All the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire, which would serve as a prerequisite for any negotiations. But Trump willfully tossed policy like a stuffed animal out of the window of “the Beast,” the presidential car as he eagerly invited Putin to join him for a triumphant chariot ride.
The Europeans scrambled once again, trying to get the addled Trump back on the page he was on before the summit. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sped to Washington to confer with Trump to try to pick up the pieces. At their last encounter, Trump jibed: “You don’t have any cards.” But Trump had just handed over his cards to Putin. Zelenskyy was not about to play the appeasement card. The European leaders gathered in an extraordinary posse to accompany Zelenskyy in an attempt to restore a unified western position. Unlike the last Zelenskyy meeting with Trump, he was not hectored. With the Ukrainian leader surrounded by a protective phalanx, Trump made agreeable sounding but vague gestures about a future summit with both Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump seemed favorable, if indefinite and imprecise, about western forces stationed in Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty. But the notion of a ceasefire, pressed again by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had evaporated. While the European recovery effort took place at the White House, Russian bombs rained down. Trump dreams of receiving the Nobel peace prize. Before the summit, he called the Norwegian finance minister to lobby him.
