OPINION
Donald Trump thinks he can negotiate with Putin – he’s wrong (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
With the world watching, turned his meeting with into a jaw-dropping version of his hit TV show The Apprentice.
This meeting should never have been filmed. The details of the peace agreement hadn’t been finalised and tensions were running high.
Perhaps Trump felt the pressure of the cameras would get his deal over the line, or perhaps having already met the fawning French president Macron and simpering Starmer – who at no point corrected Trump over his rewriting of the Russian invasion of – he felt convinced that Zelensky, like them, would roll over and cede to his demands.
Whatever the reason for so badly misreading the situation, this overly long televised meeting probably changed the course of history – and in truth nobody came out of it with credit.
The crisis point came at 40 minutes, when just on the verge of completing the meeting, US vice-president – trying to make an attack on – said that it was time to stop talking tough and give diplomacy a chance.
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A frustrated Zelensky – who may have been well advised to save his concerns for when they were in private – asked Vance how can you do a deal with a man like Putin, who routinely ignores and breaks ceasefire agreements. Of course neither Vance nor Trump had an answer to this, leading to their extraordinary outburst at Zelensky.
Zelensky is of course right. You cannot negotiate with an aggressive dictator like , and you cannot reward someone for invading another country without justification.
Trump likes to portray himself as a tough guy, but Putin will see him as a weak patsy with no stomach for seeing through the US support for . Meanwhile, berating Zelensky in public in the safety of the Oval Office made Trump look like a cowardly bully.
The only way to deal with Putin is to fight fire with fire, and to make clear that no matter how long it goes on, he will not be allowed to win this war. That is the only way to get a peaceful outcome, even if Trump can’t see the blindingly obvious.
Thank goodness Trump wasn’t the US President during World War Two. By his logic he would have announced his desire to find a negotiated settlement with Hitler. There really is no difference with his current strategy with Putin. Maybe he will soon wave a piece of paper declaring “peace in our time” after his next meeting with Putin.
Trump would be better spending his time reading basic history rather than trying to turn his presidency into a new series of The Apprentice.
is not the new Churchill that he craves to be – this self-proclaimed tough guy is, in fact, the new Neville Chamberlain.