Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and modern civilization!
- A year and a half of Trump: what the president achieved in foreign policy
- Ten years of Trump at the helm of the Republican Party
▶ On Monday, it was exactly one and a half years since Trump became the 47th president of the USA.
In our previous review, we discussed the goals he set for his second term in the White House and which of those goals he achieved.
He avoided punishment in a criminal case for which he was found guilty by a jury. Three other criminal cases in which he was a defendant were closed.
He and his family are converting the presidency into money. According to his own public servant declaration, his income in 2025 was $2.2 billion – almost four times more than in 2024. On Monday, it became known about a new scheme that will allow him to make money “out of thin air.” He plans to sell a special subscription to his account in his own social network for $100,000. Those who pay this amount will be able to read his tweets earlier than those who do not pay.
He takes revenge on everyone he considers or appoints as his enemies, using the federal prosecutor’s office as an instrument of revenge. So far, he has not achieved particular success in this revenge (hasn’t been able to “put” anyone in prison yet), but he does significantly spoil the nerves of those he targets, additionally forcing people to spend large sums on lawyers.
He seeks to establish a right-wing authoritarian regime in the country. Some things he succeeds in (such as turning immigration police into specific internal troops conducting raids on the streets, even committing murders with impunity), and some things he does not succeed in. The Supreme Court has stopped him several times. He would likely succeed more in this direction if he didn’t spend too much time on practically daily public self-admiration. The red line in his move toward an authoritarian regime will be the Congressional elections on November 3. If they take place and are free, and a newly elected 120th Congress convenes on January 3, it will mean that the red line will become an insurmountable barrier for him, and there will definitely be no authoritarian regime in the USA. But if he disrupts the elections, makes their free conduct impossible, or disrupts the certification of their results in a significant number of “red” states so that the newly elected Congress cannot begin working, it will mean that he has crossed the red line. With all the obvious consequences.
And now about the foreign policy of the 47th president and his administration. Let’s analyze its main aspects.
The foreign policy of all American administrations after World War II (except for the Trump administration) was based on the values of democracy, freedom, human rights, a free market economy, and free trade, as well as the support and dissemination of these values worldwide.
Administrations may have differed in the intensity of their efforts to support and disseminate these values across the globe—some presidents prioritized this, while others focused more on domestic agendas. However, no president after 1945, until Trump, questioned these values or the idea that U.S. foreign policy was based on them.
Trump’s foreign policy has nothing in common with that of his predecessors—from Truman to Biden. The values of democracy, freedom, human rights, a free market economy, and free trade are deeply alien to Trump. He does not share them and probably simply does not understand them. Therefore, the dissemination and support of these values in the world do not interest him at all.
The foreign policy of the 47th president is based on his personal interests and his view of a world with “strong men,” their large countries, and everyone else who should obey “their strong men.”
After World War II, the U.S. created a free world, uniting it around the very values of democracy, freedom, human rights, a free market economy, and free trade. They created the NATO alliance to protect the free world from Soviet expansion. They created the G7 to coordinate policy among the most economically developed countries of the free world.
As Joe Biden and many presidents before him have said, America is strong through its alliances.
Trump believes that America is strong by itself, on its own, needing no one, and that allies only burden it.
There is virtually no allied country whose leaders the 47th president has not insulted publicly or made outrageous claims against. Trump even made territorial demands on Denmark (“I want Greenland”) and contemptuously demanded that Canada join the U.S. All of this completely undermines any trust in the U.S. by its allies.
But even this is not enough for him. He wants to reduce American military presence in Europe, announcing a significant reduction of the American forces that could be deployed in the event of an attack on one or more NATO countries.
The 47th would only be satisfied with a Europe governed by the far-right. The current Europe does not satisfy him. Let us recall “Project-2025,” Senator Vance’s speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, and Senator Rubio’s speech there in 2026, as well as the national security strategy—the official foreign policy doctrine of the administration.
He dismantled the USAID agency, through which for over 60 years the U.S. provided non-military—economic and humanitarian—aid to dozens of countries, primarily developing nations. USAID was specifically created to counter the spread of Soviet influence in the world and to spread American influence by providing various types of assistance to different countries.
Now this aid has ceased. How many people will die from AIDS, for which the U.S. has stopped providing medication as aid, or from hunger because the U.S. has stopped food assistance? Estimates suggest many—already thousands to date. This is the humanitarian aspect.
