"From bored of peace to Board of Peace in five days"

"Just a few days ago, on Sunday, the president wrote that he no longer felt 'an obligation to think purely of Peace,' since he hadn’t been awarded the Nobel Prize. Yet here he was: from bored of peace to Board of Peace in five days. Forget the road to Damascus; true conversions happen on the jet to Davos.

"And who better to solve the world’s conflicts than the man who, in his speech at the WEF a day earlier, became confused about whether he wished to illegally seize Greenland or Iceland? ...

“'Everybody wants to be a part of it,' Trump insisted of his new club. But big European countries had already turned him down. The initial members include Saudi Arabia, Israel and Belarus. Vladimir Putin says Russia may join too, if, and this is not a joke, he can pay the membership from Russia’s frozen assets. If these guys can run a peace initiative, the Sinaloa Cartel can run Narcotics Anonymous."

~ Henry Mance in Financial Times op-ed 'From bored of peace to the Board of Peace'

"There are two Putins."

Recently-retired MI6 head Richard Moore, Financial Times

“'I fundamentally assess that Putin is not interested in negotiations. There are no negotiations, not real negotiations. He’s attempting to play us,' [says former MI6 chief Richard Moore].

"According to Moore, there are two Putins. One is the cold-eyed realist, the ruthless leader who cuts deals when he has to. This is the Putin who last year accepted the loss of Syria and the ousting of his ally, the dictator Bashar al-Assad, and sought only to protect Russian bases there. The other Putin is ideological and has 'a deeply wired feeling that Ukraine doesn’t have the right to exist.' This Putin invaded Ukraine and his objective, says Moore, is not to bargain over slices of territory but to dominate.

"In Moore’s view, the only way to confront the ideological Putin is to pile so much pressure on him that he is forced to choose between fulfilling his legacy project in Ukraine and holding on to power. That’s why Moore argues that Ukraine should have the right to strike deep into Russia, and that more economic pressure should be brought to bear on the Putin regime. 'This is a very, very winnable contest,' he says. 'It’s particularly important that we don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.'”

~ from an interview with the outgoing head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service on the rise of China, why Putin is not interested in talks — and how screen spies aren’t always far from the truth, 'Former MI6 chief Richard Moore: Britain must regain the ‘power of example’'

Ukraine betrayed. Again.

"After months of alternately sucking up to Vladimir Putin and seemingly expressing anger towards him, it turns out the Trump administration has been secretly negotiating with Russia for a while now, cutting the Ukrainians out of the process, and a report at Axios* says they’re now planning to present the plan to Ukraine and force it on them. As for Europe, 'We don’t really care about the Europeans.' I tried to warn them."

~ Robert Tracinski from his post 'Tyranny Is Unaffordable'

* The report is behind a paywall. The Guardian reports the plan "would require Kyiv to surrender territory and severely limit the size of its military.

The draft plan, reported on Wednesday as Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least 25 people in the city of Ternopil, was reportedly developed by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, would force draconian measures on Ukraine that would give Russia unprecedented control over the country’s military and political sovereignty. The plan is likely to be viewed as surrender in Kyiv.

"I will stop the war in 24 hours"

 Um ...

And also ...

“...it's a tough one”

“....it's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal”

“....there’s no deal until there’s a deal”

"....see what happens”

"Tariffs Aren’t Liberating": Your Tuesday Tariffs Ramble [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Some more great links here curated by Don Boudreaux, to help you put this calamity on context.

Since it's the topic of the day a historic turning point in human affairs, the least I can do is offer readers a ramble around the topic of tariffs and the destruction of tariff wars — basically, around the many writers reciting the multiplicity of ways in which the Trump Administration has fucked us.

"“Liberation Day”: That is what US President Donald Trump has called Wednesday, April 2, the day he announced huge swaths of taxes on imports worldwide. Despite the label, it was far from a day of liberation. By making imports to the US more expensive, the government is actively increasing the cost of living for American consumers.
    "The Trump administration has fallen for one of the most common misconceptions about trade—that it only benefits a country when it is the exporter. This could not be further from the truth. One of the greatest benefits of free trade lies with the importing country, where consumers gain access to a huge range of goods, crucially, at lower prices.
    "Whether it’s clothes, food, medical supplies, or mobile phones, access to the global market reduces the cost of living and increases consumer choice, often alleviating poverty in the process.
    "It comes down to a very simple principle. No one person could produce everything he or she consumes. No family or household could do so either. No city, town, or province could produce absolutely everything they consume. Equally, no country can produce everything it consumes, nor should it. Attempts to achieve autarky are acts of economic self-harm. Freedom to exchange across borders is win-win: it allows consumers to access a plethora of goods and services, improving welfare overall."

