Donald Trump loves to talk about \u201cdeals\u201d \u2013 as if wars were merely tedious negotiations over square footage, suffering a collateral side effect of diplomacy. Now it\u2019s Russia. And again: no word about the dead, no rebuke for the aggressor. Just a cold calculation in the Oval Office: \u201cIf I think I\u2019m close to getting a deal, I don\u2019t want to screw it up by doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What he means is sanctions. What he means is: don\u2019t disturb Russia while it continues to kill, torture, and deport \u2013 in Bucha, in Mariupol, in Kharkiv. And while Vladimir Putin proves every day anew that his war is not being negotiated, but waged \u2013 with rockets, with propaganda, with cold calculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Trump? He sees himself as the conductor of a peace whose melody only he can hear. A president who, in his second term, no longer distinguishes between friend and foe, but between the useful and the inconvenient. Putin \u2013 as so often \u2013 falls into the first category.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mercy of the Powerful, the Silence of the Weak<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a pattern that grows clearer: those who use violence, who threaten or hate, are not held accountable \u2013 they are courted. Recall: just days earlier, Trump stated that he was seriously considering pardoning Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., the men lawfully convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan\u2019s Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Terrorists \u2013 in the truest sense of the word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now Russia. A state that tramples the UN Charter, that deliberately destroys civilian infrastructure, that uses hunger as a weapon and systematically abducts children from Ukraine. A state whose actions should be tried before the International Criminal Court \u2013 not negotiated in the West Wing of the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for Donald Trump, this seems irrelevant. He doesn\u2019t want to \u201cinterfere.\u201d As if diplomacy were a fragile dough that collapses under too much pressure. But what\u2019s being practiced here is not diplomacy \u2013 it is indulgence. It is a free pass for evil, as long as it serves strategic interests.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Morality of Expediency<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Trump\u2019s worldview, the guiding principle is not law, but utility. Human rights are a nuisance, international law an annoying formality, truth negotiable. Those who are useful are protected. Those who interfere are sacrificed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That Putin is allowed to go on killing with impunity in this world is no accident. It is doctrine. Just as it is doctrine that Trump\u2019s own power must remain untouchable. That\u2019s why the FBI is discredited, why judges and prosecutors are threatened, why criminals are turned into martyrs if they act in Trump\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that is why Russia is spared \u2013 not out of hope, but out of calculation. Because no one expects peace from Putin, only leverage, power, geopolitical chess moves. On the backs of those dying today in bombed-out hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Extinction of Reality<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But how long can such a worldview hold? How long can a president pretend that compassion is weakness and accountability a burden? How long can a country afford it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truth is \u2013 not much longer. Because Trump\u2019s vision of a world order \u2013 shaped by deals with despots and acts of mercy for violent offenders \u2013 is not only morally bankrupt, it is dangerous. It destroys the idea of democracy from within. It turns perpetrators into heroes and victims into footnotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone like Trump who withholds sanctions from Russia while bombs rain down on Ukrainian cities is not performing a diplomatic balancing act \u2013 they are carrying out a moral capitulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And anyone who believes peace can be achieved through silence in the face of a murderer is not living in reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are living in a hall of mirrors, where the truth bends \u2013 until it pleases them.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump spricht gerne von \u201eDeals\u201c. Als seien Kriege blo\u00df z\u00e4he Verhandlungen \u00fcber Quadratmeter, Leid ein Kollateralschaden der Diplomatie. Jetzt also Russland. Und wieder: kein Wort \u00fcber Tote, keine Mahnung an den Aggressor. Nur eine n\u00fcchterne Rechnung im Oval Office: \u201eWenn ich denke, dass ich kurz davor bin, ein Abkommen zu erzielen, will ich das […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[34,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inferno-ukraine","category-trump-s-world"],"yoast_head":"\n