This Never Happened With an American President Before
Opinion Columnist
What happened in the Oval Office on Friday — the obviously planned ambush of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance — was something that had never happened in the nearly 250-year history of this country: In a major war in Europe, our president clearly sided with the aggressor, the dictator and the invader against the democrat, the freedom fighter and the invaded.
If you listen to Trump, everything we have done for Ukraine is pure altruism. We have no actual interests at stake ourselves in its fate or the triumph of liberty there. We have no actual interest in the fact that Ukraine is protecting the European Union — a giant, pro-American alliance of free markets and free people. It doesn’t matter a whit to Trump what happens to the E.U. or Ukraine. All that matters is that Zelensky says “thank you” louder for our altruism and that, in the middle of his war of survival, sign over a generation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to us.
This is a total perversion of U.S. foreign policy practiced by every president since World War I. My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.
You might recognise the inspiration behind this week’s cover design: “Reservoir Dogs”, a gangster film from 1992. Donald Trump has assumed the role of kingpin; behind him are some of the main players in a new, mafia-like struggle for global power. Call it The Don’s new world order, a might-is-right world in which big powers cut deals and bully small ones. In a week in which Germany’s probable next chancellor warned that NATO may soon be dead and America sided with Russia and North Korea against Ukraine and Europe at the United Nations, we decided to take a hard look at what this new gangster-style approach to geopolitics would lead to.
Team Trump claims that its dealmaking will bring peace and that, after 80 years of being taken for a ride, America will turn its superpower status into profit. Our leader argues that it will instead make the world more dangerous, and America weaker and poorer. Advocates of dealmaking assume that America can get what it wants by bargaining. Yet as Mr Trump exploits decades-old dependencies, America’s leverage will rapidly fall away. Congress, financial markets or voters could yet persuade him to walk back. But the world has already started planning for a lawless era.
The closest thing Tarantino's ever given resembling an explanation is that the title popped into his head when he visited a production company. The company was full of unmade scripts and they were jokingly described as 'reservoir dogs' – as in, dogs trapped in a reservoir tank and fighting for attention.
The United States’ relationship with Ukraine erupted in a storm of acrimony on Friday as President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in an explosive televised Oval Office showdown and abruptly cut short a visit meant to coordinate a plan for peace.
In a fiery public confrontation unlike any seen between an American president and foreign leader in modern times, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for U.S. support in Ukraine’s war with Russia, and sought to strong-arm him into making a peace deal on whatever terms the Americans dictated.
JD這時候應該要安慰一下人家,說一些我們先建立經濟關係、美國就會保護自己的經濟利益,美國不會坐視自己的利益被俄羅斯吃掉之類的話,但這時候JD不知道吃了什麼誠實果,直接說:我們很敬重你,但是你前線沒人了不是嗎,you have manpower problem,你能承認你現在問題很大嗎?你不能重建你的國家嗎?
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