In the wake of the summit between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have renewed their war of extinction against Ukraine.
Russian forces direct their drones and missile strikes at civilian targets without consequence. Europeans may continue to support Ukraine’s stand against the Russian onslaught because they have no choice, but leaders from Portugal to Poland know they cannot count on the United States to backstop them. The late Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once differentiated between “Old” and “New Europe.” Old Europe was decadent and too self-absorbed to appreciate the threat external dictators posed to freedom; New Europe, from the Balkans to the Baltics, were better allies because they did not take freedom for granted. Today, Trump has made America Old Europe; his disdain for freedom has become indistinguishable from that of former President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry.
Whereas America’s brand was once freedom, democracy, and the fight against tyranny, today it is corruption and mendacity. No single president is to blame. Trump may dispense with finesse but pay-to-play and personal profit has been a growing problem among presidents and their family members. Some, like Jimmy Carter’s younger brother Billy, may have acted without the president’s knowledge. Others, like Hunter Biden and Trump’s children, participate in side-businesses, apparently with the president’s knowledge, Joe Biden’s denials notwithstanding.
Trump’s real estate and crypto deals cross ethical if not legal lines because they raise cynicism about pay-to-play schemes. In this, however, there is not much difference between the perception that motivated foreign donors to give money to the Clinton Foundation.
Meanwhile, Washington partisans navel-gaze. They attack their opponents with ferocity and dishonesty that sullies America’s hard-earned reputation for perceived short-term political advantage. Call it what it is: a circular firing squad that does America real harm.
So too do the empty slogans sullying American motives. “No Blood for Oil,” a favorite progressive slogan to condemn American military action, was always a calumny. Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya may have had oil, but just over the last half-century, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan did not; Syria’s oil is negligible. Rather, for the past century, two factors have driven American military intervention: Coming to the defense of countries facing wars of extermination and elimination or humanitarian motivations. Perhaps American involvement was at times unwise or undertaken without clear end goals, but America did not intervene to make itself wealthy on the back of its military. From a strict accounting line, every military action hurt the bottom line even as it helped build a better world.
It is in juxtaposition to these previous calculations of conflict that Trump seems such an anomaly. Abandoning Ukraine, despite earlier U.S. security guarantees, upends a century of American, values-driven policies. That is why the Trump-Putin summit shocks America’s partners.
It is easy to make Trump the focal point of these debates. Indeed, that is what Trump wants. But, within the Republican party, even if Trump’s supporters are the loudest, there remains a strong undercurrent of unease as such betrayal of freedom. Many may also be like Secretary of State Marco Rubio who has flipped on a dime on issues ranging from Ukraine to Cuba as the cost of keeping his job.
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As the mid-term nears, essentially the starter pistol for the 2028 primaries and race to the White House, it will be easy to amplify criticism of Trump’s foreign policies. Traditionally, however, Americans do not decide the presidency on foreign policy. For politicians and leaders who care more about the United States and its place in the world, this provides an opportunity. Whether privately or publicly, it is time for those who care about freedom to cross partisan lines to speak about how to restore America’s leadership on freedom and democracy.
Ukrainians need not outlast Putin; they only need to outlast Trump. Partisans need not agree on climate and gender policy, but they should agree that freedom is paramount and the world is better when Washington rather than Beijing or Moscow lead. Indeed, perhaps like a broken bone healing stronger, the Trump years can be a virtue by giving Western liberals a glimpse of what America’s absence might mean.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
