Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump Clash During Meeting, February 28, 2025 -- public domain image
By Peter Mertens
What US President Donald Trump did on February 28 to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy typically happens behind closed doors. Now, in Trump’s words, it was “great television”. This is how the US has treated countries in the Global South for years: as neo-colonies expected to meekly say “Thank you” for imposed agreements that plunder their resources. It’s no different from how Trump speaks about Panama, Greenland, or Gaza, complete with repulsive AI animations. The US sees the world as a giant globe of resources that belong to it. This has a name: imperialism. It never truly left; it has simply returned naked and unashamed, trampling the last remaining counterforce that once restrained it – international law.
Domestically, Trump does the same. He seeks to revive the 19th-century capitalism of the “robber barons”, a capitalism without counterweights: no unions, no labour protections, and absolute power to make decisions affecting millions, up to and including deportation. To win this war, he has enlisted Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team.
Zelenskyy’s calm and controlled demeanour in the face of the world’s most powerful president commanded respect, particularly among Global South nations all too familiar with US bullying. But this brings us no closer to peace. “The unwinnable war,” I wrote in Mutiny, “has already fed tens of thousands of young men into the meat grinder at the dawn of their lives.” On the eve of the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting, a deal seemed imminent through which Trump would shift the cost of war to Europe while the US would receive control over Ukraine’s resource-and-mineral extraction via a new fund. This laid bare that this dirty war was never about values—only geostrategic interests and control over resources and fertile land. The question is: Why did the deal collapse at the last minute?
One possibility is that the US aims to further weaken Zelenskyy’s position, humiliate him, and ultimately push for regime change. This has been the hallmark of US foreign policy for decades: orchestrating regime changes whenever and wherever US interests are deemed unserved. This was the fate of Manuel Noriega in Panama and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. One day, a trusted ally; the next, overthrown. Former US diplomat Jeffrey Sachs reminded me last week of an alleged Henry Kissinger quote: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Even one of the United States’ strongest allies, the European Union, is learning this. In September 2023, I wrote in Mutiny that Europe is losing the continent precisely because it blindly follows Washington. “It’s a kind of Stockholm syndrome,” I told Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever in Parliament last week. “The more the US humiliates Europe, the tighter Europe clings to Uncle Sam’s coattails.” Our Defence Minister, Theo Francken, insists on maintaining privileged ties with Washington at all costs, claims inspiration from the US “social model”, finds it normal for Trump to attempt to annex Greenland, and happily wants to order more unaffordable F-35 fighter jets from the US.
How many shocks does Europe need for it to grow up? The German recession post-sanctions wasn’t enough. Elon Musk’s meddling in election campaigns? Not enough. Humiliation by US Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in Munich? Still not enough. Trump’s new tariff war? Even less. Today, Europe’s establishment panics again, charging off like a wild horse escaping a barn – more weapons, more war, preparing for World War III! Europe must not become a clone of the US. It does not need a domestic Trump. Instead, it must dare to chart a new course.
Meanwhile, the EU’s Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas insists in statements on prolonging the dirty war in Ukraine, feeding it with weapons and young men and women. Kallas lacks the democratic legitimacy to engage in such incendiary talk. Europe needs fewer warmongers like Kallas and more maturity to truly change course and unite with Global South nations like Brazil and China, which have long pursued negotiated solutions.
As I wrote in Mutiny, this war has always been Janus-faced. On one side is the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the flouting of international law through Russian aggression. Global South nations understand this. On the other is a US-Russia proxy war on Ukraine’s soil, where tens of thousands of young people are cannon fodder for geostrategic conflict. Washington now shamelessly admits this was a proxy war fuelled by the US. Trump, however, claims it was the “wrong” proxy war—that Russia isn’t the US’s real adversary, and all efforts must shift to the coming war his administration is preparing against China. This is solely because Washington sees its economic and technological hegemony challenged by China.
The latest fashionable sophistry is that “if you want peace, prepare for war”. It sounds catchy but is catastrophic. History shows that when economies gear for war and minds are primed for conflict, war draws closer. Step by step, hysteria replaces sober analysis. More politicians chirp about war; fewer dare speak of peace. Thinking stops, diplomatic solutions are dismissed, and global peace is gambled away. Europe has no future as a war continent. Militarisation will gut its manufacturing industry, and permanent tension with eastern neighbours won’t inch us closer to peace.
“My experience teaches that you must talk to the other side. You can’t say, ‘We won’t talk—we know what they think’. Diplomacy is essential, especially in tense moments”, Jeffrey Sachs told me.
Europe must find its own path. Russia isn’t moving; you can’t erase it from the map. Instead of sinking deeper into the vortex of hysteria and platitudes, Europe must develop mature diplomacy – one that charts an independent course with a vision for its manufacturing sector, respect for international law, and pragmatic relations with all economic giants: the US, China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa.
Peter Mertens is General Secretary of the PVDA-PTB (Workers’ Party of Belgium) and a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. His latest book, from LeftWord Books (India), is Mutiny: How Our World is Tilting (2024).
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
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