The US is trying to kick Canada [1] and the UK [2] out. If the US is going rouge, the rest of the free world can go without them.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43200375">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43200375</a>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43166670">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43166670</a>

I see US influence being drastically reduced in the coming years. But we need to do something about their disinformation networks.I see people leaving their government and media positions in protest but I’d like to remind them that they are much more effective if they remain where they are. The CIA has an excellent manual just for situations like these.

Regarding Pine Gap, they&#x27;ve allegedly done it before even without Elon.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the...</a>

I don’t see this happening. Five Eyes is the US’s invite only security umbrella. Many in Australia would love to kick the Americans off our land (eg Pinegap) but as the US will “coup who they want” that ain’t happening.

Why kick out? Just start a new club (I&#x27;m sure they already have, probably years ago, or increased activity in one that already existed) and let this one wither.

I actually think Europe has a lot of levers to pull in terms of manipulating American politics and public opinion that they have thus far refrained from engaging in, and I, as an American, think they should be much bolder about speaking directly to the American people.I don&#x27;t think that ordinary diplomacy is going to work here. The US is in the middle of a totalitarian coup, and that should be called out by our friends and allies more forcefully.Stop trying to ingratiate yourself with Trump. He doesn&#x27;t deserve it and you won&#x27;t get anything out of it but humiliation.

there is still to much corruption in the Ukraine, that Europe will never accept.

This is how NATO replaces the US with Ukraine. Kicking the US out of Five Eyes is likely next.

The only recent historical comparison I can think of -- and it&#x27;s a weak one compared to today&#x27;s meeting -- was when Obama firmly reiterated to Netanyahu his insistence on the 1967 lines as the basis for a two state solution, and Netanyahu in front of the cameras forcefully rejecting that to Obama&#x27;s face: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=l28xJitnP78" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=l28xJitnP78</a>

Nope, this is the first such &quot;blow up&quot; where folks at the white house berated a guest they invited there.

They still do, and the fact that most of you don&#x27;t see that this farce was scripted just proves that

They used to have professionals managing such meetings.

Power. They&#x27;re having the time of their lives.

He likes bullying people and it makes him feel good.People often attribute 5D chess strategies to Trump when base instincts are a far clearer explanation.

It was content for a segment of his base.On Twitter, it&#x27;s common to find populist-right commentators say things like:1. Supporting Ukraine against Russia is risking WW32. Zelensky is always asking for more, more more and is SO disrespectful to the generous United States. And he doesn&#x27;t even show up in a suit when meeting the president. How disgraceful. etc. etc.These points were both touched upon by the Trump&#x2F;Vance tag team and that&#x27;s no coincidence.My respect for Zelensky, the only decent politician in that room. Ukraine is lucky to have him in a time like this.

He nearly got assassinated by the incompetence of the same people telling him to help Ukraine.

Weakness. Trump looked like the weakest negotiator I’ve ever seen in this exchange. He looks so powerless. He’s taking his frustration out on Zelenski since Musk has completely taken over his role in the US.

He&#x27;s an entertainer &#x2F; reality TV star &#x2F; game show host. That&#x27;s the sum of him.I&#x27;m not sure what anybody could really expect other than this.

He wants to defund U.S. support for Ukraine, but isn&#x27;t can&#x27;t directly own his decision like an adult, and so has to stage this baloney conflict of a press conference.

You don&#x27;t have to ask this sort of question. He literally says it in the discussion. He wanted to show the world Zelensky&#x27;s attitude. And he was successful in doing soTrump failed to make the deal, they tried to get resources for a minimum of involvement, and the deal didn&#x27;t go through because Zelensky is adamant in wanting to protect Ukrainian integrity.From Trump&#x27;s perspective this puts him in a good light. He is attempting to negotiate rationally and Zelensky is irrationally spending Ukrainian lives to hold on to an ideal.Of course Europe and many Americans believe in that ideal and would support Ukraine, but that&#x27;s not Trump&#x27;s political platform. His motivation is to end the war, and the easiest way to end the war is to yield to Putin&#x27;s demands. Making Zelensky look unreasonable is a critical part of that.

No, this was shocking on multiple levels. What motivates the nominally most powerful person on the planet to behave like this?

Maybe, but Trump&#x27;s base is actually tiny, only about 22% of the US voters. This will strongly alienate the other 78% of Americans, not to mention 100% of America&#x27;s allies. And America&#x27;s enemies now see how grossly inept he actually is at negotiation, revealing that only physical threats will register with him. NOT a good development for America.An insanely counterproductive ploy, but typical of Trump&#x27;s &#x27;gangsterism rules&#x27; philosophy of leadership.

It went exactly the way the president wanted it to. Remember, this kind of bullying appeals to authoritarian parties.

Look at the comments on FoxNews, it was America&#x27;s finest hour.

Sadly it will be praised as &quot;tough&quot; by many.

Isn&#x27;t Trump giving access only to just a select group of journalists?

I wonder what would happen if the Canadian Prime Minister then decided to file charges of treason against Musk, and issue an arrest warrant?

It&#x27;s not beyond imagination 
 that this will happen to the Canadian Prime Minister next.

&quot;That&#x27;s all&quot; is a major deal. There&#x27;s a reason you never see that.

I don&#x27;t think so. We just saw a closed-door meeting take place publicly. That&#x27;s all.

No, usually this is done behind closed doors and away from the press.

Has there ever been a meeting that went this bad in front of journalists?

The good news is that the Biden administration put most of the frozen Russia assets under European control, anticipating this kind of risk, but of course that doesn&#x27;t mean Trump can&#x27;t attempt to pressure Europe here.

US cannot unfreeze anything, because all the frozen funds are in the EU.

Probably not. The worst thing America could do is unfreeze Russia&#x27;s assets and give them back a few billion dollars to fund the war effort. Europe wouldn&#x27;t permit America to join on the side of a Russian coalition, and America&#x27;s Navy isn&#x27;t capable of European operations without Europe&#x27;s support. We could realistically offer limited air support and strategic nuclear threats, but Russia already has both of those.

Let&#x27;s hope the EU countries fully support Ukraine.Too angry to type more.

Not likely. But by withdrawing military aid they&#x27;re basically giving Ukraine to the Russians.

Sadly, “Trump takes military action against Ukraine” was on my Bingo card for this administration. We’re getting there, aren’t we?

I think it’s worse: Trump et al want to install a neofeudal system of society whereas Ukraine is fighting for the Westen Democracy kind of system. It’s clear that Trump wants to establish that as a futile endeavor

&quot;Weaker&quot; is a function of not just your own strength, but that of your allies. Russia wants Ukraine as a way to hit at Europe.Ukraine and its allies are a match for Russia and its. Perhaps more so, since Ukraine&#x27;s allies have limited its use of force. With the US out, Ukraine may be able to exert much more force.Which is to say Trump&#x27;s judgment of who is weak is deeply compromised by his belief in single strongmen. This will not go well for him.

It makes sense from His worldview. Ukraine are the weaker ones, the natural losers. He doesn&#x27;t help losers. There is no further thought or consideration. That territory was always Russia&#x27;s to take when they were ready.

Turns out Biden lost temper will Zelensky too

I wish Zelensky had asked Trump if he wanted his feet kissed there and now because I feel like everyone could see that is what Trump wants at the very least.

