America loses with Trump’s disgraceful betrayal of Ukraine | Editorial

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan offered a simple strategy to defeat the Soviet Union during the Cold War: “We win, they lose.” Reagan’s toughness helped topple the Russian-controlled communist federation, briefly leading to economic and political freedom.

Nearly four decades later, President Donald Trump appears poised to sell out Ukraine by negotiating a lopsided peace three years after Russia invaded its neighbor. In doing so, Trump is about to let Moscow win, and Kyiv lose.

But the biggest loser will be America.

Trump’s appeasement of Russia — and his cozying up to its murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin — stands to upend 80 years of U.S.-led international order that has helped to maintain peace and prosperity in Europe since the end of World War II.

Abandoning Ukraine will embolden the Kremlin and other adversaries, including China, which could lead to more costly and destabilizing wars. In the run-up, Trump has betrayed our European allies, leaving America distrusted and alone, and the world less safe.

To be sure, former President Joe Biden and many in Congress botched aid efforts by not supplying the arms Kyiv needed to turn back Russia. Those who argue America should not have spent the $175 billion (not $350 billion, as Trump falsely claims) to support Ukraine fail to understand that the strategic and moral cost of that kind of parsimony will be much higher.

If anything, the bill for the senseless war should go to Russia — yet Trump is about to let Putin off the hook, even though he is responsible for widespread death and destruction.

This is what Putin has wrought: An estimated 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 12,000 civilians have been killed, including 2,400 children. Another 370,000 people have been injured. (Russia’s casualties are approaching 300,000.)

Roughly 3.6 million Ukrainians have been displaced and face severe hardship from a lack of food, heat, sanitation, and water. Millions more have fled the country as its population has declined by 25%.

Cities have been destroyed, including thousands of schools and hospitals. The estimated reconstruction cost stands at almost $500 billion — 2.8 times higher than Ukraine’s nominal gross domestic product in 2023.

Yet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, untested and just a few weeks on the job, met with top Russian and Saudi officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to broker a peace deal in Ukraine. The talks devolved into a discussion of profiteering as the photo of the U.S., Russian, and Saudi leaders around a conference table resembled the meeting of Mafia dons in The Godfather.

Trump’s legitimizing Russia with a seat at the peace table after it committed heinous war crimes is disgraceful. That Ukraine was absent from the talks even though Russia invaded its sovereign country is a travesty.

As Rubio and Russian officials discussed how to carve up Ukraine, the world was left with a repulsive display of imperial colonialism.

Rather than stand up to Putin, Trump’s alignment with Moscow makes him look like a rogue statesman.

The president even parroted Putin’s claims that Ukraine is to blame for the war.

“You should have never started it,” Trump whined.

That is an embarrassing and ridiculous lie, like the thousands of other lies Trump told during his previous term in the White House.

Trump then took to social media to spread more lies, falsely claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was an unpopular dictator who blocked elections. (Is the ultimate endgame the installation of a Putin puppet to lead Ukraine?)

If only Trump had half the moral courage and leadership Zelensky has displayed in defending his homeland.

Zelensky is a hero. By comparison, America is stuck with a cowardly, twice-impeached, draft-evading, tax-dodging, sexually abusing, convicted criminal who is trampling the Constitution, the rule of law, and quickly turning the country into a tin-pot dictatorship.

Trump’s repeated kowtowing to Putin alarmed allies and weakened the United States. Once again, Trump has made America a laughingstock.

Surprisingly, Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) showed some courage when he described Trump’s friend, Putin, as “a gangster” who “makes Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mother Teresa.”

But most Republican officials have remained shamefully silent as Trump undermines American democracy and looks more like a Russian asset.

This is not a time for other government, business, and higher education leaders to go wobbly. Those who continue to go along to get along are acting just as the so-called good Germans did during the Nazi regime.

Our democracy is in a perilous place, and it is getting more precarious by the day. Those who say, “It can’t happen here,” are not paying attention. It’s happening.

In Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire” speech, he correctly portrayed the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia as a battle of good vs. evil.

With Trump in the White House, democracy is losing, and evil is winning.