I am appalled at the rhetoric coming from US president Donald Trump, there is no art of the deal coming from this bloke, we are seeing a Putin aligned Trump trying to carve up Ukraine with the aid of Putin. Trump is attempting to gain access to rare earths in Eastern Ukraine and is willing to sell the Ukrainian people out in a transactional deal with Russia.

We all know thin skinned Trump has a fragile ego, so it is not in the interests of Zelensky to engage in tit-for-tat accusations as this would make Trump even more hostile to both Zelensky and Ukraine. Trump attacked Zelensky stating he had failed to make a deal. Seriously, how could Ukraine make a deal when Russia massed troops in Belarus under the guise of war games to invade Ukraine.

The failure of Russian forces to gain control of Hostomel Airport in the early days of the war really led to the failure of the Special Military Operation. Had Russian forces secured Hostomel Airport and used that as the staging point for the siege of Kiev, then this 10 day special military operation would have been successful. Then, the convoy to Kiev was thwarted by a determined and desperate Ukrainian military fighting for their lives.

I am no Trump supporter, that is for sure, what I do try to do is analyse multiple viewpoints to see if Trump is trying to play both Putin and Europe. Firstly, Western and Central Europe has had the opportunity to increase military spending in the post-Soviet collapse and this has been an abject failure. With the exception of Poland, European nations have not invested in defence, instead allowing their militaries and military base to deteriorate to such a state that they are now inept.

Furthermore, Europe has had three years of the Russian and Ukrainian war to ramp up production. Once again, with the exception of Poland, there has been no action to build up military capacity. Is Trump’s rhetoric designed to force Europe and NATO to take greater responsibility for European security. The possibility always exists, however I am not seeing the level of sophistication from the US president.

Trump has begun a tariff dispute with neighbours Canada and Mexico expanding the tariff dispute with allies including Europe, Japan and Australia. Where should tariffs be targeted? That is clearly China, this is the nation that has undercut American manufacturing. So what Trump is doing is antagonising the country’s allies. One suspects this is going to be four long years of the Trump Administration. We will also see if this government is characterised by the dysfunction of the previous Trump term.