This is a good reminder why diplomacy is usually done behind closed doors. &quot;Transparency&quot; is being used as the refuge of a scoundrel.

Zelensky has nothing to lose at this point. If he takes the  deal Trump proposed Ukraine will be paying the US and Russia for having been invaded in 2014 and again in 2022. And let’s not ignore the fact it was the US was propping up the politicians suggesting joining NATO and not renewing the lease on Sevastopol in 2015.

I, too, think that they did and underestimated Zelenskyy. Trump would love to sell his deal. Now he just embarrassed himself and his nation again.

I think they did, but they didn’t expect Zelensky to punch back. He’s more of a fighter than either of them will ever be. Trump is the classic bully where all you need to do is push back. Then he folds.

So it was just like literally everything else this administration is doing. Shocking.

Zelensky used to be a stand-up comedian. He has plenty of experience thinking on his feet in front of a tough audience of drunks and fools.I&#x27;m wondering what all the people in the US military and government who swore to protect the US from &quot;all enemies, foreign and domestic&quot; are thinking now.

Sounds like when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and destroyed Tucker Carlson who had attempted to escalate and get angry. And Jon was like &quot;this is theater.&quot;

I disagree that it looked like a planned confrontation and that all the escalation is on Trump and VanceVance made a comment about the US&#x27; goal to be diplomatic.Zelensky speaks up and says he wants to ask Vance something. He then goes on to talk about how Putin annexed Crimea and that between 2014 - 2022 Putin was murdering Ukrainian citizens and ignoring cease fires. He mentioned that nobody did anything to stop Putin, implying that Trump didn&#x27;t do anything during his first term in office. Then Zelensky ends with something along the lines of &quot;so what do you mean diplomacy&quot; to Vance.Even if Zelensky&#x27;s statements were correct, that was not a wise course of action to attempt to call out the President and VP while you&#x27;re in the Oval office. The meeting erupts from there.Regardless of how you feel about the current administration, it is a fact that Ukraine has been dependent on the US&#x27; aid. I don&#x27;t know what Zelensky expected to gain from those statements.

I disagree. If you watch the entire 50-minute video [1], everything was going very smoothly until the final question. If Trump and Vance had intended to provoke Zelenski, why would they have spent the first ~40 minutes chatting with him amicably and only become heated in response to one specific remark he made at the end?[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehill.com&#x2F;video-clips&#x2F;5168859-watch-live-donald-trump-volodymyr-zelensky-press-conference-minerals-deal&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehill.com&#x2F;video-clips&#x2F;5168859-watch-live-donald-tr...</a>

It 100% looks like they were planning to force a confrontation. Notice how all the escalation is them, they start escalating over basically nothing, and they keep trying to crank up the temperature while Zelenskyy&#x27;s keeping things nice and even. This didn&#x27;t happen the last couple times world leaders made far more confrontational statements in a similar setting, but also Vance wasn&#x27;t there to provide emotional support those times and, well, there are some common sayings about the actual nature of a bully.I think Zelenskyy didn&#x27;t give them the sound-bites or vibe they were looking for, but they&#x27;re claiming some kind of victory (WTF) on social media anyway. Meanwhile all they managed to do was look some combination of stupid, childish, and traitorous, while he came out looking incredibly restrained, and overall more-articulate than them despite the handicap of speaking in English rather than his native tongue.

Humiliating people does appear to be a common theme with the administration, one just has to look at the photo they put out after winning with RFK and the McDonald&#x27;s takeout on airforce one. Also all the women jockeying for various positions getting plastic surgery, looking like an army of botox&#x27;d stepford wives. I&#x27;m no armchair psychoanalyst so I can&#x27;t tell you what it means. Just that it&#x27;s very.. apparent and intentional.

That felt really gross to watch. I don&#x27;t know what else to say that&#x27;s more high-level thinking and adds to the conversation. A straight up &quot;mean girls&quot; moment.

He’s also a former stand up comedian. If you’re going to heckle the guy you’d better be good at it if you want to come out looking good.

&gt; They keep underestimating Zelenski but he was certainly prepared for this confrontation.The Trump-gang seems to underestimate everyone and everything. I still don&#x27;t know whether they mean all this excessive behavior for real, or if this is an elusive ploy to divert from something else. Trumps seems to operate by selling big to gain small, but I can&#x27;t really understand yet what his real long-term goal seems.But at this point it seems other politicians around the world have got an understanding of him and his behavior and started playing along. I&#x27;m curious if Zelenskiy did the same, he certainly gained more from this than if he had been avoided it from the beginning.

it was 100% the purpose, but it looks like it worked out badly. They keep underestimating Zelenski but he was certainly prepared for this confrontation. I mean, I just can&#x27;t imagine anybody staying that cool in front of such provocations.

Which is the exact kind of play Putin likes to perform.

Even worse with Kaja Kallas, she flew into US and Rubio cancelled the meeting. Not sure if she was supposed to meet Trump or not but that&#x27;s still a case of US bullying its allies all the while sucking up to Putin.

Trump did the exact same thing with the Polish president, made him wait for 1 and a half hours then had a 10 minute meeting with him.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dw.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;how-trumps-foreign-policy-is-impacting-polish-us-relations&#x2F;a-71749104" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dw.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;how-trumps-foreign-policy-is-impacting...</a>

I don&#x27;t think the US is &quot;too big to fall&quot;, and the US seems to have taken that road.

But will the American people see what the rest of the world sees, or will they continue supporting Trump and Vance?

I think it was disgusting what Trump and Vance did, but I don&#x27;t believe for a second that everyone will view it that way. The 40% that voted for them will view this as an ass whooping Trump&#x2F;Vance gave Zelensky. They&#x27;re all in on the grift, there&#x27;s no reason this will turn them off.Now, if SS or Medicaid is gutted... that will be the turning point for this admin.

The joke is on them.The one&#x27;s humiliated on the global scale are the ones who are lying through their teeth with less than zero class.

&gt; It&#x27;s shameful what our administration has done.The shameful part was ten years ago.

Only American MAGA supporters saw Zelensky being humiliated.Anybody else saw Vance and Trump humiliating themselves. Showing the intellectual and emotional capacity of a middle schooler to the world while a man whose people are suffering occupation and mass casualties and deals with death every day just looks stunned.To anybody with critical thinking skills it feels like Trump &amp; Vance are talking about a TV show or video game. Completely disconnected from reality. Horrifying and shocking level of narcissistic immaturity.

What did Vance say addressed to the media that Zelensky shouldn&#x27;t have responded to? I&#x27;ve watched the video a few times and I don&#x27;t really get what you&#x27;re talking about<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;O_BhxA1WDQY?si=7Ovl4-RpTCdi5ewZ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;O_BhxA1WDQY?si=7Ovl4-RpTCdi5ewZ</a>

Richard Hanania believes that we should repeal large portions of the Civil Rights Act and has previously posted extreme racial hatred on white supremacist websites.

This guy is a probably a Russian bot. He talks like Ukraine was 2 minutes away from a victory and Zelenskyy just needed to stfu for 30 more seconds to get it.

Vance seemed genuinely butthurt that Zelensky wasn&#x27;t grovelling.

