn Independent, for which he wrote a series of conspiratorial articles about the so-called global Jewish threat. After some of those racist articles were published in book-form and translated into several foreign languages, Germany’s Adolf Hitler made no secret of his admiration for Ford’s anti-Jewish tracts. Indeed, in 1938 Hitler awarded Ford with the “Grand Cross of the German Eagle,” Germany’s highest award for foreigners.

A century later, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, had the foresight to build electric vehicles that were applauded for their environmental benefits. Once he became the richest man in the world, Musk bought the social media platform Twitter and altered it into a far-right online media named X that did not fact-check certain hate speech. The day Trump was inaugurated, Musk used the “Heil Hitler” salute in his appearance before a celebrating MAGA crowd. Six days later, he gave his explicit support to the neo-Nazi Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) Party in Germany declaring in his virtual speech that it was time for Germany to “move on” from “past guilt.” His listeners understood what he meant, namely, that the German people should simply forget about the holocaust and the death of six million Jews during Hitler’s Third Reich.  

Henry Ford was a politically influential player in the first decades of the 20^th century. But neither Ford nor any other unelected person was ever given so much direct decision-making power as Musk got within the first two weeks of the Trump regime. That was his award for donating $277 million to the Trump campaign 2024.

The other day, it was reported that Musk and his minions gained unprecedented access to the Treasury Department’s records of the recipients of government payments. One can only assume that this is a key to the work of his imaginary Department of Government Efficiency and/or the new rule of revenge in the administration. The abrupt closing of the USAID agency’s headquarters and its work around the world is also part of the executive power grabs at the expense of the legislative branch.

The Republican majorities in both houses of the Congress are on their knees and not willing to defend their constitutional roles. Many are happy sycophants; others know better but are afraid of MAGA’s revenge against anyone not 100 percent behind the authoritarian rule of the oligarchs.

Those, who criticize congressional Democrats for not fighting what is unfolding, forget the restrictive role of the minority. It is only, when the negative consequences of the just started tariff war and other ill-advised policies of the current administration hit home in the electorate, that Democrats can and must blame those who caused the dilemmas to come…