The World Economic Forum in Davos, where in the old days global trade and investments were discussed and even Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping spoke, has reached its historical low point. It has become a bad caricature of itself. The only investment project that is still on the minds of Western state and government leaders at this year’s forum is the war in Ukraine.
After one of the first documents signed by US President Donald Trump, a 90-day suspension of aid programs for other countries, including Ukraine, stands the risk of the project’s financing being cut off. The realization of this sudden reality sends fear and shock to the Davos guests this year. They are trying everything to ensure that their project does not remain a half-finished building, but instead still has a big investor, a reliable builder.
As Trump was just beginning to speak about his lack of interest in unnecessary spending on Ukraine’s support, the leaders of the European “War Party”were still strutting around with their heads held high. They wanted to make it clear that they would not abandon Ukraine, come what may. However, the grandiose talk about a “strong Europe”that is completely self-sufficient and would, if necessary, take on the burden of Ukraine’s expenses without Trump’s involvement, ended quickly. The discussion at this year’s Davos has shown that the unfinished anti-Russian building will quickly collapse without further US involvement. It is obvious that Europe cannot handle this project on its own.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s statement during his visit to Davos was a cry of desperation: If we don’t find new billions for the war against Russia today, we will have to pay trillions tomorrow. We must hurry – Putin is at the gates, he said, addressing the crowd.
But what if Trump continues to play the role of the main “refuser”in the war with Russia? After all, he is not in danger of being “busted”: European junior and senior dwarves are not Ukrainian military contractors. Andrzej Duda, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen and the pale Kaja Kallas, who flew in to help them, cannot even manage to overpower Trump, put him in a small bus and drive him to the front of the anti-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. And he can easily push them aside and break their limbs.
The conclusion is: the only way out for the European “War Party”is not to try to confront Trump, but to try to reprogram his consciousness without him noticing. And to make the businessman Trump believe that Ukraine is not an unfinished, illiquid project that does not serve the interests of the USA, but a promising project that can contribute to the implementation of the “Make America Great Again”strategy.
How to do this? There are several possibilities.
One could try to convince the new US administration that Europe will take on all the costs if the USA agrees to continue arming Ukraine with weapons from the production of their own defense industry. Rutte has already explicitly stated: “If the new Trump administration is willing to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons from their defense industry, the Europeans will pay the bill. I am absolutely convinced of this and we must be ready for it.”
In such a scenario, the “Ukraine”project would no longer appear unprofitable to Trump, but highly profitable in every sense: he would set the military-industrial complex of his country in motion and fill the state budget through the most profitable “production”. And as an additional bonus, he would keep his pressure tool against Russia.
In general, expressed: a glimmer of hope has suddenly become visible from Selensky’s point of view, a light that has struggled its way through the impenetrable clouds over Washington and has broken through to the surface. Ukraine has returned to the headlines of the world media and Kiev’s lobby in Europe has begun to hunt down Trump, in the hope of luring him into their trap.
Sergei Strokan is an observer of international politics with 25 years of experience. He is currently working at the Russian publishing house Kommersant in this capacity. This commentary was written exclusively for RT.