I initially saw just the latter part of the meeting where the conflict happens and it seemed like a premeditated thing, but after finding a video that shows the meeting from the beginning[1], I agree that it comes across differently.It seems like they were having a pretty good meeting, right up until Vance decides to interject his stupid talking points, and then the exchange between Vance and Zelensky gets Trump to launch into his bizarre grievance tirade. It&#x27;s like dementia was in full-self-driving mode and had no brakes.Maybe Vance got what he wanted out of this meeting, but I could plausibly believe that Trump wasn&#x27;t planning for it to blow up like this -- he just didn&#x27;t have the level of self-control or self-awareness to stop himself. Which isn&#x27;t exactly a good look either.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Y7QxUHdvpk8?t=8693" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Y7QxUHdvpk8?t=8693</a>

The spat started when Vance made a point addressed to the US media (not Zelensky), and Zelensky interjected to confront Vance for his statement.Up until that point there had been 40 minutes of cordial discussion. I don&#x27;t think it was intended that the talks would break down and the deal would fall through.

Lots of us here feel the way you do and are in disbelief of our country

I&#x27;d rather this than a useless meeting in secret with prepared press releases full of pablum and platitudes.

I couldn&#x27;t even watch the whole video. Horrendous. Depressing. How can you tolerate having those men running your country America. Nightmare fuel.

Yes this was my first thought. But then I understood that it&#x27;s most probably the fact that the administration wasn&#x27;t interested in the outcome of the conversation. My hypotesis is that Trump is living each day as unique, disconnected from the others, in a selfish way. So he didn&#x27;t care about the consequences of this meeting for Zelenskyy and in general everything else.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kyivpost.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;47630" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kyivpost.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;47630</a>

They 100% set him up. A new block in the wall of proving that Trump is a Russian asset or dupe. I don&#x27;t see how any other conclusion can be drawn by anyone paying attention. He consistently kisses up to Putin with little love messages via Fox news and other outlets, while doing his best to alienate the rest of the world. It would be different if he just washed his hands of the whole situation, however he always looks up to Putin and refuses to call him a dictator, I reckon because he was told that he would regret it if he ever did from his Russian contacts.

What Zelensky got mad about is that all previous diplomatic agreements with Russia have been broken by Russia when convenient. Even the Budapest Memorandum, where the US pledged security to Ukraine in exchange for them giving their nukes to Russia, is no longer honored. How can Ukraine trust that any deal made by Trump is going to be honored once Russia rebuilds its military if the US won&#x27;t offer any assurances of peace?

You can&#x27;t have diplomacy with Russia, they don&#x27;t respect any agreements, EU tried to partner up with them on trade as a &quot;diplomatic&quot; route, hoping that cash flowing both ways would be enough to keep Russia happy, but their ambitions go beyond a peaceful coexistence.

It was a 40 minute long conversation and everything was fine until the last 5 minutes when Zelensky got mad about Vance talking about using diplomacy with Russia.

&gt; we do not have enough of an interest to go send young Americans to die.This is a straw man: nobody asked you to.&gt; the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked outThere was nothing fair in that mineral deal: the US would get resources and Ukraine was getting... nothing. No security guarantees, no military support, nothing. Trump said it himself: he wanted it to get back what the US spent helping Ukraine so far.Getting something for nothing is fair to you?&gt; as dress for the occasionThe is the King of Saudi Arabia at the white house: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gettyimages.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;president-obama-meets-with-king-salman-bin-abdulaziz-al-saud-of-saudi-arabia-at-the-white-house" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gettyimages.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;president-obama-meets-wit...</a>This is the pope at the white house: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;obamawhitehouse.archives.gov&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;09&#x2F;25&#x2F;photos-pope-francis-visits-white-house" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;obamawhitehouse.archives.gov&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;09&#x2F;25&#x2F;photos-...</a>This is Elon Musk giving an interview in the oval office: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;12&#x2F;tech&#x2F;elon-musk-x-oval-office&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;02&#x2F;12&#x2F;tech&#x2F;elon-musk-x-oval-off...</a>Did they all disrespect the US?Ukraine is sending its youngs to die to keep Russia (the west common enemy) at bay and your concern is... Zelinsky wearing a tie?

this seems like a misread. we get something out of sending resources to Ukraine. it&#x27;s a decently-leveraged way to keep Russia, a would-be superpower, down for the next decade or so, to keep bleeding her without bleeding our own young men.we do not have enough of an interest to go send young Americans to die. to deploy boots-on-the-ground forces for what amounts to a minor territorial war in a country with limited strategic importance beyond being a buffer state. smells too strongly of vietnam and korea.to those who disagree with this, alright that&#x27;s a fair position to hold. what number of young Americans is it appropriate for us to sacrifice to hold the donetsk and luhansk oblasts? how many of our children should we send to die? which number is reasonable and which is too great? if you don&#x27;t believe there&#x27;s a limit, and we should risk any number of Americans and potential nuclear exchange, why?the minerals deal was actually a pretty fair offer the way it was worked out. then zelensky decided to, at the eleventh hour, push for a full security deal which isn&#x27;t tenable from where we stand. this wasn&#x27;t what had been discussed with Rubio; it was a bait-and-switch pressure tactic. zelensky was trying to either squeeze out that guarantee or humiliate the admin with failure coming from what otherwise would have been successful.i think the constant lionization of zelensky has gone to his head. he feels confident in disrespecting nations who have invested significant resources in the war by refusing to so much as dress for the occasion, expecting the sort of standing ovation the prior administration and european leaders gave him. i can respect someone who&#x27;s fighting for causes i generally support, as can most of my countrymen, but zelensky is no holy warrior and we have no moral duty to offer unlimited resources and manpower. we have aligned interests, but if not for that, there are more than enough domestic US issues that we otherwise would not (nor should we) send the sort of resources we have. similar thing with Israel: we have strongly overlapping interests but she needs to mind her place and toe the line if she wants our support.

They invited him to the White House to finally sign the rare earth minerals agreement, which he had said he&#x27;d sign and then renegged two times prior[0]. This was the third attempt by the US to get it signed. During the meeting, he indicated that he would sign the agreement but then not agree to a cease fire, which was the whole point of putting it in place. Naturally, this was a deal breaker for the administration and the meeting ended.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RapidResponse47&#x2F;status&#x2F;1895633109649134013" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;RapidResponse47&#x2F;status&#x2F;1895633109649134013</a>

the way I read what you wrote, it seems like you think Zelensky&#x27;s argument is bad and purely emotionally motivated, but the fact that Putin&#x2F;Russia has broken agreements and ceasefires is a very valid concern, isn&#x27;t it?if the conference had ended without argument but behind the scenes Trump&#x2F;Vance were setting up negotiations that go against Ukraine&#x27;s interest, that would not have been a &quot;win&quot; for Zelensky other than in terms of a contest of popularity - but only the popularity among westerners who have no real personal stake in the conflict. it&#x27;s Ukrainians and Russians who are dying on the front lines.

Like you, I watched the full hour. I had the same analysis.There are no winners from an exchange like this. Trump and Vance come across as bullies. Zelenskyy comes across as needlessly argumentative. Trump and Zelenskyy both come across as quick to anger. Not a good look for any of them.

Maybe Zelensky had a very thin path out after Vance&#x27;s provocations, but even the language accents are partly to blame for miscommunication&#x2F;crosstalk, so maybe for Zelensky it was a Kobayashi Maru situation.

