Trump: Weaker Than Even Merkel Was on Ukraine

Regarding the presence of women in politics, Donald Trump only knows one stance – looking down on them, if not constantly denigrating them. 

Usually, this despicable attitude was reserved for women politicians in the United States, especially Hillary Clinton (“Crooked Hillary”) and Nancy Pelosi (nicknamed “Nervous Nancy” but also described by him as a “horrible human being”).

Trump’s correct criticism 

While there aren’t a lot of women serving in top-level political posts on the international level, it is a well-known fact of Western politics that Donald Trump had little patience for the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she served in that post during his first term in the White House. 

It is fair to say that he despised her.

 While the same can be said about Merkel having little patience for Donald Trump, even the many domestic and international critics of the U.S. President conceded one fact: Trump was on target criticizing the extremely weak-kneed response of Western leaders after Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. 

For example, he repeatedly stated about his first predecessor in the Oval Office, Barack Obama, that “He allowed Russia to take Crimea.”

The Crimea invasion and its aftermath

While Trump never specifically addressed the responsibility of Merkel and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy for the West’s weak response of the Minsk Accords – which had no security guarantee for Ukraine – it is a safe bet that he viewed the then-German and French leaders as politically impotent.

Of course, Merkel has repeatedly claimed that the benefit – and intention – of agreeing to the Minsk II accords was to allow the Ukrainian side to build up its military.

However, that kind of reasoning is considered by many expert observers as an ex post facto rationalization.

Trump’s rationale for being so close to Putin

But no one should overlook the fact that it wasn’t just Obama who did nothing after Putin had annexed Crimea in 2014.  Trump also didn’t do anything either after he entered the Oval Office for the first time in January 2017.

Trump’s claim back then – and his claim now – is that he is the man who can inceltivize Putin “within 24 hours of taking office” to agree to a deal, That has proven to be nothing but empty rhetoric.

Putin resolutely rejects any serious steps toward an end of the war of aggression against Ukraine, effectively turning Trump into a toothless tiger.

Not living up to his own pseudo-heroic standards



A full year into Trump’s second presidency, it is even more undeniable that the 47th U.S. President’s inability to deliver on his grand promises with regard to ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, short of selling out the latter, is nothing but a spectacular display of his political impotence.



And that, mind you, is the most charitable of interpretations. A far more realistic one is that Trump, for whatever reasons, is acting as an agent and/or puppet of Putin’s.



As much as Trump was justified in harshly criticizing Angela Merkel for actively supporting the Nordstream 2 pipeline deal with Russia, the U.S: President has completely failed to stand up to Putin and has not even wrangled a single concession out of his Russian counterpart.

Stupid or merely ignorant?

All indications are that Donald Trump is being played by Putin like a puppet and regularly channels the Russian President’s imperialist lines of “defense” by arguing that the invasion of Ukraine is legitimate. 

Trump has been closely wedded to the Russian negotiating stance, often acting as a de facto Putin spokesman.  For concrete evidence, consider his constant demand on Ukraine to cede land to Russia as part of any deal to end the war.  Or echoing Russian claims that Zelensky is an illegitimate president.

That is not just a grave humiliation of historical proportions for the entire United States but, given that country’s longstanding leadership role, one for the entire West.

Less effectual than even Merkel

Trump thus even fails the direct comparison with Merkel.  As insufficient as the Minsk Accords must be judged in hindsight, at least Merkel and Sarkozy did extract some concessions from Putin, most notably, an immediate cease-fire. 



Trump, in contrast, is all show and no real action. The less charitable interpretation is that, by design and ever more evidently at Putin’s direction or behest, he likes to play the entire West for fools.

The latest evidence

Embarrassingly for Trump, things aren’t getting any better.  His occasional bouts of realism – for example, admitting that Putin “really let me down,” is more reminiscent of the sophomoric feeling of a jilted lover than a President of the United States.

But nothing is more embarrassing for Trump than that, compared to Angela Merkel, Germany’s other Russia “understander” (in line with her predecessor Gerhard Schröder), his submissiveness to Putin is far more pronounced.