Friedman: Our European allies wonder why Putin still owns Trump

Since President Donald Trump decided to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War to more accurately reflect how tough he is I suggest we rebrand the White House as The Waffle House to more accurately reflect Trump s incessant waffling when it comes to truly doing something to deter Vladimir Putin s steadily increasing onslaught on Ukraine not to mention his new drone incursion into America s NATO ally Poland I was in Ukraine last week attending the Yalta European Strategy conference in the capital Kyiv and interviewing Ukrainian and European leaders analysts and entrepreneurs Particular version of the same question came up quietly in almost every private conversation What in the world is going on with your president Putin keeps spitting in Trump s eye and Trump keeps telling the world that it s raining No one wants to say this publicly right now Indeed at the opening of the conference President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine could not have expressed more gratitude to Trump as did several key NATO foreign ministers and national measure advisers They are clearly hoping that if everyone pretends that Trump is doing a lot letting NATO allies use their own money to buy arms for Kyiv even though Trump has not allocated a dime of fresh U S money to do so the U S president will not abandon Ukraine altogether But our European allies were aghast last week at Trump s response to the swarm of around drones that Russia sent across Polish borders prompting NATO to scramble fighter jets to shoot them down While Poland s prime minister Donald Tusk narrated his parliament the episode was the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II all that Trump could muster was a post on his Truth Social platform What s with Russia violating Poland s airspace with drones Here we go Related Articles Walters California s sky-high costs afford it highest poverty label again Jarvis Trump s crackdown on drug ads is long overdue French There are monsters in your midst too Tufekci How social media reduced two horrific killings to cheap snuff films Opinion To stop political violence stop hating on others I love Trump s turn of phrase What s with Russia violating Poland s airspace with drones Our president sounds like a teenage blogger commenting on chosen movie star who did something embarrassing in community not the leader of the free world If Putin had any sense of humor he would post on Truth Social Donald what s with that Department of War thing Fueled by grudges Every day that goes by Trump seems to add another condition or another timeline for when he will impose meaningful economic sanctions on Russia as Putin measures up his attacks on Ukraine Trump s latest formulation posted over the weekend is that all nations in Europe majority of whom have already sharply cut back their imports of Russian oil would need to stop buying oil from Moscow entirely In addition all NATO nations need to impose tariffs of to on China A serious president would not be posting such demands on social media He and his staff would be working the phones I have inevitably avoided the more conspiratorial explanations for Trump s behavior I do not believe that the U S president is somehow a Putin asset though he sure knows how to play one on TV What I believe is that Trump is totally different from any U S president since World War II and not in a good way For starters he does not share the bedrock commitment that the Atlantic alliance is the greatest coalition in history for expanding and defending zones of free people free markets and the rule of law At the same time it is hardly a secret that Trump is a man fueled by grudges and grievances I suspect that he has never forgiven Zelenskyy for not giving him the dirt on Joe Biden that Trump sought in his first term a crazy ask that eventually through numerous twists and turns led to Trump s first impeachment trial Another explanation is that there is no real policymaking process in this administration There is no sign that any of Trump s guidelines declarations conveyed through social media are vetted first by area experts in the State Department or the CIA no sign that anything is run by the Senate or House Foreign Affairs committees Playing Monopoly The other explanation I offered to my European and Ukrainian friends went like this You know how we often say that the Chinese are much more sophisticated players of the contest of nations that while we play checkers the Chinese play chess unfailingly thinking various moves ahead Well it s sort of like that with Trump Only Trump is not playing either checkers or chess He s playing Monopoly He does not judge countries on whether they share our democratic values or even our interests He judges them on whether they are Boardwalk or Baltic Avenue on whether we have a exchange surplus or exchange deficit with them on whether they are the site for a future Trump hotel or golf unit and on whether their leaders will flatter his ego or not If you don t flatter Trump and you have a exchange surplus with us say India your democratic system may not save you from Trump s tariffs But if you flatter him as Putin does and if you offer him assets opportunities as Putin also does then Trump may not impose a single new tariff on you even if like Russia your financial market runs a exchange surplus with America Alas even Trump seems lately to have lost track of all the different conditions that he has set before he will do anything meaningful to punish Russia which is allegedly why he just let loose Saturday with what s really in his heart when it comes to Ukraine This is not TRUMP S WAR Trump wrote on Truth Social It is Biden s and Zelenskyy s WAR You notice that he doesn t say it s Putin s war the man who really started it Trump s war Sorry Mr President This is YOUR war now Because you and you alone have the ability to deliver to Ukraine the military materials to send the message to Putin that time is not on his side that he will have to accept a deal Unfortunately it s a deal that will allow the Russian president to keep a few of the territory in eastern Ukraine that he has seized by force but the condition for that is that Putin must accept Western assurance guarantees for Ukraine aimed at ensuring that no Russian leader will ever dare invade again as well as Ukrainian membership in the European Union If you Mr President walk away from Ukraine and let it be overrun by the Russian dictatorship you can post on Truth Social all you want and you can give as multiple interviews with Fox News as you please but your name will forever be spoken in the same breath as Neville Chamberlain and well it should It takes my breath away that only one Republican in Congress has had the guts to tell Trump that God bless Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska a former Air Force brigadier general who responded to Trump s attempt to weasel out of responsibility with a post of his own on social platform X Mr President Putin is the one who is the invader And now this war is on your watch and you ll be judged in the history books in the decades to come by your actions or lack thereof Thomas L Friedman is a New York Times columnist