I watched the entire press conference with Zelensky. There was 40 minutes of discussion up to the argument. Most people saw at most the last ten minutes. The whole video gives the proper context.When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That&#x27;s not what happened.You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn&#x27;t attack Zelensky and wasn&#x27;t even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always &quot;we&#x27;ll see.&quot; Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would&#x27;ve signed a deal.The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn&#x27;t get us anywhere.The Zelensky&#x2F;Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.I&#x27;ve been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don&#x27;t see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.

It was as if they invited him to the Whitehouse to set him up for a lecture and scolding. They had no intention of anything other than humiliating him in front of the world. It&#x27;s shameful what our administration has done.

Yeah, I was wondering at what point Putin decides to roll the dice and put that to the test by rolling into Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia. He must be feeling his chances are pretty good right now.

Come one, we both know Trump would respond. With a contract for half the invaded nations resources.

What if the trigger was the US annexing a NATO nation&#x27;s territory? He&#x27;s already made noises about Canada and Greenland (Denmark). That would be the ultimate farce.

There was an opinion poll amongst British on this and apparently even Brits don’t trust America anymore.Only %44 believe that US will come to their help if Russia attacks UK.Yougov: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;yougov&#x2F;status&#x2F;1893967204846063823?s=46" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;yougov&#x2F;status&#x2F;1893967204846063823?s=46</a>

What&#x27;s more embarrasing is that the only time article 5 was activated was for US when they got attacked on 9&#x2F;11

Let’s be real: NATO is already a farce at the moment. If Article 5 is triggered by a European nation, would Trump respond? Of course not.

It also took the White House being set on fire to understand the sovereignty of the land across its northern border. And now there&#x27;s all this Trump talk of trying to invade once again.

I don&#x27;t think I understand this comment

Can you please inform me how the US bullied UK into mineral rights in WW2? We exported arms and equipment to them even before Lend-lease acts.It would be true if you were to mention about our special flavor of freedom exportation during the cold war. However, this time Ukraine is a democratic nation being invaded by our biggest political rival, Russia.

&gt; But boy, will the nations of the world remember this -- how quickly the US can turn from ally to bully.Nothing new, smart people knew that for a long, looong time. May I remind you it took Pearl Harbor to get the US into WW2.

&gt; edit: not sure by which part of the world this is downvoted ;)It&#x27;s downvoted because of this:&gt; Well most of the nations of the world didn&#x27;t do anything for Ukraine, or supported Russia one way or the other.Most of the world supports Ukraine or at least is not pro Russia, as you can see in UN votes. In latest vote, USA voted like Russia, North Korea and Israel, China abstained.

Well most of the nations of the world didn&#x27;t do anything for Ukraine, or supported Russia one way or the other.Maybe a lot of them see the US and&#x2F;or the Western countries as bullies anyway.edit: not sure by which part of the world this is downvoted ;)

I worry that Russia is more than capable of throwing mass casualties into the fight for longer than Ukraine can.

Credit to Biden who set the tone. He was very fast and forceful in backing Ukraine even when the general assumption was that they had no chance. Europe was willing to step up since then and will have to carry them from now on.

&gt; Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realizeWhat makes you say that? I thought it was generally agreed that Ukraine has been on the back foot for a while now. People used to be quite optimistic about Ukraine recovering the occupied territories.

Europe is happy to let others do the fighting and dying for them.  They want Ukraine to fight the Russians so they don&#x27;t have to.  Sounds like a continent of cowards.

Ukraine’s situation is worse than many people realize. Ukraine is losing the war right now with roughly equal support in monetary terms from both US and EU! They have huge manpower problems because of losses and apparent political inability to mobilize enough men. Even if EU suddenly doubled its aid to compensate (which I think is _very_ unlikely), there are gaps in weapons production in Europe, e.g. for SAMs.

There&#x27;s a difference between &quot;siding with Russia&quot; and siding with negotiated peace.Many people seem to think that the US, and to a lesser extent the EU, should fund this war indefinitely. However, the US clearly does not benefit from a direct war with Russia, and while we may gain from a proxy war, choosing not to fund it does not equate to “siding with Russia.”

This is not a popular analysis. Russia has ramped up their war machine significantly over the last 2 years and have been successfully grinding Ukraine down. They can and will continue to do this. They’ve reoriented their economy around sustained military production, and the tariffs issued against Russia by the US and EU have proven to be ineffective.

The regions Russia is taking from Ukraine have some value in terms of GDP. It&#x27;s interesting that the Freudian slip US offering involved an additional minerals deal (as in, this is the main interest of the taking parties). Russia is not going to give back GDP, and that&#x27;s probably behind the break in negotiations. Russia is not relinquishing any gains, and the US wants more resources, and there is no guarantee given to Ukraine regarding its remaining territorial integrity. They are trying to make Ukraine eat shit.

Ukraine knows the future of warfare and will prosper if they survive this. They will be the ones with the technology and experience in future warfare, and the USA is throwing away a chance to partner with Ukraine and guarantee such a victory.In 20, 15, or 7 years from now when terrorists are sending drones into medium-sized cities in Alabama to kill indiscriminately, it would have been better for the USA to have been on Ukraine&#x27;s side.EDIT: better grammar, maybe

Betting on the wrong horse while Xi just has to stand aside to see the crown of superpower being handed to him with no effort, Russia on the road to implode in a fire sale, while China looks to sign lucrative trade agreements with the EU.Brexit was shooting yourself in the foot, today was a gruesome display of diplomatic suicide on live television.

EU alone has provided more than the US, add UK and NO, and the difference is substantial.

Yes, plus Ukraine learnt a lesson when the GOP stalled aid and they ran low on supplies, so they have stockpiled and domestic production has increased. It&#x27;s a war of attrition and so both sides are hoping to keep going until the other collapses. The US withdrawing support is a victory for Russian, but it won&#x27;t end the war. What happens with sanctions might, but also without the US telling them what to do the gloves will be off Ukraine.So much for stopping the war in 24hrs. Trump&#x27;s plans were never going to work there, and both Russian and Ukraine were going to try and make it look like the failure was not their fault - guess Russian won that particular battle, maybe it was never even a contest.

Most of the money the USA has spent went to arms manufacturers. I imagine there&#x27;s still working on producing and sending the arms.

I follow a lot of Ukrainian commentary, it&#x27;s hard for me to conclude Ukraine is doing well.
They&#x27;re having to conscript younger and younger people every day.
No business is insane enough to invest in Ukraine at the moment.
Some companies are crazy enough to try to ship goods in and out of Odesa, but its significantly less than pre-war.
Every time the Ukrainian army tries to take back territory in the Donbas, the Russian army repels their forward strikes, and usually takes a few more feet of the Donbas in the process.
It&#x27;s really hard to win a war of attrition against the largest country in the world.
The Russian army occupies some of the largest energy sources of Ukraine.  I haven&#x27;t investigated recently but I suspect Russia is still Ukraine&#x27;s largest LNG provider.

