Trump's attack on Zelenskyy was a pre-meditated ambush

“We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution”, said the overnight statement from the White House.

And at midnight US time yesterday, in a move which will only make everyone concerned poorer, 25% tariffs were placed by the US on a range of Canadian and Mexican goods.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

READ MORE: Volodymyr Zelenskyy willing to 'work under' Donald Trump for peace 

It speaks volumes that Donald Trump is apparently so abhorred by the war in Ukraine that he would cut off further US contributions as a means of bringing it to an end at any cost, yet refused to do the same to bring the Israeli government to the negotiating table over the conflict in Gaza.

It was nauseating to see the so-called “leader of the free world” and his vice-president bully and intimidate an honourable and courageous man like Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who rather mildly tried to set out how previous agreements had been dishonoured by Vladimir Putin, and why this meant that any peace agreement for Ukraine should be underwritten with security guarantees.

Perhaps, like me, you watched the entire meeting so that you could form your own view on how the clash developed. If you had, you’d have noted that it was only the final 10 minutes that went “wrong” and that the previous 40 minutes were, to all outward appearances, fairly normal.

If it looked like a pre-meditated ambush, that’s almost certainly because it was. President Trump had greeted his guest rather by commenting sarcastically on his attire. This was then picked up by a journalist in the same vein who wondered why President Zelenskyy wasn’t wearing a suit.

The journalist in question was Brian Glenn, a right-wing writer and commentator reportedly in a relationship with Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, well-known for her support of Trump. Trump then winked at Glenn in a manner suggesting the question had been planted. After vice-president JD Vance weighed in – as it looked like he had tried to do previously with Keir Starmer over “free speech” – it all went downhill. It seems clear that Zelenskyy could have kissed the ring and smiled serenely throughout, only for some aspect of his demeanour to still be seized upon as the trigger for the cowardly assault that followed.

I don’t recall Churchill in 1941 prior to Pearl Harbour being criticised by the White House for his war dress, his allegedly insufficient gratitude, or for not trying hard enough to reach a settlement with Hitler. Trump’s claims that Zelenskyy – a man leading the defence of his country in an unprovoked war – somehow either wanted the war to start or does not want that war to end, is the most grotesque kind of gaslighting imaginable. What we saw in action were the brittle egos of a president and vice-president, both infinitely smaller in character and vision than the circumstances they face.

But even if it is all just a bit of theatre – a clever game of 3D chess that we lesser mortals have failed to grasp is simply about making Europe increase its own military capabilities – Trump’s undermining of previous certainties matters for another reason. Starmer’s plans for supporting Ukraine going forward depend on achieving a UK-US special relationship-based security guarantee to underpin any European military deployment, as the basis of a lasting peace deal in Ukraine.

READ MORE: Ukrainian and Palestinian lives are on the line here

That is not an unreasonable aspiration, but it rests on the very shaky assumption that Trump will deliver even on that.

Trump has an all-too-appreciative audience back home who want to believe – whatever the reality – that the rest of the world has been leeching off the US in some way and taking it for granted for too long.

It’s an easy vein of grievance to try and mine for electoral gain, and mine it he has with gusto. So I pose the question – whither British foreign policy if Trump decides to follow an isolationist approach akin to Roosevelt in 1939?

The similarities of then and now are disturbing. There was significant support for Hitler in the USA in the late 1930s not unlike the right-wing agenda so popular in the USA today.

Back in the day, some Americans regarded Europe as not an American problem. Many felt that the USA should not get involved in what they saw as an essentially foreign war. Can his chest-thumping about a desire to avoid further deaths be taken at face value? Why is a minerals deal being placed centre-stage and regarded as sufficient in terms of bringing about a peace agreement?

Call me cynical if you like, but could it be that a certain Elon Musk hopes to benefit commercially from such an arrangement, and that the future independence of Ukraine is simply something to be paid lip service in pursuit of that objective?

The only language Trump understands – when he allows anyone else a word in edgeways – is strength.

So whatever diplomatic politesse Starmer feels he must offer in public, let us hope that the discussion in private is crystal clear. Namely, that Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security and Europe’s security is ultimately America’s security also.

Can a state visit go ahead in the absence of support for Ukraine to negotiate a stable peace? And will there be support for a rare minerals deal between the USA and Ukraine if Europe is left to support Ukraine alone? These are now burning questions.

Let’s hope that Starmer’s “smartest guys in the room” over at the Foreign Office have a Plan B that is more about our European allies than it is about unreliable friends in the White House. Time will tell but suddenly, the world seems to be a much more dangerous place.