Trump’s Foreign Policy – A Protection Racket

President Trump and his MAGA sycophants still propagate Russian falsehoods and disinformation about the war in Ukraine, including the fiction that the 2022 Russian invasion would not have happened if Trump, rather than Joe Biden, were president then.

Here are the facts. The Russian invasion and attempted takeover started in 2013, when the then Ukrainian President, Victor Yanukovich, a sock puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin, suspended an evolving economic association agreement with the European Union. Yanukovich’s decision unleashed a massive wave of protests throughout Ukraine. The protests turned violent in January 2014, leading to the overthrow of Yanukovich, the election of a new pro-Europe President, Petro Poroshenko, and the election of a new government that enjoyed wide popular support. Meanwhile, Putin’s response to these developments was to send under-cover Russian troops (that is, army troops stripped of identifying insignia) to take over Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, and to back Russian separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Both Russia and the United States are obliged – since the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to relinquish nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees – to defend Ukraine, an agreement both countries are currently violating.

Both Obama and Biden correctly saw Russia as the aggressor and as a clear threat to the NATO alliance. Their response was to strengthen the alliance and put it clearly on the side of Ukraine by organizing military aid to the Ukrainians. They also organized the international community to impose strict sanctions on Russia. Since the 2022 invasion, this aid has included satellite and other intelligence to help the Ukrainian army deploy its resources effectively to thwart Russian advances. This policy has been successful in preventing a complete Russian takeover of Ukraine.

This Russian intimidation and U.S.-led show of strength has also led to Finland and Sweden coming into NATO.

Trump, however, sees the war very differently. For him, everything is a business transaction, and he will exact a “transaction cost” in any deal he makes. He has no over-arching foreign policy vision, and no clear thinking about how American national and economic security depends on the strength of our European alliances. Instead, foreign policy to him is a Mafia-style protection racket. Like any protection racket, Ukraine can get protection from Russian aggression only at great cost.

Trump’s proposed “protection” is to end the war now in a ceasefire deal. He has not been clear about what kind of peace and security he expects to come to Ukraine from a ceasefire. From what Vice President Vance and several Republican senators have said publicly, the idea is that Ukraine will become like Korea, where that 1952 armistice led to two separate sovereignties facing each other across the old ceasefire line. The Korean armistice, more than 70 years on, has

not led to enduring peace and security on the Korean peninsula. A similar Ukrainian armistice will not lead to enduring peace and security in eastern Europe either.

And the price Trump wants from Ukraine for this “deal” is to turn over half their rare-earth mineral wealth to the United States. That is what he is really interested in — — a deal that puts money into his pockets and the pockets of his billionaire friends. To get that deal, Trump continues to bully Ukraine to accept a deal that greatly disadvantages them. Instead of buttressing our ally’s negotiating position, Trump’s cutoff of arms and intelligence weakens Ukraine and strengthens Russia. The fact that it also damages long-term foreign policy and national security goals of the U.S. is, to him, irrelevant.

As for Russia, Trump’s real interest is making business deals with Putin, particularly to get in on the very lucrative Russian oil and gas industry. The continuation of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia are getting in the way of such deals. Trump apparently believes that making nice with Russia will induce Putin to sign on to his ceasefire deal as the easiest path to lifting the sanctions and opening the door to more business deals. And the “deal” Putin offers doesn’t even end hostilities, even if Putin honors the agreement, yet it would neuter Ukraine’s military strength and take away their ability to defend themselves.

We already know that Trump’s strategy has already caused great embarrassment to the U.S., including that shameful February 24 United Nations vote in which the U.S. joined Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and 15 other countries in voting against a General Assembly resolution that called for a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine as the basis of a “comprehensive, lasting, and just peace.” Our NATO allies consider us to be turncoats and are already planning a future where the U.S. no longer leads the Free World.

Shame on Trump and shame on the U.S.

Jeff Colvin and Leon Reed are the co-chairs of Gettysburg DFA. Jeff is a semi-retired research physicist, and Leon is a retired U.S. Senate aide and history teacher. Both live in Gettysburg.