“the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse”This is delusional. Russia would’ve bulldozed Ukraine without US support. What county is under US sanctions? What country is receiving US weapons? Which, to be sure, is the correct choice. And having public spars with Ukraine is not.But the fact that someone just typed this out and posted it is just so delusional. The fact that people upvoted this is delusional.On March 16, 2014, the President issued Executive Order
13661, which expanded the scope of the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13660, and found that the actions
and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with
respect to Ukraine undermine democratic processes and
institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security,
stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and
contribute to the misappropriation of its assets.…Therefore… I [Trump]… am continuing… Execute Order 13660.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;public-inspection.federalregister.gov&#x2F;2025-03462.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;public-inspection.federalregister.gov&#x2F;2025-03462.pdf</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ukrainianworldcongress.org&#x2F;trump-prolongs-sanctions-against-russia-for-another-year&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ukrainianworldcongress.org&#x2F;trump-prolongs-sancti...</a>I don’t know why this pisses me off so much. Ostensibly we agree broadly. It’s just, HN really used to have such good nuanced and factual discussions, even outside tech. Now it’s all just raw anger.

Ukraine’s situation is better than many people realize, and the US, in siding with Russia, may be betting on the wrong horse.The EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, Ukraine drone production is through the roof. Europe needs Ukraine and its army as a bulwark against Russia.

Yep. The warnings have existed for a long time, but most European states have continued to ignore the hallmarks.Even Poland only started rearming after Kazynski&#x27;s plane was shot down in Smolensk in 2010 (edit; not shot down), Romania only (started after Crimea and it&#x27;s implications of a similar incident in neighboring Moldova in 2014, Turkiye began due interventions in Syria and Libya that lead to Turkish and Russian soldiers fighting against each other in 2012-15, and Netherlands after over a hundred of their citizens were shot down in an Air Malaysia Flight in 2015-16 (forgetting the exact date)Trump is absolutely wrong in publicly abandoning our European allies, but this is something every administration since 2008 has been saying would eventually happen.The failed UK-France intervention in Libya should have been the warning call (France and UK&#x27;s air forces couldn&#x27;t disable Libya&#x27;s A2AD and ran out of precision muntions, forcing the Obama admin to intervene and spark the Benghazi crisis which helped bring Trump into the Oval Office in 2016). In fact, that incident probably further emboldened Russia as Libya&#x27;s military apparatus was heavily Russian&#x2F;Soviet in armament and strategy.

The US military was concerned about this scenario long before and raised concerns back in 2011. They predicted why someone like Trump would would come in power and question the purpose of NATO. But it was not taken seriously by NATO allies at that time. Obama even wanted European allies to be able to launch their own military missions with just US as a support role. The Libya interventions was supposed to be a test of that.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlanticcouncil.org&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;natosource&#x2F;text-of-speech-by-robert-gates-on-the-future-of-nato&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlanticcouncil.org&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;natosource&#x2F;text-of-spe...</a>

&gt; World needs to help out Ukraine because if Ukraine falls it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treaty.This is, unfortunately, already the case. No country will ever fully trust such treaties again, and we are closer than ever to a new era of nuclear proliferation.

True. Non-proliferation is dead, killed three years ago. Only when Ukraine gets Russia to the point of a Compiègne Forest railroad car end (remember how much of Germany had been occupied at that point?) there is hope for a future without widespread nuke availability.

Germany is now outright advocating that France replace US nuclear weapons on Western European soil with its own.Charles de Gaulle is somewhere under a tombstone grinning ear to ear saying &quot;I told you so.&quot;Very strange times.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kyivindependent.com&#x2F;france-could-send-nuclear-armed-jets-to-germany-telegraph-reports&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kyivindependent.com&#x2F;france-could-send-nuclear-armed-...</a>

&gt; They are just pieces of paper that guarantee nothing.You just noticed? Rules&#x2F;treaties are useless unless you have the power to enforce them.

&gt; it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treatyThis is something every related country already knows, think of Pakistan and North Korea. Are you expecting China and India to drop their nukes because of some nice treaty?&gt; World needs to help out Ukraine...... to achieve peace ASAP, because thousands of lives are being lost.

I&#x27;m gonna get flak for this, but both Trump and Biden are heavily to blame for nuclear proliferation. Trump due to his actions against Iran in ripping up the nuclear deal just because he didn&#x27;t like the person who negotiated it in combination with his decision to assassinate Soleimani. But Biden is just as much to blame due to his refusal to do anything of consequence when Russia broke the agreements of the Budapest Memorandum. We should have had boots on the ground when they invaded, but we waffled back and forth on selling them 50 year old weapons technology for months and now years. Unacceptable, and now the whole world knows that the major nuclear powers can&#x27;t be trusted to come to anybody&#x27;s aid.

World needs to help out Ukraine because if Ukraine falls it shows that you should never give up your nuclear weapons for any agreement or treaty.  They are just pieces of paper that guarantee nothing.   This will just lead to more countries getting nukes which means higher likelihood of a nuclear war.

The EU is going to be thinking long and hard if the US really is so much more friendly than China.

Interesting take. I mostly disagree, but you do make a good point that Europe won&#x27;t be willing to &quot;shed blood&quot; for Ukraine.

&gt; Frankly, the EU is only able to &quot;think long and hard&quot; but never to actually do anything. They have no warfighters anymore and it will take years for the member states of the EU to rebuild anything resembling military capability, if the EU even allows it.What are you on about? EU countries + UK have over a million professional military personnel.&gt; Brussels is the equivalent to the Deep State in the US but with official status, instead of being a shadow government.The EU parliament has members elected from each country in the EU, there&#x27;s no deep state conspiracy there.&gt; The member states of the EU are soon going to realize they are &quot;a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia&quot; and their best interests lie in close ties to the US.This is the complete opposite of what&#x27;s actually going on, EU countries are realizing we need a stronger EU and we need to fend for ourselves and will be moving away from US ties.

Frankly, the EU is only able to &quot;think long and hard&quot; but never to actually do anything. They have no warfighters anymore and it will take years for the member states of the EU to rebuild anything resembling military capability, if the EU even allows it. Brussels is the equivalent to the Deep State in the US but with official status, instead of being a shadow government. The only leverage EU member states have vis a vis the US is as trading partners and as vassal states for Pax Americana. If the EU wants to move away from the US, good luck. The member states of the EU are soon going to realize they are &quot;a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia&quot; and their best interests lie in close ties to the US.Ukraine is in a bind, and it is sad when a buffer state is put through the meat grinder in a proxy war between two great powers. But here we are. The upside is that the Ukrainians who weren&#x27;t killed in the conflict will be, along with Poland and Lithuania, the only &quot;European&quot; states with anything resembling a capable military. I doubt the EU members want Ukraine as a full member of NATO. Too risky. There are some proposals on the table for a more complicated peace without conceding full neutrality of Ukraine to Russia.I don&#x27;t think many people understand the nature of this conflict. They merely see &quot;Russian aggression&quot; but have little comprehension of great power competition and the events leading up to the hot part of this war. I feel for the Ukrainians but I wonder if any of the Ukraine boosters would shed a drop of their own blood for Ukraine. If the US demands that the Europeans take a larger role in the security of Europe, we will see if the European NATO members are up to the task. The US needs to pivot its resources to China in the coming decade. The war with Russia has been very costly and strengthened the bonds between Russia and China (and Iran and North Korea). The Europeans should take a great role in policing their own neighborhood, but I don&#x27;t believe the EU, as currently constructed, is the governance vehicle capable of leading a unified Europe. The member states are, quite understandably, not happy to give up their sovereignty and culture. Participation in a common market has been a disaster for the working class of Western Europe (unless you think cheaper products is the only measure of a country&#x27;s vitality). The EU experiment might be at an inflection point. They can remain in this bureaucratic quagmire, or reassert the spirit of Wesphalian sovereignty, or await the arrival of a new Charlemagne to unite a strong Europe under sovereign leadership capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. My money is on the decline of the EU into irrelevance and a return to the Westphalian spirit. There is no political will centered in Brussels capable of leading this ragtag assemblage of diverse states and peoples. The border problems persist. The result will be more populist revolts and ascendant &quot;right wing&quot; parties advocating &quot;blood and soil&quot; nationalism. If that&#x27;s the future, then the western european states will only be supported militarily via bilateral treaties with the US or under the umbrella of a NATO dominated by the US. The latter is just the norm for the post-WWII &quot;New World Order&quot; so it will feel familiar. With luck, the collapse of the EU will allow EU member states to reassert control over their own borders and laws. If that happens, they should abandon this resentment of the US and be grateful they were saved from the managed decline of their central government in Brussels.

