President Donald Trump wanted to end the war in Ukraine. He is known to have been repeating that he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office. No one took the phrase at its face value – surely you cannot do much within 24 hours – but everybody understood in good faith that the phrase meant QUICKLY.
Europe was flabbergasted, the American Democrats were despairing, and Ukrainians felt stranded by their greatest ally. Well, President Donald Trump had a couple of talks with President Vladimir Putin and also had an American delegation conduct talks with their Russian counterparts. Half a year has passed and peace in Ukraine is nowhere to be seen.
Then President Donald Trump began changing his rhetoric. He stopped saying nice things about his Russian counterpart and started to voice his criticism of him. What has happened? Putin has not changed, has he? Russians have not changed, or have they? Neither have the American Democrats changed, nor the European like-minded leaders. Yet, Trump has.
It looks like Europeans and the American Democrats have eventually managed to bring President Donald Trump over to their side, to their point of view, to their anti-Russian policies. NATO’s secretary general Mark Rutte, visiting Trump in Washington on July 14-15, showed a happy face briefing the journalists together with the American president. It almost looked like he was saying by means of his facial expression that ‘we have eventually managed to bring our pressure to bear.’ as for Donald Trump – he began speaking like his predecessor Joe Biden (I don’t like Russia) and just in line with the European leaders (we don’t like Russia, either). Eventually Donald Trump rolled out threats against Russia, the usual set of threats: raised tariffs (read: sanctions) and enhanced arms supply to Ukraine (as if the supplies have ever stopped coming or been less intensive).
Was President Donald Trump sincere half a year ago and later when he promised to end the war soon? Was President Donald Trump sincere when he described President Vladimir Putin as a man he knows how to talk to? Either – or. Either the American president genuinely wanted to end the hostilities, or he merely made believe that he wanted only for the purposes of the presidential campaign. After all, he needed to have some points that made him different from Biden. This assumption points at Trump’s mendacity, intentional mendacity.
There is though yet another assumption possible. President Trump is under enormous pressure, the kind of pressure that he cannot but cave in. He may have been brought under someone’s control. The Epstein case comes to mind, the Epstein’s case might explain a lot. The case was recently mentioned by a journalist in the White House. President Donald Trump’s response was defensive, unusually defensive.
If – just if – Jeffrey Epstein was an operative of a secret service, and if – just if – President Donald Trump is to be found on the feared Epstein’s list of his customers – people with pedophile inclinations – then the American president is no more than a patsy. The only question that remains is whose intelligence has got hold on the leader of the world’s exemplary democracy.
