There are very few occasions nowadays when an event in the news moves me to the point of feeling genuinely strong emotion. I, like most other people, have grown accustomed and indifferent to the current media cycle of political dramas and sensationalist stories which we may glance at, roll our eyes and move on from — very rarely does a news story cause me to break from this pattern. On Friday, though, watching President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance ambush Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House made me absolutely furious.
The amount of irresponsible and objectionable things Donald Trump says and does, and editorial pieces and responses that accompany them, quickly become banal and boring to follow. This can easily give the impression that his actions all constitute the same insignificant quality of general badness. But Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday marked something much more sinister. It signified a moment in history where America’s current role in the world has begun to unravel, and that no country can count on the United States as a reliable ally any longer.
Zelenskyy was invited to the Oval Office on Friday to discuss a rare earth minerals deal with Trump as a means for securing further US support in the war against Russia, and was subsequently subjected to a shameful berating rarely seen in public diplomacy. Never before has a sitting U.S. president invited the leader of another country to the White House with the stated aim of conducting diplomacy and proceeded to insult and taunt them on national television.
The new expectation established on Friday — that world leaders must perform demeaning overtures of fealty to America at the expense of their dignity to maintain their alliance — was sickening to watch. I’ve hardly felt so ashamed of my country as when witnessing our national leadership humiliate the people of Ukraine through its president. Our aid to Ukraine now appears to depend on its leader’s willingness to be a sycophant.
The meeting flipped America’s usual motivation for providing aid to allies on its head. When Zelenskyy very prudently and correctly pointed out the negative effects which the U.S. would feel from Russia’s increased influence were Ukraine to capitulate to their demands, (an unbelievably generous gesture to even think about the interests of the U.S. while the people of Ukraine are fighting for their lives), Trump told him, “You’re in no position to dictate how we’re going to feel. You’re not in a very good position right now. You have no cards.”
No cards? The nerve to say this to a man who has been on the frontlines with his people fighting one of the strongest armies in the world and still managed to hold his country’s ground is contemptible. More substantially though, what the U.S. is now implying is that it is willing to abandon its friends and let them perish if they lack strategic military advantage (as in Ukraine's current military setbacks) or are unwilling to concede to authoritarian coercion (meaning surrendering partial sovereignty to the aggressor as in Russia’s territorial demands on Ukraine). I shudder to imagine how the world may have turned out had this same policy been applied to support for Britain and France in the 1940s.
Trump continued to accuse Zelenskyy of “gambling with the lives of millions of people and with WW3.” With this, another shocking new precedent in diplomacy has been set, as America is now suggesting that recipients of war aid are fair game for being held at fault for the conflict. In other words, Zelenskyy is responsible for the lives and consequences of the war, not Vladimir Putin, who, it is absurd now to even feel the need to say, is the actual one gambling with millions of lives and global stability.
This was all before Vance, in his characteristically weasel-like manner, bizarrely lectured Zelenskyy that it was “disrespectful” to turn up at a meeting at the White House and try to accurately explain the situation of his country (which, amazingly, as Zelenskyy again rightly pointed out, Vance has never been to). World leaders watching this exchange will surely now think twice about accepting an invitation to the White House if such an act could be distorted and held against them as impertinent.
Vance then asked Zelenskyy, “Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?” This self-inflated, insecure, narcissistic question uttered by Vance was beyond insulting. Imagine if the President of France were to invite the U.S. President to the Palais de l’Élysée and proceed to demand he give thanks to him and his country for sending the French fleet to Yorktown in 1781 (which is the real reason why the United States won the revolutionary war) under the threat of suspending life-sustaining aid? We’d all be rightly appalled.
More broadly though, Vance’s question undermines the very principles on which American diplomacy is based. Before the arrival of Trump's second term, it was understood regarding American statecraft that the provision of foreign aid was always a tradeoff. The benefits which the receiving country were to gain from the aid may not always pay an exact dividend back to America, but we firmly accepted this with the knowledge that supporting our allies against aggression and tyranny was worth it in itself. The thanks is returned in watching our money advance what is deemed advantageous to us. There was never the expectation of nations to perform debasing displays of servility to America and its president as a condition for US support. To this, Vance and Trump have decided a self-aggrandizing ego boost is preferable.
The White House ambush on Zelenskyy marks a dark turning point not only in who the United States considers an ally, but the way in which current allies and world leaders can expect to be treated by the current administration. The damage that this affair will do to our global partnerships is incalculable, and world leaders have already expressed their shock at the meeting. The leaders of France, Spain and Lithuania have all voiced support for Ukraine in clear contradistinction with Trump.
What we are now witnessing is a fundamental realignment in American foreign policy for the worse. For the U.S. to suddenly sympathize with Vladimir Putin and authoritarianism against reliable European allies and democratically-elected governments is a sad moment for our country — which everyone, regardless of political ideology, ought to recognize. Just yesterday, Trump suspended all military aid to Ukraine, and the consequences for the country, and the world, will be dire. It’s hard to know which is more disgraceful: that Trump is willingly conceding the sovereignty of our allies to the regime of Putin abroad, or that he is attempting to model his presidency on the governing style of Putin at home.
To anyone who may say that Trump has even an iota of a point that Ukraine is not worth fighting for, and is a waste of U.S. money, I want to point out what I hope is self-evident: safeguarding the world against chaos, war and authoritarianism, and fighting to preserve democracy, freedom and everything our country stands is worth every penny. I challenge you to name a better cause to finance than supporting an entire people against extinction, while delivering a bloody nose to the ruthless thug Vladimir Putin. Where are your priorities for god’s sake?
It’s easy now to fall into a state of helplessness and despair over watching the values of freedom, democracy and decency erode under the complete self-certainty and ignorance of the current administration, a state I admittedly found myself falling into quite a lot in recent months. But I was reminded on Friday for the first time in a long time never to lose that anger against political callousness and stupidity. This is the fight we’re up against now, between deciding if we stand in defense of freedom, democracy and everything else worth fighting for against tyranny and aggression, or if we will willingly embrace authoritarian bullying as the new acceptable form of global diplomacy. I sincerely hope that after all of this, our country will still know which side to choose.
Leo Goldberg is a Trinity first-year. His pieces typically run on alternate Mondays.
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