in World News Five Ukrainian Fables
Victor Davis Hanson
Fable one: Trump is appeasing Russia?
Who wiped out the Wagner group in Syria? Who sold offensive weapons to Ukraine first? Who warned Germany not to become dependent on the Russian Nord Stream II deal?
Who withdrew from an unfair missile deal with the Russians? Who cajoled and berated NATO members to meet their military investment promises made following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine?
In contrast, who originally conceived a Russian “reset” in 2009? Who publicly virtue-signaled pushing the red “reset” button in Geneva with the current Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov?
Which ex-European leader got a million euros a year working for Russian energy companies?
Of the last four presidents, under whose watch did Putin not invade another country?
Which American president, in hot-mic style, offered to (and did) dismantle U.S.-Eastern Europe missile defense plans in exchange for temporary Putin quietude (“space”) to aid his 2012 reelection?
Fable two: A trade war?
President Donald Trump is not wildly slapping tariffs on Europeans.
He is simply saying that 1945 is now 80 years past and that the asymmetrical tariffs that Europe imposes on U.S. imports should be corrected. The massive trade surpluses Europe accumulates each year should give way to fairer, more balanced trade.
If Europe does not want tariffs, then simply calibrate its own tariffs on what America places on European imported goods, and work down jointly to zero tariffs on both sides.
Fable three: America is bullying Europe?
The U.S. does not actively interfere in European elections and politics.
In 2024, Europeans, especially the British Laborites, bragged about sending over campaign “volunteers” to work against Trump and, earlier, his conservative predecessors.
British subject Christopher Steele sought to sabotage an entire American 2016 election with a falsified “dossier.”
The Ukrainian ambassador in 2016 wrote an op-ed all but endorsing Hillary Clinton and trashing her opponent.
In September 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was flown in on a Biden-provided U.S. military jet to Scranton, Pennsylvania — at a pivotal time in the most pivotal swing state — to surround himself with Democrat politicos.
His media-frenzied presence signaled a partisan campaign theme that a Kamala Harris win and the continuance of massive Democrat aid to Ukraine would ensure manufacturing jobs, such as the artillery shell factory he selected to visit.
As to NATO, Trump’s pressure from 2017 to 2021 finally pushed more NATO nations to rearm. But even 11 years after promising to invest a mere 2 percent of GDP in defense, nine of the 32 members still have not complied.