A Masterclass in Destroying U.S. Soft Power

We are at the tail-end of Trump’s first 100 days in office for his second term. So far, he has signed a slew of executive orders and has allowed Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to obliterate a vast amount of domestic funding for those most vulnerable populations in our country. Recently, towns in West Virginia have been ravaged by flooding with little Federal and state aid to be seen. Slashing funding for FEMA doesn’t bode well for these poor West Virginians and other vulnerable, rural towns – towns which showed up in a big way for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. 

Trump is evidently not concerned about how the average American is doing domestically. But is this strategy also being employed in his foreign policy? After a number of meetings between foreign leaders and Trump, it is looking more and more as though he is willing to abandon the supposed allies of the United States just as quickly as he’s abandoning Americans at home.

Trump’s Meetings with International Leaders

Donald Trump has recently met with a number of world leaders. Through meetings with Emmanual Macron, Keir Starmer, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, we are witnessing an apparent shift in U.S. foreign policy. All of these meetings are supposedly in the service of ending the war in Ukraine and building lasting peace, but you wouldn’t know that based on the tone of these conversations.

Macron and Starmer both emphasized the importance of guaranteeing Ukrainian security when it comes to ending the conflict, but Trump has taken a turn with handling peace negotiations. Instead of primarily discussing the war with his European allies, he has circumnavigated them to discuss directly with Russia.

In the meeting with Volodomyr Zelenskyy, tempers flared between the Ukrainian leader, President Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance. The Vice President forcefully accused Zelenskyy of not being thankful for President Trump’s efforts at achieving peace. Trump himself stated, “You don’t have the cards right now,” in response to Zelenskyy’s attempts at negotiating aspects of the mineral deal he had originally come to the U.S. sign. To the current U.S. administration, it seems as though repayment from Ukraine has taken a higher priority than the lives of many innocent Ukrainians. Despite the two leaders neglecting to reach an agreement during this meeting, Zelenskyy has since stated Ukraine is ready to sign the mineral deal. Still, the events of the meeting bred embarrassment among American leaders and citizens. 

After Trump’s turn on foreign policy toward Ukraine, European leaders decided to take matters into their own hands, holding talks with Ukraine without representation from the United States. With Donald Trump’s behavior and treatment of countries that should be considered allies of America, other nations may decide it's time to stand on their own.

We Pay, Ukrainians Die, Private U.S. Companies Profit

America's views on the war in Ukraine have become largely divided along partisan lines regarding U.S. aid to the country, with Democrat-leaning individuals claiming that the U.S. is not providing enough aid and those with Republican leanings believing the U.S. is providing too much. America has previously vowed to “fight to the last Ukrainian”, but with Trump wanting to wrap up this war, and 46,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers later, it seems as though that support is waning.

Trump’s shifting outlook on the war drops the mask of altruism surrounding the United States when it comes to helping allies. The United States doesn’t go to war to protect anyone, it does so to enrich its capitalist class, both during and after these types of conflicts.

Between FY 2022 and FY 2024 Congress appropriated $174.2 billion for Ukraine. Of these appropriations, $163.6 billion was for Operation Atlantic Resolve, where the vast majority of appropriated funds were allocated to the Department of Defense, something Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and their ilk directly profited from. In 2023, the average U.S. taxpayer paid over $5,000 toward militarism and wartime efforts. U.S. taxpayers are enriching weapons contractor CEOs while Ukrainians die abroad.

One may wonder why Trump is pushing to end the war, if it’s benefiting his friends in the weapons industry. At first glance, one may think that Trump is demanding $500 billion in rare earth minerals to repay the American taxpayer for funding Ukraine's defense efforts. A look at the mineral deal, however, shows that none of the money repaid to the U.S. would be used for the Federal government to invest in its citizens at home. Initially, the goal of the mineral deal seems noble: use the funds to rebuild Ukraine after Russia’s destructive invasion. But if that is the goal, why does the money earned from Ukraine’s natural resources have to go through the hands of the American government at all? It would be more straightforward for Ukraine to have full access to the funds raised from the selling of its resources and to employ Ukrainians through its public or private sector to rebuild their country. Why does America feel entitled to Ukraine’s resources and believe it can tell Ukraine how it goes about its rebuild?

Again, the people and the U.S. Federal government will receive nothing from this mineral deal; none of this $500 billion will go to funding education or any public goods or services in America. This isn’t speculation, it’s written clearly in the deal: whenever Ukraine mines and sells any mineral, 50% of money will go toward a reconstruction fund. This reconstruction fund will be used to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure, and it is notable that the companies that do said reconstruction and receive those funds will be chosen by the U.S. government. If (or when) the deal gets signed, Donald Trump will have sole authority to decide which one of his capitalist buddies receives funding to rebuild Ukraine. 

A Historical Parallel

Now that it is clear Ukraine will not win the war with Russia, the U.S. has seemingly switched sides over to the victors. Some may claim this turn only came about because Trump won the 2024 election and that Democrats would have continued to support Ukraine. Speculation aside, we can take a look at history to see how America treats its allies when they lose.

The puppet government that occupied the south of Vietnam, known as the Republic of Vietnam, experienced this first-hand during the Vietnam War. The U.S. started off as a friend to the southern fascist regime, providing direct military support and garnering involvements from other countries, such as Australia and South Korea. After the Tet Offensive, however, the war became extremely unpopular back home and America slowly withdrew support year over year until the puppet government ultimately fell.

After the Vietnamese Communist forces secured victory, one would imagine things would improve for Vietnam. However, the U.S. forced Vietnam to pay back more than $145 million in debt (roughly $840 million today) that the United States gave to the defeated South Vietnamese regime. Even in their losses America manages to come out on top financially.

It is looking more and more like Ukraine will pay a similar price for believing in the sincerity of American allyship.

What Next?

America’s standing isn’t improving. Our favorability in Europe is falling, and our neighbors in Canada aren’t big fans of us either, after Trump’s threat to annex the entire country. Does U.S. leadership think they’re too big to fail? Perhaps they think they can treat allies however they want because the U.S. is the current hegemonic power. Only time will tell. But if they look at how the United States has treated its allies historically, they may decide it’s time for a future without the U.S. as a leading global superpower.