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“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” observed Joan Didion. Yet politicians are different. They tell stories not so much to live, but to survive. Stories give leaders an aura of purpose and control, imbuing their decisions with great meaning; ushering in new beginnings and, of course, new ends. And then, sometimes, we just stop believing in them. That is what happened in the White House yesterday. The story of the West melted away and all that was left was power.
Watching Donald Trump over the past week has felt like one of those moments when history was being made: new narratives emerging out of the old. For a few days at least, Europe seemed to have been jolted out of its complacent malaise. “Germany became Gaullist, France became British, and Britain became European,” joked one French diplomat. The fear of America’s withdrawal from Europe had seemingly prompted a revolution. Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron flew to Washington to rescue the old world and seemed to succeed: our American Caesar offered his clementia and all was well, apparently. But then Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Oval Office and it was not American withdrawal that was on offer, but American supremacy, uncloaked — angry, imposing, imperial. Do what we say or we will hand you over to your executioners.
This has been the story of the past week. One moment, Europe is in a spin as Zelensky is denounced as a dictator; the next, it is happy as Ukraine hands over half its natural resources to America. And then it heads into the weekend with feelings of sadness, shame and even humiliation. Zelensky, the weakest of Europe’s leaders, was treated as every European leader would be were they not as craven as our own.
The end result is a mixture of embarrassment — that of the schoolchild who avoids being bullied — and lasting geopolitical unease. What does diplomacy matter in a world where all that counts is power and you are a supplicant? Starmer may have flown back to Britain happy that he had secured a public commitment from Trump for Nato’s mutual defence clause. But does anyone now believe that anything the President said yesterday really matters? Perhaps more profoundly, does anyone — deep down — believe that it is acceptable to be so dependent on Trump’s whims or those of his nation? Ukraine can hardly be blamed for being so weak. Britain and the rest of Western Europe have no such excuses.
In the end, everything has changed and nothing has changed. Trump means what he says when he says it — and then doesn’t. The US is both withdrawing from Europe and expanding at the same time. An epoch of ambiguity has arrived and it’s far more dangerous than we realise.
Take the “minerals deal” between Zelensky and Trump that was supposed to be signed yesterday, but so painfully wasn’t. Far from acting as a brake on American imperial overreach — which many in Washington have called for — the agreement would have essentially extended US interests even further into Europe. Under the terms of the deal as proposed, the United States gains a 50% stake in Ukraine’s mineral wealth in perpetuity: a permanent stake.
Trump acknowledged the importance of the proposal before his blow-up with Zelensky. He indicated that the deal would serve as a security “backstop”, ensuring Putin did not restart his war for control of Ukraine. “I don’t think anybody’s going to play around if we’re there with a lot of workers,” Trump declared. The new doctrine, it seemed, would be “peace through economics”, as Le Monde put it. Zelensky would be forced to the table through an acceptance of partition and extraction. The strategy is not new — Britain was forced to abandon its imperial trading system in return for American support in the last world war. But what is unusual here is the steel being displayed without any sheath of idealism. This was a display of imperial power that was hard to unsee.
Even if the minerals deal were to be saved, the “security” it would offer Ukraine — and Europe — is far from clear. The implication is that Trump wants to take on a new economic colony in the knowledge that Russia would not dare attack it. But is that the case? Russia knows that an attack on any Nato country would risk sparking — in theory — a war with the United States and its allies, a direct confrontation it could not win. But an attack on a country in which the US simply had mining interests would not be the same. The response that such a provocation would trigger has been left entirely uncertain.
To clear up the ambiguity, Britain and France have offered to send troops to Ukraine to secure whatever peace agreement Trump can strike with Putin, and with it America’s new interests. But why would Russia now accept the informal absorption of rump Ukraine into the American economic sphere with its new assets protected by its clients, the British and French? Especially after witnessing that display in the Oval Office yesterday.
The idea of a sustainable peace agreement consequently remains remote, even if the breakdown in relations between Zelensky and Trump can be patched up. Without American support — assuming Europe fails to fill the gap — Ukraine would be forced to sue for peace on Russian terms. But once Trump carves out his stake in Ukraine, the peace negotiations enter a new phase: to the winner the spoils, literally.
You have to wonder what the likes of Elbridge Colby must make of Trump’s handling of events. Colby is one of the most eloquent exponents of American “restraint” in Washington, hired by the President as the policy lead in the Department of Defense. Colby argues that the US has become overstretched by its imperial commitments, and needs to focus less on Europe and more on what he considers the principal threat to America’s global primacy: China’s ambition to retake Taiwan. Colby’s argument is not “isolationist” in any sense, nor civilisational like Steve Bannon’s, who wants the US to form a Christian-Nationalist alliance against globalist China. Colby is arguing for a form of imperial prioritisation which would push for Europe to become more independent. Yet Trump is seeking a minerals deal with Ukraine that would draw him further into Europe — even as he mocks and berates its most embattled leader.
The new President’s defenders would argue that Trump will eventually bully his way to the best of all worlds, extending America’s power and economic dominance at very little cost. Indeed, Ukraine will, in all likelihood, eventually agree to become an American economic protectorate irrespective of the President and his ambitious Vice President. The alternative — national elimination under Putin — is worse. Yet it strikes me that — first — Europe’s voters will not be able to unsee what they have just witnessed. And — second — the United States itself has made a curious bet that it can project its power into Ukraine without any real idea of the force necessary to accompany its new economic interests.
The situation reminds me of the build up to the Suez crisis in 1956, when Britain withdrew its forces from the canal zone in Egypt, while insisting its economic interests remained secure. The Tory MP Enoch Powell warned the then government that any agreement with Egypt would not be “worth the parchment on which it is engrossed” because the remaining British technicians in the canal zone would be hopelessly vulnerable to, and ultimately forced out by, terrorism and harassment. Can we really say that Trump’s potential miners in Ukraine without American military protection would be any different?
But we do not yet know the strength of America’s commitment to Ukraine. For this reason it is worth playing out the scenario in which Zelensky swallows his pride and Russia acquiesces to the partition of Ukraine. In this scenario — under the current terms being pushed by Starmer and Macron — British and French troops would find themselves massing somewhere in Eastern Europe, if not in Ukraine itself, with the stated aim of deterring Russian aggression, based on some vague promise of American air support which might or might not exist. Is this really enough to deter Russia anymore than it was to deter Colonel Nasser in 1956? And what if it isn’t? Are we prepared to go to war with Russia for Ukraine? From Taiwan to the Donbas, ambiguity mixed with menace now reigns.
Stories allow us to live because they turn daily chaos into something hopeful or inspirational; it’s a tale that offers explanation or revelation — or, at the very least, comfort. Yet what is emerging from Donald Trump’s unpredictability looks like a fable that no-one with any self-respect can believe in any longer. Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelensky all flew to Washington this week looking for a story they could tell to their expectant nations at home. Two succeeded — for a few hours. But all we will remember is the drama of the failure.
Original article: unherd.com