&gt; and of &quot;reigning in&quot; speech deemed by some as harmful.Can you cite any legislative efforts anywhere in the USA by any elected Democrat that limits, coerces or in anyway &quot;reigns in&quot; speech of any sort?

This is a defensive war. This is the lesson we learned when the world did nothing to stop Hitler&#x27;s initial aggression. This is the moment of truth. Doing nothing is easy, it&#x27;s the default. We now know the possible consequences and we&#x27;ve made our mind to not let that happen again. Have we learned nothing?

&gt; Is it in our interest to continue to run up debt, send overseas ammunition and hardware?Whose economy gets the money spent? If it&#x27;s ours—and it is—then yes, it&#x27;s obviously in our interest to continue to run up debt.

Must we endlessly fund a war that is in stalemate and will continue to savagely end the lives of military and civilian alike? Otherwise, we are a bully? Is it in our interest to continue to run up debt, send overseas ammunition and hardware? To what end? And for how long? I remember wondering the same during Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this really America&#x27;s permanent responsibility, for any country in the world?It&#x27;s quite remarkable the change in America over a couple decades. In the 90s, the left was solidly pro-free-speech and anti-war. Anti-war sometimes to a fault, even. Maybe aside from some censorship effort of rap and Mortal Kombat, you could count on the left to defend free speech at nearly any cost.Now, it is the left that seems interested in doubling down on wars, without any plan for escape, and of &quot;reigning in&quot; speech deemed by some as harmful.I&#x27;m not here to say correct or incorrect. Pick your own ice cream flavor. My point is that it&#x27;s striking how much the parties have flipped 180 degrees (on some issues).

They’re not though… it’s just that endless billions being sent for a war that Europe won’t proportionally help support has to end. How much more money and lives will be wasted in Ukraine?

I&#x27;m concerned the US is turning from ally to enemy of the EU.

Good - they can pay for their own defense instead of milking the American tax payer.

&gt; European defense spending has, for decades now, suggested that they don&#x27;t particularly care about NATO.I&#x27;d argue the opposite: Western European countries&#x27; low defense spending was exactly because they they believed NATO (in particular the US) would intervene if needed. They don&#x27;t believe this anymore now, hence will increase defense spending, hence making NATO less relevant. They will now be able to rely on the EU alone.

&gt; The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.European defense spending has, for decades now, suggested that they don&#x27;t particularly care about NATO. Well, the Western European members at least. Those who used to live in the Warsaw Pact take it more seriously - see Poland, for example.They also should have been thinking about the implications of buying so much gas from the Russians for the last 15 years. The invasion of Georgia should have been a trigger to move off of Russian exports permanently. Instead it just brought further dependence and a major pipeline project.I despise Trump as much as anyone but strategic security shouldn&#x27;t rest on one country never being in a position to elect an isolationist demagogue.

Seems to me that the country Trump is pushing into geopolitical irrelevance is the United States of America.  Thanks to him, we&#x27;re making enemies of friends and allies, throwing away our influence on the world, throwing away any claim we had to being a model, and turning in on ourselves.  Trump is MALA: Make America Little Again.

And purpose would that serve Trump? Make Europe weaker... for what? To build a casino in Paris?

And what will happen instead is the US losing their status as hegemon&#x2F;leader of the &quot;free&quot; world &#x2F; West, with all the benefits that entailed.

This will mostly just weaken America.Europe can defend itself against Russia just fine. Maybe it will be a bit poorer, as it has to spend more money on defense, but it can do that. The bigger threat is that European countries start fighting each other again. That could happen in a few decades, if Eurosceptic parties become too popular.On the other hand, Europe does not care about China. It has no interests in the Pacific. In the absence of mutually beneficial alliances with powers that oppose China, Europe would rather see China as a (somewhat unpleasant) trading partner than an adversary. If China is not a threat and the US is not an ally, it doesn&#x27;t matter much which of them is the dominant power in the Pacific.

Europe hasn&#x27;t been geopolitical relevant beyond it&#x27;s own borders for a while now.I mean think about it - it had to rely on US transportation just to participate in the Iraq War. How much of a threat can a country be if it can&#x27;t even project force into that theatre?

I bet this is all a part of Trump&#x27;s strategy into pushing Europe into geopolitical irrelevance. And if it counts for anything, the Europeans did this to themselves by relying on the goodwill of America for their own security.

agree, trade gets screwed too. I guess sometimes democracy means we get what we deserve lol

This is exactly right. Current US allies should not trust the United States to stand with them at least for the next four years or so.I would go further than that and say you can&#x27;t trust the US for anything, ever. The United States will not keep long term commitments for more than four years at a time. If you&#x27;re lucky, or unlucky depending on which side you&#x27;re on, that cycle will last 8 years.

I would go further: this is the end of the US. The pieces haven&#x27;t hit the ground yet, but they are falling. NATO cannot last when Europe doesn&#x27;t trust the US. Nations cannot trust that trade agreements will last beyond the whims of the moment. Federal workers are being sacked indiscriminately. The executive branch has openly stated that they will not obey the rule of law if it is against them, even after packing the courts. What is left?There is something left: the land, the people. But not the country, that is something new.

I don&#x27;t know if I&#x27;d phrase it as the &quot;power&quot; to do whatever it wants.Anyone can always do whatever they want. And the only way there aren&#x27;t repercussions on some level are if you&#x27;re some kind of god-like being sealed in the equivalent of closed terrarium.Does the US have power? Sure. But the US could act disgracefully even if it didn&#x27;t have power.The framing I&#x27;d give this is that the US is trying to extort Ukraine without actually bringing anything to the table, and all it&#x27;s going to accomplish is making the US itself less powerful, less reputable, the rest of the world more convinced that nuclear weapons need proliferate because otherwise invasions are on the table, and a litany of other things that will basically make the US weaker over time.

Let&#x27;s hope that someone learned real politik is actually blind, short-term politik.

Make no mistake, this display was a disgrace, but... after the annexation of Crimea the EU (Germany) moved ahead with Nord Stream 2, we are culpable too, massively. Ironically there&#x27;s a famous video of none other than Trump lambasting the Germans about it.

&gt; how quickly the US can turn from ally to bullyAs if this lesson hasn&#x27;t been conveyed for the past 30 years.How anyone can sit here after the Iraq war and say any of this with a straight face is beyond me.

Trump can&#x27;t provide that because any &quot;security guarantee&quot; from the US would essentially translate into &quot;send armed troops&quot;, which is something that would run counter to his campaign stance.

