Money trumps everything in Maga age of geopolitics

From Gazan land to Ukraine’s resources, the US president treats the world like a board game. And that’s why no one can trust him, not even Israel or Russia, writes Alex Hannaford

- Alex Hannaford

Donald Trump would like the world to know he’s a man about big deals and big ideas.

Last week he announced he was negotiating an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine – but without involving Ukraine in the deliberations. He then labelled the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” for good measure.

This week he hosted a bromance press conference with president Emmanuel Macron of France. Hours later, the US sided with Russia, China and North Korea in the UN.

It has been as unpredictable as ever, but one thing has remained constant – and that is Trump’s desire to get US hands on Ukraine’s very valuable mineral resources as a way to recoup “hundreds of billions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money” spent supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Ukraine wants any such deal to come with some kind of security guarantees from America. So far, none have been promised.

A generous view of this approach would be that Trump was forcing European allies to rethink their involvement in the conflict and commit to Ukraine’s sovereignty and selfdetermination. A less generous interpretation was that he was ill-informed at best and is being dangerously manipulated at worst, especially by Vladimir Putin. President Zelensky hit back, accusing Trump of succumbing to disinformation. “This is not a serious conversation,” he said. “I can’t sell our country.”

It certainly wasn’t the only time in recent weeks that Trump had thrown a wild suggestion into the mix, causing worldwide astonishment. Only recently he shared his vision for a bombedout Gaza to be turned into a beautiful Middle Eastern riviera.