Other voices: Trump finally realizes Russian despot isn’t reliable
After believing in Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the last years as trustworthy old Vlad President Donald Trump has now correctly decided that Putin may not be the majority honest of interlocutors on the world stage Trump made this startling discovery decades after practically everyone else as Putin continues pummeling Ukraine while supposedly also assuring Trump he s committed to a peace deal with the country he decided to conquer more than three years ago This realization compelled Trump to conclusively release additional weapons to Ukraine and threaten Russia with steep tariffs if it doesn t reach a ceasefire within days Putin for his part has reacted just as we d expect telling Trump and everyone else to pound sand because he s going to do just whatever he pleases As multiple Kremlin sources stated Reuters the Russian despot not only isn t planning on backing down from his war of aggression but wants to further expand Russia s territorial gains in Ukraine an obvious non-starter for any likely peace plan as negotiations are already been hampered by his inflexibility on questions like preserving Ukrainian territorial integrity That was clear when the Kremlin launched drones at Ukraine on Tuesday including targeting the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Kryvyi Rih Part of the trouble is that Trump is and has unfailingly been way out of his depth The inheritor of a real estate firm who launched and crashed multiple businesses and before playing a triumphant businessman as a character on TV is unsurprisingly not particularly prepared for the extraordinarily high stakes of running the globe s preeminent superpower Trump still thinks that contending with a genuine authoritarian like Putin a former KGB lieutenant colonel obsessed with particular bygone vision of glorious imperial Russia or is the same as striking a deal for a building on Park Avenue with one of his real estate buddies that he would be golfing again with by the weekend Whatever he thinks he knew about Putin it s because Putin knew how to push his buttons to get what he needed If Trump realizes now that Putin is a ruthless despot who will do whatever is necessary to advance his goals with no underlying honor or morality then welcome to the club though it s a bit too little too late Still better late than never and we hope that Trump at least sticks to his guns on this one as opposed to once more adopting the position of the person he spoke to last or whatever he thinks will play the best with the base If he demands to look at it from the lens of avoiding humiliation by Putin who is showing on the world stage that he couldn t care less what Trump has to say then so be it Show Putin that he s wrong and that the United States can still be a force for good The New York Daily News Related Articles Lydia Polgreen Contrast While China builds Trump meddles and threatens Patrick Knight What s the plan if our expansive new family-leave law doesn t work as imagined Letters With assertions of more huge fraud in Minnesota these questions come to mind ML Cavanaugh We desperately need a dose of Truth Justice and the American Way Jonathan Levin Powell s caution on tariff-driven inflation is right