Security guaranties is too much of a step up from Security Assurances [0] I guess.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Budapest_Memorandum" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Budapest_Memorandum</a>

I saw a lot of people justifying Trump&#x27;s moves because &quot;the US shouldn&#x27;t be spending so much money helping Ukraine in the war.&quot;I understand that argument, but what about security guarantees? Zelensky has been simply asking for security guarantees so that Putin doesn&#x27;t start another war in a few years (like he did in 2014 and 2022). Why can&#x27;t Trump provide that? Why should we just trust Putin&#x27;s word? Or is there something I&#x27;m missing here?

With Trump&#x27;s fragile ego, there&#x27;s a chance he will designate all humanitarian charitable organizations, and military-aid organizations, to whom USA citizens might want to donate, that have any ties to or otherwise benefit Ukraine, as terrorist organizations. I will be evaluating these ... if you have plans to assist, it may be better to do so sooner rather than later.

US was always a bully Trump is doing overtly what US has been doing covertly using CIA etc for decades. Actually Trump is more honest than previous US administrations as those would have killed Zelensky and then blamed it on China or Russia if he was not willing to do what they want.

Lots of this is correct however Turkey isn&#x27;t anyone&#x27;s puppet, they&#x27;re a wildcard if there ever was one.  Lately they&#x27;ve been quite insistent that Crimea should not be ceded to Russia, for example.  They&#x27;re also certainly not going to tolerate a Russia&#x2F;Iran axis in their neighborhood and they&#x27;ve been quite aggressive vs Russian forces that encroached their interests.

The US has been a bully since at least WW2. The US has been betraying &quot;allies&quot; for just as long.Russia&#x27;s invasion of Ukraine has been a godsend for US influence. Finland and Sweden joined NATO. The Russian military was exposed as a paper tiger. A huge portion of the Russian military&#x27;s capability was destroyed without a single US military serviceman or asset being deployed. Russian energy exports to Europe (and the influence that gives them) have dropped to a mere fraction of what they were in 2020. Europe is now dependant on US LNG exports.The second largest military in NATO is Turkey and Turkey is America&#x27;s puppet. Turkey has been in direct military conflict with other NATO members (ie Greece) with the blessing of the US.Ceding territory to Russia, which seems all but inevitable now, doesn&#x27;t change the the security picture for Europe. Russia still can&#x27;t occupy Ukraine. That was true before the invasion. It&#x27;s still true now. They certainly can&#x27;t roll into Poland let alone Germany and Western Europe.The EU really has no interest in paying for their own security. Politically it&#x27;s a nonstarter too with the right of far-right parties like National Front in France and AfD, AfD in Germany and Reform in the UK.

NATO is an alliance of 32 democracies and from time to time some of those will vote in unfortunate leaders. I guess the remainder will have to carry on. I doubt the US will remain this way after the next election.

The future of NATO is secure. It just won&#x27;t include the US. Whether that exclusion is done implicitly or explicitly remains to be seen. The US has put itself in the position where it has no allies and no peaceful trading partners. That&#x27;s not going to work out well for them, regardless of how much military might they believe they have.

Not only that, now only insane nation won&#x27;t try to get nukes.Expect insane nukes proliferation.

Why a separate alliance? In 2015, only 5 nations meet the 2% funding requirement for NATO, with all previous US administrations asking for increases. That&#x27;s concrete evidence of disinterest in the concept or intentional reliance on the US. Only recently, with threats of the US pulling out of NATO, have the numbers improved.If the US scaled back the 2%, and was less involved, I would think Europe would be in a better position than a brand new alliance.

Genuinely confused:Why the downvotes?In 2025, Trump dumped Ukraine, sided with Putin and made a number of bully threats (including invasion) to its formal National Security partners. Security which - at least still today - is bound by literal treaty.Should Europe just roll over and wag its tail?What kind of partnership is this that one side wants to boss around its only-good-if-wimp partner?

You&#x27;re missing that many European nations are having their own problems with the rise of ultra-right nationalism.We&#x27;re in the verge of those countries being Trumped as well.

European Democracies should start a, new, NATO-like military Alliance on their own, but without Trump&#x27;s America.
(and without the notorious US-made military equipment kill-switches)And while we&#x27;re at it, this time will be different: 
Instead of the membership criteria being anti-soviet communism, as in NATO, it should be effective Liberal Democracy - and - Freedom from Exceptionalist Exemptions, namely from the International Rule of Law. So, to be part,1. Compulsory International Criminal Court membership and compliance - hence no exceptionalistic US, and no exceptionalistic Israel.2. No &quot;Illiberal Democracies&quot;: say, for example, composite of a minimum 0.67 score on the WJP Rule of Law Index and others: therefore no Orbanic Hungary, and no illiberal others like it. Poland, Slovakia, Italy: time to make some hard choices if you want in.3. Democratic backsliding removes you rights in the Alliance, and, can proportionally lead to outright expulsion.Not one more new military equipment purchase from the US, (and dispreference for other non-qualifying nations procurement). Member nations should use their - substantial - industrial capacity to equip themselves with indigenous military materiel.Hey, it would be actually great for the economy!Initially European scope, but bridges to a broader global scope (or even a secondary sister-Alliance) with open-ended partnerships with Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Japan, South Korea, and yes: Taiwan.US and&#x2F;or Israel want to join, if a more Democratic future selves? Simple: fully join the ICC, and meet the Alliance&#x27;s full criteria as every other member.Same applies for prospective new members.Sweden shows how principled positions can be maintained while building serious defense capabilities. Now multiply that model by Europe&#x27;s combined industrial and technological base.We just need the political will to execute - instead of just rolling over and wagging our tail to bullies.

Traditionally the US turned from ally to bully in a predictable manner though. Ally with the Soviet Union, expect hostility, even if your previous right-leaning government had been their best buddies. Invade another country the US also regarded as a regional ally and oil supplier and you might not last long.The switch to verbally attacking Ukraine and the rest of Europe whilst fellating Putin is an altogether different one, and one much more damaging to US soft power than its past belligerence.

&gt; the US can turn from ally to bullyThis has been par for the course for decades. They used to be on good terms with Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran after they couped Mossadegh. Heck, they even armed and trained Osama Bin Laden to fight the soviets in Afghanistan. It has always been a deadly gambit to ally yourself with the United States.I&#x27;m not saying it&#x27;s universally the case of course. For every Saddam there&#x27;s a Pinochet, for every Gaddafi there&#x27;s a Suharto. But the fact that the US can drop an ally just like that should not be a surprise to anyone.

These are verified charities list.Help Ukraine: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;ukraine&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;charities&#x2F;?share_id=xGuv-wAQrBh7iEakix6jh" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;ukraine&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;charities&#x2F;?share_id=xG...</a>Dont buy from Companies doing business with Russia:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;leave-russia.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;leave-russia.org&#x2F;</a>

They increased their defense spending because of Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. It didn&#x27;t have anything to do with US bullying. The biden administration certainly wasn&#x27;t going around bullying Europe between 2021 and 2024.

They should have been thinking for a long time now, but weren&#x27;t. For the 2% requirement:2015: 5 countries2021: 9 countries2024: 23 countriesI don&#x27;t think these levels would have improved so quickly without the US being a bully.

