‘White’ America

BEFORE THAT ‘incident’ in the White House involving President Donald Trump, his Vice President JD Vance and Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelensky, I was under the impression that the US and Europe were joined at the hip. Apart from the fact that the overwhelming majority of ‘white’ America is of European descent, there is history to demonstrate that the US doesn’t like to walk away from sticky situations in Europe.

I think my assumptions were wrong.

Predictably, there were large numbers of people—the ones influenced by the New York Times– CNN-BBC variety of journalism that regards Trump as the very incarnation of the devil—for whom everything about the US president is offensive and distasteful. And, not knowing too much about Vance— apart from the fact that his wife Usha has an elegant presence— they are of the view that he is the orange leader’s pet gorilla. All these prejudices were reinforced by the bizarre exchange involving the top leadership of two countries of contrasting importance. It certainly conferred a new meaning to diplomacy, leading to a wag suggesting that in future constables from Haryana should be made Foreign Service officers and posted in the US. And so what if their table manners were skewed, at least they could land the other side a solid punch.

However, there was an equally large contingent—at least among people I know—who were happy that the upstart from Kyiv had got his comeuppance. More important, the shrill indignation that followed Zelensky being turfed out of the White House was viewed as the frustrated fulmination of the entitled. Trump’s logic was that he pays for their defence and even upkeep, and in return, an upstart from an obscure country on the Russian border picks up an argument with him in front of the cameras. It is possible he was furious that Zelensky did not quietly sign the document giving America some exceptional rights to exploit Ukraine’s rare earth reserves. In the eyes of Trump, this was the payment for the unending supplies of military hardware, not to mention the flow of crucial intelligence of the enemy that had kept Ukraine alive and able to resist the Russian attack. However, to the European leaders and other sundry busybodies, US assistance was the entitlement of the Old World. They may also have felt that it was the obligation of Trump to meekly digest the waves of condescension that was heaped on him by those who felt that culture never travelled across the Atlantic.

Europe should have seen the divorce proceedings coming. When Vance came to the Munich Security Conference and told the assembled Europeans that their pretensions were based on fantasy, he was greeted with a blend of tears and outrage. In the eyes of the chattering classes of Europe, Vance was an ignorant redneck who had quite accidentally also landed up in Yale. They didn’t want to be told that their European Union-sponsored democracy had just too many loose ends. In their self-belief, the EU was a shrine and (in the words of an amused commentator), Vance had violated it by emitting a loud fart. What they didn’t want to consider was that there were large numbers of people in Europe, exasperated by the flood of immigrants and insulted by the woke culture that made natives seem like second-class citizens, who agreed with Vance and Trump.

To put it bluntly, they didn’t feel that Ukraine’s fight against Putin was a war to uphold Western civilisation. The custodians of Europe in Brussels had ensured that the cause that was being projected in battling the barbarians from the East wasn’t entirely kosher. The message from America didn’t exactly reek of capitulationism. After all, the veteran functionary from the KGB who loved settling scores with his domestic critics with poisoned darts wasn’t exactly a deity in a sacred high church altar. Like Trump, he too was a pugilist who also surrounded himself with billionaires, except in the case of Russians they are called oligarchs with burly bodyguards and blonde molls.

Europe has taken umbrage at being told that there is no free lunch on offer any longer. And that if Washington is going to effect a money transfer, the European powers must ensure a matching deposit which they can cream off from their welfare provisions. The alternative is to let Trump negotiate a settlement that will ensure the return of cheap energy to European homes and businesses.

It is worth asking the man on the streets of Berlin or Warsaw if a Holy War against Russia is preferable to the return of affordable heating in winter.

Donald TrumpgeopoliticsJD VanceUS-UkraineVolodymyr Zelenskyy