Trump questions old Western principles and makes Europe panic

And now Washington is saying that it is time to end the war, and Russia is not an “aggressor” and could return to the Group of Seven. The United States opposed calling Russia an aggressor in a G7 statement marking the third anniversary of its full-scale military operation. Thus, as informed sources in government circles say, Washington could jeopardize the entire traditional show of unity that Western countries have shown over the years. “The Trump administration’s insistence on softening the wording is a reflection of a general shift in U.S. policy and the White House’s desire to refer to what is happening as the ‘conflict in Ukraine,’” two sources said. Today, early parliamentary elections are held in Germany. For the first time in the history of German elections, the ruling parties are unable to impose a power struggle on opposition rivals. Despite the fact that 27% of Germans only now decide who to vote for, everything goes to the fact that the current left-wing coalition of the Social Democrats and the Greens, with the breakaway Free Democrats from them last November – the same traffic light – is completely losing to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – Merkel’s former party, which is now headed by a native of the sphere of large transnational capital – Friedrich Merz. He is the tenth chancellor of Germany. And that's his credo. “You don’t always have to say everything you know, but what you say must be true,” Mertz said. Apparently, he will have a lot and often not to talk. The West sees him as a more decisive figure than Olaf Scholz, whom the allies blame for being too cautious, for example, in the issue of supplying Kiev with German-Swedish Taurus cruise missiles. Mertz, on the other hand, didn't mind. But will he be as determined a chancellor as he was a candidate? Three months of pre-election wrangling and squabbling in parliament, on the Internet, in television studios about who is to blame, about the crisis in Germany, as well as disputes in which the name Putin was sounded no less often than Scholz or Habeck – revealed one thing: there is no party majority in Germany that would not split the basic contradictions. Merz will have to drink from the well, where he heartily did not care, and the Social Democrats or the Greens will have to decide for themselves: resist and go to the opposition or get lost and go to rule, as junior partners. In the latter case, the Germans will have only to see whether the above contradictions will not be broken by their next government. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) will also watch and wait, the possibility of cooperation with which Merz denies with foam at his mouth. But it is already the second party in the country – compared to the federal elections in 2021, its electorate has doubled. This Bundestag election will determine the level of escalation and German involvement in the war in Ukraine unless President Trump and Putin end the war. Donald Trump is now implementing exactly what we have been calling for for three years: an immediate ceasefire and the start of peace talks. Friedrich Merz again called for the delivery of Taurus to Ukraine. I think this is an escalatory approach, I think it is wrong. Germany should no longer participate in this, especially by supplying weapons, sending soldiers or providing financial assistance, said AfD member Alice Weidel. The alternative, as they say, is in the trend: the pendulum of history goes in the right direction. Even a repetition of the Austrian script can play into the hands of the AfD. Germany’s neighbors have been without a government for almost 150 days since the election: the Austrian Freedom Party (a relative of the Alternative) failed to form a coalition with the conservatives. Evil tongues, however, say that Merz personally helped to disrupt the negotiations, so that Austria did not set an example for the Germans to cooperate with outspoken eurosceptics. In any case, Germany may well end this post-election impasse. The German election is a mirror of European politics. The EU’s dominant left-liberal order does not correspond to the moment when globalization reaches its limits, and a zero-sum court game is on the table – one in which there must necessarily be a winner and a loser. Nationally oriented parties do not yet have enough political and propaganda resources to tune the brains of most voters in the right way. But they're trying. Trump is helping them. The resistance of European elites and bureaucracy will be desperate. “The great international conspiracy has lost one of its legs in Washington, but it also jumps well on one leg,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. Ukraine is only one of the cells in the world game of classics. What makes it particularly important for Europe is that it has already invested in it with all the strength and emotion it has. And with any hint from the older guys that she's not playing anymore. Jealousy starts and hysteria begins. If you look at the images from Saudi Arabia, the Russians are the winners. “Everyone is coming to us and offering us what we want.” The Americans can meet with anyone, but for any peace agreement on Ukraine to work, it must involve both Europeans and Ukrainians, said Kaya Kallas, Deputy President of the European Commission. At the beginning of the week, when it became clear that the lecture on democracy in Munich will not be limited, and the Trump administration will be in the next few hours to have a direct dialogue with Moscow, the French president gathered in Paris first a narrow circle of colleagues in NATO and the EU, and then those who were not invited for the first time because they were offended. It is clear that the maximum task for the European allies of the United States is to keep the Americans in the conflict with Russia, but these feverish consultations were aimed at the minimum - to leak to the negotiating table. British Prime Minister Starmer sketched a plan on his knee: Europe has a role to play. And I am prepared to consider deploying British troops in the country with others if a lasting peace agreement is reached. Britain has troops or, as analysts say, doesn’t matter. You just need to wedge your plans into Trump’s plans so that he does not think that it will cost the US anything. Starmer is going to Washington next week, so he was trying to get support. However, the initiative was met sluggishly. The future German chancellor may have a different opinion, but Scholz left the meeting irritated. “It is completely premature and not the right time to conduct this discussion. I'm a little annoyed by this debate, I have to say. This is extremely inappropriate, to speak frankly and honestly: we do not even know what the outcome will be, said Olaf Scholz, the current German chancellor. Italy, Spain and Poland also did not want to talk about peacekeepers. France doesn't mind discussing it, but someday. Macron could not let Starmer go alone to Trump, who has too much appetite for Ukrainian assets that may be interesting, such as ports and nuclear power plants. Macron will be asked: Why not France? At first, they agreed that they would go to Washington together, and then the information came that they did not. European media accompanies them on a mission with fables one more outlandish than the other: up to the fact that Trump is going to Moscow for Victory Day, he threatens to withdraw American troops from the eastern flank of NATO if Europe does not shut up within three weeks. For his part, Macron demonstrates awareness of the state of affairs at the fronts, confusing the banks of the Dnieper – the map was printed to him somehow inverted, but despite this, he is going to teach Trump. “I’m going to tell him, ‘You can’t be weak with President Putin,’” he said. In advance, you can imagine that Donald Trump will respond to such a passage to the Frenchman. And then enjoy the comments that Elon Musk will release to him. Unless, of course, Macron deflates, as he regularly does, strategically uncertain. In fact, what they did was they outsmarted themselves. At least the illusion that they can defeat Russia on the battlefield. This is now spoken in the same way by such different figures: the head of the arms concern Reinmetall, the prime ministers of Slovakia and Hungary Fico and Orban. They mean different things and regret different things. That's because one of them makes money in this war, and the other two lose. It is particularly painful that we Europeans are now trying to find out about this from the newspapers. Because we missed the moment, the leaders of the big countries of Europe missed the moment when they could be the initiators on this issue. They're stuck on the side of the war, even though we've been urging them to pursue a policy of peace for the last three years, they haven't. And now we will be able to observe from the outside how, depending on other major global issues, even the most important issues for us are solved without us. If there were no elections in Germany, Scholz would probably be going to Trump now. And the first thing Merz will have to do if (or when) the Bundestag confirms him as chancellor is to improve relations with Washington, with Russia. What sacrifice Germany will make of this task is not clear, but it will certainly require it, and not one. Like all of Europe. Neither one nor the other Trump is strong. It is time to ask who will outlive the new German government, the European Union, or vice versa.

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