ROCKINGHAM, North Carolina—-By the time this column sees the light of day, the US and Ukraine would have probably signed the rare minerals deal that got torpedoed in the now infamous White House verbal spat between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with US Vice President JD Vance as Trump’s tag team partner. That meeting could have gone better if Zelensky didn’t start on lecturing Trump and Vance in front of a media crowd about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
As per joint session of Congress, President Trump announced to lawmakers that Zelensky is ready to sign the minerals deal with the US administration which hopefully would serve as leverage for a ceasefire with Russia which had so far been quite relentless in its push to acquire Ukraine and restore some of its Cold War might before a nervous Europe. Again, there’s no guarantee of a positive outcome on this deal despite Zelensky’s insistence of security guarantees from the US.
What I was a bit surprised on is the sheer volume of hate and vitriol leveled at Trump by netizens not only from pro-Democrat Americans but foreigners around the world including Pinoy netizens. Basically they saw Zelensky as the victim and Trump and Vance as the bullies and puppets of Russian President Vladimir Putin—basically following the same note beats as drummed up and played out by the US leftstream media.
Of course among those critical of Trump were some Filipino friends of mine. I don’t take that against them since everyone is entitled to their own opinion so long as they don’t impose their views on others. And that White House Oval Office incident, rightly or wrongly, merely magnified the built in hostility and cultivated misperception of what the US President was in their eyes—regardless of what the majority of the American public especially those who voted for him thought otherwise.
I also understand the Filipino interest in the US-Ukraine-Russia situation because it serves as a reference point for the US dealings with its allies in the Asia Pacific particularly to the Philippines which is caught up in a feud with Communist China over rivaling Spratlys claims along with other claimant nations. China is obviously the big bully here in the Spratlys dispute and the Philippines has little options other than the US and its allies in Europe to seek help in case things get dicey.
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But allow me to shed light on the background of that White House spat based on reports I monitored on various cable stations in the US. Before the Oval Office meet, Zelensky and his delegation met with Trump, JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other US dignitaries to discuss among other things the Ukrainian-Russia conflict and the proposed minerals deal.
Zelensky at the time interposed no objections nor asked any confirmations on security guarantees for the deal and this was mentioned in a lot of media reports. It was also interesting to note that Zelensky met with top Democrat leaders and some Republicans (based on some factcheckers report) and undoubtedly it’s these same Democrats who convinced Zelensky to hammer on the security guarantees to Trump—and it’s not hard to imagine that the Dems also mentioned some other things to Z.
And so it was that when Zelensky, Trump and Vance met in the Oval Office to discuss about the minerals deal in front of a media audience that Zelensky became quite vocal and went into this harangue about how Trump is being misled about the whole conflict by Putin and why it’s the US’s obligation—and Zelensky emphasized that American aid is significantly lower compared to Europe never mind that it amounted to billions of US dollars in taxpayer money—to help Ukraine with no strings attached in its conflict with Russia.
Then you saw what happened next with Vance reproaching Zelensky for being ungrateful to the US despite their assistance—a line that lest the Democrats and their synchopants conveniently forget is also used by former US president Joe Biden in his conversations with Zelensky who reportedly slammed the phone on Biden’s ear when Biden failed to produce guarantees of additional monetary aid—and Trump reminding Zelensky that the US should not be dictated on their dealings with both Ukraine and Russia in their conflict.
And that’s basically what it was; a foreign leader lecturing a duly elected leader of a world superpower on how to deal with the conflict with another leader of a global power on said leader’s terms and in front of a worldwide audience to boot. This show of bravado and assertiveness that, in the eyes of those influenced by American left stream media and Democrats is heroic especially since the recipient/target is their most hated and reviled enemy US President Donald Trump.
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But lest these Trump haters who supposedly suffer from the so-called ‘TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)’ gloat and chortle over the Oval Office brouhaha they might consider what the American public thought about the incident. Based on what I’ve gleaned so far, a lot of Americans are in agreement with Trump’s position that the US cannot sustain indefinitely its billion dollar assistance to Ukraine and that the US economy remains a top priority over international concerns.
As of late last week, Zelensky’s change of heart stemmed in no small part from growing public perception that a protracted war with Russia with no clear end in sight would benefit him financially. Even before this war with Russia began, Ukraine is the poorest European country despite its vast rare mineral resources and its status as a launch pad or stockpile area of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal—a bit of Google research helps—and one of the main reasons is government corruption.
Zelensky may not be the dictator that Russian propaganda pictures him to be—Russian propaganda that Trump haters claim had lulled the US leader into a complacent and even friendly stance in relation to Putin, though I argue that Putin’s most significant aggressive actions occured during 2014 when he annexed Crimea during former president Barack Obama’s term and in the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine during Biden’s term.
How Zelensky would benefit from extended US assistance cannot be fully evaluated without receipts and Zelensky is insistent that US assistance isn’t a loan but a grant. But again, Zelensky cannot indefinitely rely on US and European aid to bail out his country in their war with Russia. Sooner rather than later, that lifeline will run out and we’ve yet to see any Western ally commit to sending large contingents of their ground troops to fight the war with Russia which has, lest anyone forget, a sizable nuclear arsenal. Does anyone of us really don’t believe that Putin won’t go that far?
The key word here is de-escalation and in any case I sympathize with the Ukrainian people who’ve borne the brunt of this war with Russia. And anyone who publicly declares to ‘stand with Ukraine’ does so likewise out of sympathy for the plight of the Ukrainian people but admittedly there are those who make such declarations out of spite and revulsion for Trump regardless if his position reflects popular American sentiment and support over ‘America first.’ If that sounds selfish and downright greedy, be reminded of that saying that ‘charity begins at home.’