There is also the political aspect. Trump’s decision to close USAID and cease aid to dozens of countries pushed many developing nations of the global South into the arms of China. This not only signifies the weakening of U.S. influence globally but also a considerable strengthening of China’s influence in the medium and even short term.
Crossing the threshold of the White House on January 20, 2025, Trump halted assistance to Ukraine. Vance later said he was most proud of this cessation. There’s nothing to comment on here. Everything that could be said about it has already been mentioned. Ending military, financial, and economic assistance to Ukraine is a betrayal of U.S. interests, let’s call things by their names. Because a free, democratic Ukraine aligns with America’s real interests. A free, democratic Ukraine, defending the values of democracy, freedom, and human rights on which the U.S. is founded, defending them by resisting the aggression of the 21st-century plague—the Putin evil empire—is a natural and foremost ally for the U.S. And it is this Ukraine that the 47th president has been denying aid for a year and a half.
And the pressure Trump attempted to exert on Ukraine to essentially agree to capitulate… All of this is disgraceful for the United States.
The 47th president tried to declare a trade war on the entire world, organized shows called “liberation day,” imposed tariffs that killed free international trade and undermined trust in the U.S. He hoped to win this trade war with China but had to acknowledge his effective defeat and retreat even before the Supreme Court deemed most of his tariffs illegal. However, he cannot calm down and as recently as Monday imposed a 50% tariff on approximately 5% of goods imported from Canada. If there is a lawsuit against this tariff, the court will most likely again side with the plaintiffs.
A very characteristic example for understanding what drives Trump in foreign policy is the seizure in Venezuela and the arrest of its self-appointed former president Maduro. Not with the aim of restoring democracy in the country. Not with the aim of returning freedom and democracy to Venezuelans. But with the aim of installing a new leader of the same authoritarian regime who agreed that the U.S. could effectively control Venezuelan oil.
And finally, the strategic failure of the 47th president — the war with Iran. Initiated with the aim of regime change in Iran and the elimination of its nuclear program, this war has led to the regime becoming more rigid due to a significant strengthening of the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran both possessed and possesses 11 tons of enriched uranium, including 500 kg enriched to 60%, sufficient for creating several nuclear bombs. Iran both possessed and possesses centrifuges for further uranium enrichment. It both possessed and possesses a large stockpile of ballistic missiles and drones, with which it can terrorize all surrounding countries. In addition, Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz and, apparently with the help of the Yemeni Houthis, began on Tuesday the blockade of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. This threatens an energy and food crisis for the whole world, as it will completely block the supply of oil, liquefied gas, and fertilizers from the Persian Gulf region. Blocking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait also means blocking the route for the flow of goods from Asia to Europe and from Europe to Asia, as it means blocking shipping through the Red Sea. To deliver anything, for example, from India or China to Europe, ships will have to go around Africa, which will lead to delivery delays and increased costs.
There is no visible way out of the Iran war. Bombing Iran will not lead to regime change, the elimination of the Iranian nuclear program, or the unblocking of the straits. Unblocking them is currently the only real goal of the 47th president. It should be reminded that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was free until February 28, and through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait — until July 21.
Pentagon chief Hegset came to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday to request nearly $68 billion in additional funding for the war with Iran. But he was unable to answer the numerous questions from Democratic senators and Republican Lisa Murkowski about whether the administration has a real strategy in this war, a vision of how to achieve the set goals, and could not explain whether he was telling the truth in March when he announced the complete military defeat of Iran.
▶ In conclusion, another date. Tuesday marked exactly 10 years since July 21, 2016, when Donald Trump was chosen by the Republican Party convention as the presidential candidate. On that day, he became the formal leader of the party. It took him a relatively short time to become not just a leader in it, but the complete master and turn the Republican Party into the Trump party, a party of self-personality cult and the ultra-right MAGA ideology.
There are 916 days left until the end of the story entitled “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (title of a book by Bob Woodward, published in 2018).
Thank you to everyone who read. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help each other. Health to all.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight evil, do good, remain simply observers, wait passively and believe that someone somewhere will decide something for us, or fight evil and do everything possible for Good to triumph.
We must not allow evil to triumph. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world we live in. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian friends, I hug and love you all. Please take care of each other.
Ukraine is and always will be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. And this is inevitable.
