President Trump has no influence over Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He can only continue to humiliate himself, Americans, NATO and the very image of the United States.
President Trump pauses federal aid to Ukraine
World leaders are reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to pause federal aid to Ukraine.
During his reelection campaign, President Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. No one in their right mind actually believed him, but the MAGA blind faith has given the new administration room to play word games instead of crafting real foreign policy.
Take last Friday’s debacle at the White House. Trump and Vice President JD Vance ‒ neither of whom has ever set foot in Ukraine or seen actual war combat ‒ ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, treating a wartime leader like a prop in their political theater. As if on cue, Secretary of State Marco Rubio then tried to justify the embarrassing behavior of the White House.
In an interview with ABC News, he tried to echo Trump’s bravado about making deals ‒ repeating the idea that Trump is a world-class negotiator. But then he admitted the truth: There’s no actual peace deal with Russia on the table.
“Maybe they don’t want a deal, either. We don’t know. But we haven’t talked to them in three years,” Rubio said. “Can we try to sit with them and figure out whether there’s any – what are the Russian demands? Under what conditions would the Russians be willing to stop this war?”
Yet, the Trump camp keeps hammering the word “deal” into every sentence, applying it to rare earth minerals, Russia, Ukraine, imaginary agreements between Kyiv and Moscow. The repetition is deliberate. The confusion is the point. This isn’t just sloppy messaging: It’s a classic authoritarian tactic straight out of the Russian propaganda playbook. Flood the conversation with contradictions, repeat vague slogans until facts lose meaning, and train people to accept conflicting statements without question.
There is no peace deal ‒ because Russia doesn’t want one
I’ll set aside the fact that you can’t make deals with Russian leaders ‒ because they will break them. Even in the case of a ceasefire, they will regroup and attack again, whether foreign peacekeepers are present or not.
And they certainly won’t care if American companies show up to extract rare earth minerals.
Let’s be clear: There is no peace deal with Russia in place now. Even if the U.S. president offered dictator Vladimir Putin everything and invited him for a tango for the whole world to see, Russia wouldn’t be interested in making a deal ‒ especially one that leads to lasting peace.
Trump has no influence over Putin. He can only continue to humiliate himself, Americans, NATO and the very image of the United States ‒ a country that has spent decades building its reputation as the world’s toughest yet democratic country.
Ukraine rare earth minerals deal has nothing to do with peace
The Trump administration insists that the rare earth deal was a step toward peace, but it has nothing to do with peace. It’s an economic treaty that has nothing to do with the country during an active war ‒ because no company will invest in a country that is bombed daily.
And it’s not going to stop Russia from continuing its war against Ukraine or other neighboring countries.
White House officials are desperately trying to reframe Russia’s war as a fight for resources. But they either know the truth and ignore it ‒ or they’re simply that ignorant.
This isn’t a war over minerals. It’s an imperial war of expansion and domination.
Russia is willing to flatten cities, destroy entire countries and obliterate infrastructure ‒ including factories. They are actively mining Ukrainian fields, the very lands that sustain Ukraine’s global economic importance. No one can use these fields ‒ not Russians, Ukrainians or Americans. Ukraine is now the most mined country in the world.
And you certainly can’t extract rare earth minerals from areas filled with explosives, the ones under Russian occupation or not protected by the air defense systems.
At any rate, the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that Trump has stopped U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine.
Trump’s endgame: Blame Zelenskyy for a nonexistent deal
It seems the ultimate goal of the Trump administration is to shift the blame onto the Ukrainian president ‒ to accuse him of refusing a so-called peace deal.
But Zelenskyy reiterated Tuesday his country’s commitment to peace: “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.”
Perhaps even more telling is this: Trump and his administration are too cowardly to address the Ukrainian people directly. Not once have they spoken to those who are actually fighting and dying for their country. When did Republicans forget that in a true democracy, it is the people ‒ not the politicians ‒ who fight for their nation, who sacrifice for it and who ultimately decide its fate?
If the United States is invaded, it’s going to be Trump voters, not Trump himself, who will go fight on the front lines.
If anyone in Trump’s circle had even an ounce of courage, they would look Ukrainians in the eye and admit the truth: There is no deal.
And that the only thing they care about is cozying up to regimes like Russia ‒ nations that won’t judge them, even if they drag the United States into complete darkness.
Anastasiia Marushevska, co-founder of the Ukrainian nonprofit PR Army of communication experts, is editor-in-chief at Ukraїner International, host of “Decolonisation” podcast.
