Trump’s Misguided Notion of Parity

In the final minutes of today’s press conference about the US attack on Venezuela and seizure of the Maduros, President Donald J. Trump unexpectedly touched on the topic of the Russian war against Ukraine and his misguided, dangerous notion of parity.

In about the 55^th minute of the 58-minute morning press conference, a reporter asked Trump if he spoke with Russian führer Putin about the US action against Venezuela. He replied no. The reporter persisted by asking “Are you mad at him now?”

In his well-known lackadaisical manner he replied “I am not thrilled with Putin. He is killing too many people.” It would have been acceptable if Trump ended his comment at that point but he didn’t. The 47^th President of the USA continued explaining his unproductive role in settling the nearly four-year brutal Russian war versus Ukraine.

According to the C-Span unedited transcript, he said he had thought that one of the easier wars that he would have to settle would be the one Russia launched against Ukraine. “It is not. They both have done some pretty bad things,” he said assigning equal blame and responsibility to Moscow and Kyiv, when international organizations, the free world and others know that Russia is solely responsible for invading Ukraine in February 2022 and the ensuing inhuman bloodshed and destruction of cities, homes, and energy infrastructure.

“Look, this is Biden’s war. That is not my war,” Trump continued passing responsibility to his predecessor. Did you see last month 27,000, the month before, 30,000 mostly soldiers were killed last month? 30,000. I want to stop that. I got NATO to pay 5% instead of 2% they were not paying. They were not paying 2%, now they’re paying 5%,” Trump claimed without offering any citations.

Indeed, Russia has lost more than 1 million of its invading cutthroats. In addition to Ukrainian soldiers killed in action, Ukraine has also lost due to Russia’s war thousands of civilian men, women and children, and tens of thousands of Ukrainian children were stolen from their parents and forcibly transported to Russia. Many towns have been flattened by Russia.

“We send them a lot of things, missiles and various other things, a lot. And they pay. The United States is not losing money. We are probably making money. It is the last thing that I care about. I want to stop all those people. We are losing 30,000 human beings that came from places very far away,” he said, making a very important admission that the United States is not losing money on helping Ukraine militarily as some in Washington and Moscow have claimed but rather it’s making money.

“If I can stop, because it is something I have been pretty good at doing, deals, I guess, it is all a deal, life is a big deal. But if I can stop that war and stop 30,000 young people, in addition to the fact people are being killed in Kyiv, in other cities, a much smaller number but they are being killed, viciously killed,” he said. “I am not happy about it. I thought that would be something that would get solved.”

After nearly a year after his involvement with the peace negotiations, Trump still believes that “we are making progress that is a war that should never have happened. If I was president, it never would have happened. Putin says it, everybody says it. If I was president that never would have happened. I inherited that war. That was Joe Biden, Zelenskyy, and Putin. I came into the situation and it is a mess,” he said exonerating himself.

President Trump has not been able to settle the war because he lacks the knowledge and understanding of the reasons for this latest Russian aggression against Ukraine and all of the previous ones. Furthermore, he is playing both sides against the middle by standing with his buddy Putin rather than taking a firm stand on behalf of Ukraine’s victory. Until he does, this war and the bloodshed will continue.