Half the country isn&#x27;t &quot;compromised.&quot; We simply woke up to the fact that a continent of people that do nothing but mock and sneer at us refused to pay for their own defense, and we get nothing from it in return, other than having our exports tariffed at higher levels than EU exports to the US.For the US, NATO is an obligation, of which the EU nations (with their lavish social spending and anemic defense spending) benefited from.In 2014, the EU did NOTHING to help when Crimea was invaded. You continued to buy gas, and even bult new pipelines like Nordstream to continue to hand Putin money. I&#x27;m all for the EU to take on it&#x27;s own protection and investing in militaries. World War II ended 80 years ago. Move on and grow up and pay for your own defense.

There’s probably going to be a decade long build up for that to happen. European military industrial production could barely surge to the promised 1 million shells to Ukraine

France has nukes. But for nukes it doesn’t matter in practice if you have 10 or 1000. If you use one, it is one too many. It only matters that you have them.

The EU needs to get armed to the teeth and to pile up on nukes. The US cannot be trusted, half of the country is compromised and that&#x27;s not something that will change any time soon, even after Trump goes to meet his creator.

Most of the mineral wealth stuff is all in the Donbas, or a couple of kilometers from the front lines. I am unaware of much of anything like that in western Ukraine.Historically most of the heavy industry, near the mineral deposits, has always been in eastern Ukraine. Agricultural stuff in western and central Ukraine. Putin would be perfectly happy w&#x2F; a Ukrainian only rump state centered around Lviv.

I suspect The Trump camp realise a peace deal acceptable to Ukraine isn’t viable. Trump having promised one would be easy means he needs an excuse.Manufacturing a split with Zelensky gives them that excuse. Now they can turn off the tap of support to Ukraine, forcing them to capitulate, and blame Zelensky.Meanwhile they can make a deal with Putin to split Ukraine between them. Putin gets East Ukraine, the USA gets the mineral wealth of West Ukraine. It’s win-win.

Why are people acting as if there&#x27;s nothing &quot;different&quot; going on here? Like this is all just driven by standard foreign policy choices, and the current US regime doesn&#x27;t have some unique allegiance to Russia and its leader?

I saw on russian TV how they pretty much said &quot;yea, trump may be an ally of ours now and do what we want but we must remember how they turned on ukraine and that they might turn on us&quot;

You are not aware of all evidence in existence, and what &quot;is evidence for&quot; something is a subjective matter, downstream from your conditioned biases.These conversations are a train wreck, I don&#x27;t understand how people expect to stop war if you can&#x27;t be bothered to even try to speak truthfully.

You&#x27;re making the assumption that US foreign policy isnt to parrot Russian foreign policy. There&#x27;s no evidence to suggest this is not the case.

&gt; The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.Thinking long and hard apparently is all the EU is capable of.Trump&#x27;s first term should have been more than enough to make the EU come to their senses. Now, we have tethered caps and the AI Act, but the EU still has no coherent vision or just even the slightest idea of how to move the continent forward instead of keeping it in the past.

This is what Russia does when it buys off politicians. Brexit for the UK, and Trump for the US.Make no mistake that the Republican party is bought out, through and through, by foreign powers.

Forgive me if I&#x27;m mistaken, but I was under the impression this is what most of the world wanted? And if not the world, then most elites in the US?I speak both from public and personal history: when American leadership signed its various trade treaties with China back in the 90s and earlier, opening itself up to the swift transfer of manufacturing to its one-time enemy, was American leadership not signaling its strong desire to diminish American power for the sake of peace?And on a personal level: my hippie parents had often railed against American imperialism and voted for candidates they thought could stop it. What did they (and other similarly-minded folks) think would happen once America withdrew from the world stage? Do people who think the same way today believe America will grow stronger by pulling back?Having been around since the late 60s, I can only say this attitude has been in the making for a long time. I can&#x27;t point to college sit-ins or Nixon going to China or Carter turning over the Panama Canal or the US-China Relations Act (2000) or anything specific stating &#x27;this is the definitive moment&#x27;, but this desire for a weaker, more isolationist America is neither surprising nor accidental for those of us who&#x27;ve been watching it grow. It&#x27;s ultimately what my parents and their contemporaries wanted. It&#x27;s... dream fulfillment.

It is interesting how the US&#x27;s influence in the rest of the world is declining every day, and that it appears the main entity trying to tear it down as fast as possible is the US.I don&#x27;t get it.

Its almost like they’ll start paying for their own defense

I&#x27;m sorry, I don&#x27;t care who you are or what the history between your country and the US is, you don&#x27;t come and be disrespectful like that and get away with it.All he had to do was was smile and wave, but Zelensky made it into a dick measuring contest which he was always going to lose.He is a terrible leader and this is just more proof of it.

Trump doesn&#x27;t understand soft power, nor how much he has destroyed in such a short span. I have hope that a some future point we can repair these relationships, but they will never be like they were. So stupid. Such a waste.

It is not bullying to say that American monetary support means basically doing what the United States want you to do. This is basic human social interaction.

&gt;how quickly the US can turn from ally to bullyThis is not at all consistent with U.S. foreign policy. It is one regime, that clearly has different thoughts about our alliances. It&#x27;s an anomaly or, more accurately, an aberration. And it&#x27;s similar to what&#x27;s happening here domestically as well.

EU response not unexpected: ‘Free world needs a new leader’, says EU foreign chief after Trump Zelenskyy row

Believe it or not, yes, the US wishes NATO paid for more of it&#x27;s defense.

Ukraine is in this war partially (largely? primarily?) due to United States foreign policy in the years since the &quot;end&quot; of the Cold War. No surprise Trump screws them over and doesn&#x27;t honor our geopolitical debts tho.

bully? the ukraine has been DEMANDING more money from pretty much everyone.what kind of entitled mindset is that? he should be down on his knees BEGGING for money if he wants it.

I wish our allies had interfered in our elections, in the interests of democracy

History will record than once...An unsuspecting stand up comedian, who once recorded the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian dubbing of Paddington and Paddington 2...Left his family, took on a uniform...And had to fight, at the same time, Putin and the President of the USA: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4zwfukYhq-k?t=6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4zwfukYhq-k?t=6</a>

I wish people would actually read the Budapest Memorandum and see what it actually promises. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Budapest_Memorandum" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Budapest_Memorandum</a>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;treaties.un.org&#x2F;doc&#x2F;Publication&#x2F;UNTS&#x2F;Volume%203007&#x2F;Part&#x2F;volume-3007-I-52241.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;treaties.un.org&#x2F;doc&#x2F;Publication&#x2F;UNTS&#x2F;Volume%203007&#x2F;P...</a>

I wish more people would remember that Ukraine was once 3rd nuclear power in the world but agreed to give it all away in return for promise that US will defend it instead.This is why Zelensky keep saying he doesn&#x27;t want another paper.

lol the world knows big guy DT did not invent this

Has anyone actually watched the entire conversation and not just the clip near the end?I encourage everyone to do so:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=7pxbGjvcdyY&amp;pp=ygUbZnVsbCB6ZWxlbnNreSB0cnVtcCBtZWV0aW5n" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=7pxbGjvcdyY&amp;pp=ygUbZnVsbCB6ZWx...</a>

Ukraine is in a bind, and the US has the power to do whatever it wants.But boy, will the nations of the world remember this -- how quickly the US can turn from ally to bully. A really bad day for US foreign policy.The EU is going to be thinking long and hard about the future of NATO now.

Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting