Trump’s peacemaker charade has failed. Ukraine and the West will pay a price

On the contrary, Trump has given Russia special treatment. He granted Moscow an exemption from all his recent waves of tariffs. The two public explanations from the White House were, one, that there was no meaningful trade between the US and Russia anyway, and, two, that Russia already was under heavy US sanctions.

Neither withstands scrutiny. Two-way trade last year was valued at $US3.5 billion, more than the value of American trade with many of the nations hit with Trump tariffs. Fiji, for instance. And other countries labouring under intense US sanctions regimes were not given exemptions. Iran, for example.

Remember when Trump said that he had a secret and unique power to compel Putin to agree? “Russia wants to make a deal because in a certain different way – a different way that only I know – they have no choice.” That secret remains so.

“Trump has encountered Putin’s intransigence and all the signs are that Trump, having failed, will simply ditch Ukraine, leaving it to its fate,” says Wilson. “We have weighty and accumulating evidence that Trump is about to wash his hands of Ukraine.”

Trump has even made excuses for Putin’s lethal targeting of civilians. When Russia fired two ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Palm Sunday, killing at least 35 people including two children and injuring another 129 people, Trump described the attack as “horrible” but excused it because “I was told they made a mistake”. He blamed Ukraine for starting the war in the first place, which is, of course, insultingly untrue.

In truth, Putin never intended to halt his invasion. “Putin is winning,” observes Wilson, “why would he make any concessions?” He points out that Kremlin spokespeople consistently have stated that “we will stop at nothing except complete victory”.

And, in truth, Trump never intended to do anything other than gratify Putin. His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been glaringly in thrall to Moscow and barely bothering to hide it.

The day after the Putin’s Palm Sunday atrocity in Sumy, Witkoff said that he’d just had a “compelling meeting” with the Russian dictator and that a peace deal was taking shape.

Why compelling? There was, said Witkoff, “a possibility to reshape the Russia-US relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities” that Putin had proposed to his American interlocutors. How nice.

At the last moment, after Trump’s Friday signal that he was prepared to walk away from peace efforts, Putin on Saturday announced a supposed 30-hour “ceasefire” by Russia. There was no ceasefire. It was merely a Putin ruse to portray himself as being reasonable even as the Trump show foundered on Putin’s unreasonableness.

The net outcome of all this for Ukraine? First, Volodymyr Zelensky had been humiliated publicly by Trump in a stage-managed broadcast from the Oval Office. Second, Trump denounced him and his brave compatriots as warmongers and troublemakers – the villains, not the victims.

This gave Trump a pretext for, third, refusing any new US assistance to Ukraine. Fourth, Trump obliged Zelensky to sign over to the US a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, a deal now agreed but yet to be disclosed in any detail.

And, fifth, Trump now is poised to walk away from any pretence at being a peace negotiator. Leaving Ukraine “deeply weakened”, in Kyle Wilson’s assessment. Trump is moving on; he’s dispatched Witkoff, having done such a fine job with Putin, to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.

For Australia, there are three lessons. The most important is that Trump remains committed to his longstanding special relationship with Putin. He will align with Putin rather than US traditional allies.

Friedrich Merz, who takes office as the chancellor of Germany on May 6, has observed that Europe is now “under such massive pressure from two sides” – Russia on one and Trump’s America on the other.

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Second, because of this US realignment, we can’t count on US support as Putin probes for new bases in South-East Asia. Australia was startled by last week’s report that Moscow wants to operate its air force through the region.

“Anyone who’s followed Russia’s courtship of Indonesia over the years understands that Russia has two very strong cards to offer Jakarta – nuclear technology and space technology,” says Wilson. “This bears close watching.”

Third, because the US is no longer leader of the free world, Western interests and values will have to be upheld by a West without America.

We shouldn’t discard Australia’s US alliance, which remains an asset, but we can’t assume the US will be the guarantor of Australia security or sovereignty.

Australia needs to work with countries that still believe in the inviolability of a nation’s sovereignty – to create a new network of non-US powers prepared to fight for collective security. Candidates include Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and most European nations. India is a potential future recruit. That collective fight includes urgent further contributions to Ukraine’s struggle for survival.

Because if Putin wins, we in the remaining countries of the free world lose.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.