A decaying civilisation
Donald Trump has hinted he could walk away from supporting Ukraine as he doubled down on his administration’s recent criticism of Europe, describing it as “weak” and “decaying” and claiming it was “destroying itself” through immigration.
In a rambling and sometimes incoherent interview with Politico, a transcript of which was released on Tuesday, the US president struggled to name any other Ukrainian cities except for Kyiv, misrepresented elements of the trajectory of the conflict, and recycled far-right tropes about European immigration that echoed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
Trump called for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to accept his proposal to cede territory to Russia, arguing that Moscow retained the “upper hand” and that Zelenskyy’s government must “play ball”.
His envoys have given Zelenskyy days to respond to a proposed peace deal under which Ukraine would be forced to accept territorial losses in return for unspecified US security guarantees, according to the Financial Times, which reported on Tuesday that the US leader was hoping for a deal “by Christmas”.
In his often halting remarks, Trump swerved from subject to subject while rehearsing familiar grudges and conspiracies. He also declined repeatedly to rule out sending American troops into Venezuela as part of his effort to bring down the president, Nicolás Maduro.
“I don’t want to rule in or out. I don’t talk about it,” Trump said, adding he did not want to talk about military strategy.
The US president repeatedly described what he said were Europe’s problems in entirely racial terms, calling some unnamed European leaders “real stupid”.
“If it keeps going the way it’s going, Europe will not be … in my opinion … many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer. Their immigration policy is a disaster. What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster. We had a disaster coming, but I was able to stop it.”
The interview followed the release last week of a new US national security strategy that claimed Europe faced “civilisational erasure” because of mass migration and offered tacit support for far-right parties.
The recent interventions by Trump and his administration on Europe have been greeted with mounting dismay among European leaders, after similarly disparaging remarks by the US vice-president, JD Vance, at the Munich Security Conference in February.
Source: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian
