“This will work very well on TV.” Donald Trump had just starred in the greatest crisis with a president of another country – at least, in front of the cameras – in the modern history of the United States and his first reaction after the row … With Volodimir Zelenski It was to celebrate all the attention that the episode would mean.
It was Friday’s noon in the White House and a cloud of cameras and reporters captured how the relationship between USA and Ukraine -Poís, until now, allies and friends- jumped through them in front of them.
The shouting fight between Zelenski, on the one hand, and Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, on the other, was a show that can only be described with an expression that is already worn out for the US president: unprecedented. “The minimum you can do is say ‘thanks'”, “what you do is disrespect”, “you are playing with a third world war”, “I know grateful to the US and its president, who is trying to save your country” or “you have no good letters” were some of the things Trump and Vance told the president of Ukraine with the president of Ukraine with Uploaded tone. It was an endless fray, which continues to surprise each time it appears on a screen, however it is seen.
In the case of Trump it allows him, in the first place, that the US president has turned the performance of his functions into a ‘reality’. The best example was this week. Of the five working days, in three there has been a visit of a foreign president, in all of them with an abundant exhibition to the cameras, where Trump feels more comfortable: Emmanuel Macron, president of France, on Monday; Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Thursday; and Zelenski, Friday. In the three visits, greetings in front of the cameras when the president arrives, a meeting in the Oval Office open to reporters and press conference (in the case of the president of Ukraine, the latter was canceled after the anger).
The anger between Donald Trump and Volodimir Zelenski during his meeting at the White House
The traditional thing in the Oval Office is that the president appears with the president on duty, some images are taken, both make a friendly comment and, perhaps, briefly answer a question that the reporters shout. Trump has turned these moments into true press wheels. But the president also speaks when he goes up to the presidential helicopter, at the Air Force One, upon arrival at an act …
Before arriving at politics, Trump was forged in the television ‘reality -‘ The apprentice ‘, of great success – and transferred his ability to capture attention. He did it, as on the small screen, with constant shock, destroying the norms of the game and the political decorum: that statement that Mexicans are rapists and criminals the day he presented his first candidacy for the presidency in 2015, the insults to his republican rivals in primary, the imitations, the outbursts …
For some, the convulsive episode in the White House – with geopolitical repercussions still difficult to predict – is a consequence of converting the presidency into ‘reality’. Instead of putting a smile and discussing the differences behind closed doors, in an attempt to maintain positions and get advances, the battle was with the cameras and the microphones on. If Trump and Zelenski’s volcanic personality is added, Vance’s antagonistic character -with a declared animosity to Kiev -and the reality that his positions are very distant –ucrania wants security guarantees of an USA. And it was.
It occurs in the fights of ‘reality’, however, that one never knows how much there is authentic and how much prepared. And for some, what was seen on Friday It was something organized by Trump To dynamit a relationship with Zelenski in which he is not comfortable. He seeks a quick peace, with broad concessions of Ukraine, and stop dedicating money to that war.
“What has just happened in the Oval Office is a planned ambush, designed to help the brutal Russian dictator and damage US safety,” criticized Democratic Senator Chris Murphy. Several legislators on their bench shared their opinion. Also commentators near Democrats such as Jonathan Chait, who defended that what happened was “a trap” to the president of Ukraine. “Trump and Vance seem to have entered the meeting with the intention of admonishing Zelenski and leading him to a dispute as a pretext for a diplomatic rupture,” he wrote in ‘The Atlantic’.
A planned maneuver?
Some elements can feed that theory. At the white house door, Trump greeted Zelenski with a Displicent comment: “Today has been very well dressed,” said his Ukrainian counterpart, who wore the military clothing he always has since the beginning of the war.
Then, he surprised that Vance would sneak into the responses to the reporters, when on these occasions the only ones involved are the heads of state. Zelenski – no doubt aware of everything Vance has pressed so that Ukraine stops receiving American help – was annoying and reacted by listing the times in which Putin – in whom Trump trusted now – had broken his commitments. From that moment, everything was downhill. Trump was later who really raised the tone, whether to prevent his second from being as a strong man or because he was part of the script.
Beyond the question of whether what happened in the White House with Trump and Zelenski was a controlled or uncontrolled detonation, the truth is that the episode fits with the inclinations of the president of the United States towards the rupture – as has done with so many other things in the domestic level in a month in the White House – of the traditional foreign policy of the first world power. What have been praiseful words to Putin and skepticism towards the Ukrainian cause in campaign has ended in a drift that has broken the traditional alliances of the United States in recent weeks. Russian president, has already marginalized Ukraine already Europeans in negotiations, has voted with Russia at the UN. White House anger is just the confirmation that a new era starts.
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