Baked Alaska

As good cooks know, when one produces ‘baked Alaska’, one oven bakes ice cream within a shroud of meringue, producing a dessert with a hot exterior and a cold interior.

Has the recent shameful reception of a criminal tyrant – who started an illegal war on a neighbouring country, committing war crimes and abducting children while killing hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers and of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers – by the leader of the free world proven the stupidity of the hot exterior not managing to thaw the icy interior?

Vladimir Putin won all his aims and Donald Trump did a TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) once again, by chickening out just as Putin guessed. Instead of forcing Putin to agree to a ceasefire or else face increased sanctions, he discussed business with Russia without gaining anything in return.

It is obvious that Putin is as cold as ice and only responds when pressed with tough measures like military resistance or severe sanctions. He will not thaw when received with applause on a red carpet on US territory. He sees Trump as a weak, narcissistic person whom he can manipulate with false and faint praise while gaining all he plans for without giving in an inch.

The former KGB tiger never loses his stripes and his claws are as sharp as ever.

Trump has had all the cards required to press Russia by introducing severe sanctions, especially by forcing the price of oil down to a very low level and to stop China and India from continuing to buy from Russia.

He can allow the Europeans to buy all the most powerful weapons from the US to give to the Ukrainian army to take the horror of war deeper and deeper into Russia so that the civilian population there will lose trust in Putin.

Instead, Trump, advised by mercantile isolationist advisers, who do not care about democracy but only respect tyranny and personality cults of supreme emperors, buckled under the suave and extremely well-prepared former KGB agent and discussed business in the future.

Trump laying out the red carpet and applauding and handshaking with Putin was not only shameful but clearly a sign of how Trump thinks of himself. He does not care about democracy, or the freedom regained by all the former countries occupied for over 70 years by the Soviet Union, as long as he and Putin can be friends and can do business with one another in space, in the Arctic and on rare earth products.

Vladimir Putin only responds when pressed with tough measures like military resistance or severe sanctions- John Vassallo

Trump’s priorities are all wrong and this should worry all Europeans as well as all Americans who believe in the rule of law and separation of powers as well as the inviolability of borders. Whoever attacks a neighbour to take territory by force is a criminal and cannot be received with honours and red carpets.

Putin does not fool us in Europe. He frightens us. Munich in 1938 has been repeated by Trump. We know where 1938 led us and we dread a repeat. Putin will continue to push, and only force and unity among the Western democracies can stop him.

As I said, Trump holds many cards. How about a completely new scenario, namely: Trump should suggest to Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries, including the US and Norway, to lower the price of oil to half of what Russia is charging and get China and India to buy from the US and Saudi Arabia instead of Russia. Then, all assets taken from the Russians are to be seized and used to arm Ukraine with the most modern weapons, and the US is to use its intelligence to threaten Russia much more than it does today.

Of course, Saudi Arabia will ask something in return for reducing the price of oil and the exchange can be the recognition of Palestine by the US and the creation of a state of Palestine, the elimination of Hamas, the return of all hostages and the threat to stop all weapons to Israel until Benjamin Netanyahu resigns and a new government is formed in Israel. Israel returns to the 1947 borders and controls its extremist elements so that peace is created in both the Middle East and in Eastern Europe with one US initiative.

Such a courageous approach would, if successful, be truly worthy of a Nobel Prize. What is happening this week, the selling out of Ukraine and European security for economic US interests is worthy of the disdain of the free world and applause from all other autocratic regimes

One must think out of the box to frighten Putin or even to have his population turn against him. Our only weapon is the crashing of the Russian economy. This will thaw the Russian icy hearts.

If there can be a link that also leads to stop the genocide in Gaza and to eliminate Hamas, then Trump can aspire really to be the peacemaker he keeps hoping to be recognised for. What he did recently puts him further and further away from where we all hope the US should be. The leader of the free world and the ally all Europe can depend on.

Today, there appears to be no adviser whispering good ideas to Trump. Maybe the alliance of the willing, led by France, Germany, Poland and the UK, with many others in their shadow, can suggest this to Trump.

John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.