Tariffs Aren’t Liberating - Reem Ibrahim, FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION

"Tariffs are irrational both morally and practically.
    "Morally, tariffs are rights violations - they restrain or prohibit individuals from trading freely and voluntarily in their own self-interest with whomever - no matter where they reside geographically. ...
    "Practically, tariffs punish the individuals in the country which implements them. Trump even acknowledges the pain. But he mystically thinks this pain will be good and lead us to prosperity.
    "Tariffs raise prices, cause shortages, and decrease productivity. They destroy wealth, businesses, income, and jobs. This is well known in theory and practice. See the Smoot-Hawley Act and its role in making the Great Depression even worse.
    "Trump’s foreign policy is morally and practically irrational.
    "What is the moral and practical foreign policy solution?
    "Free trade."

          ~ Andy Clarkson

"The essence of capitalism's foreign policy is free trade—i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges—the opening of the world's trade routes to free international exchange and competition among the private citizens of all countries dealing directly with one another."

The Roots of War - Ayn Rand, ARI CAMPUS

"Fundamental to the argument for high tariffs has been the argument that trade deficits reflect America being "exploited" or "taken advantage of." In this article of mine on, "Why Trade Deficits Don't Matter -- Unless Caused by Government," I explain the misguided economic reasoning behind this claim, and why the far better policy is free trade."
Trade Deficits Don’t Matter – Unless Caused by Government - Richard Ebeling, FUTURE OF FREEEDOM FOUNDATION

"Donald Trump is fond of saying that trade wars are easy to win. Among the litany of patently false Trumpisms, this may well prove one of the most disastrous. ...
    "Protective tariffs risk triggering a cycle of escalation that ends well for no one."

No One Wins a Trade War - William Bernstein, THE ATLANTIC

"America can’t be outcompeted because America does not produce or trade anything.
     "Nations do not compete with nations. Individual firms compete with individual firms abroad. Ford competes with Toyota. America does not compete with Japan. Nations are trading partners, not competitors."

Why America can't be outcompeted - Harry Binswanger, HARRY'S SUBSTACK

"“We are seeing a combination of true-believing mercantilism, shocking ignorance about how the global economy works, and shocking incompetence in the planning and execution of economic policy,” says Michael Strain."
Trump's aggressive push to roll back globalisation -FINANCIAL TIMES (paywall0

"Like the post-1945 British Labour governments, he wants to shelter domestic manufacturing and the working class behind tariffs while reducing overseas commitments. But the net result will be both economically damaging and geopolitically weakening. Americans will come to miss globalism and policing the world. They will belatedly realise that there is no portal through which the United States can return to the 1950s, much less the 1900s. And the principal beneficiary of Project Minecraft will not be Russia, but China. Call it Project Manchuria. ... 

"The president stands as much chance of reindustrialising the U.S. as you do of getting your frozen laptop to work by smashing the motherboard with a Minecraft hammer."

Trump’s Tariffs and the End of American Empire - Niall Ferguson, THE FREE PRESS

"So think of it as a world wide Brexit like the U.S. leaving the global economy.
    "A trade lawyer at a global law firm here in London told me their clients see Trump’s tariffs as “worse than Brexit” as they’re dealing with rapidly changing trade rules on a massive scale. It’s not just the tariffs that Trump has imposed, but the retaliation it will provoke."

‘How Ugly Is This Going to Be?’ - Graham Lanktree, POLITICO

"You will go to work in a hot, noisy, dirty factory for low wages. And you will like it. 

The quality of life your grandfather had is more than good enough for you!"

"It sounds so sensible: why not use protection and industrial policy to preserve manufacturing capacity “just in case” of, say, a war or a pandemic? And, to be sure, this is a better argument for some limited government intervention on trade and investment flows than wanting to tax imported bananas or revive manufacturing.
    "But even then it’s not the slam dunk some people imagine. Below is my chapter on this issue from Economics In One Virus, published in 2021. It’s just as true and relevant today."

Flaws in the "Just In Case," Self-Sufficiency Case for Protectionism - Ryan Bourne, WAR ON PRICES

"The populist story of the death of U.S. manufacturing is nonsense. Mr. Vance and his cohort maintain that increased free trade with countries such as China in 2000 or Mexico in 1994 killed American jobs. It’s true that the number of manufacturing jobs is lower than it was in 1970. But that’s because we can make so much more with fewer people. Blame technology, not trade.
    "Real hourly output per manufacturing employee has been on an upward trend since 1959. Real U.S. manufacturing value-added—the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product—reached its highest recorded level in 2022. Manufacturing output was close to its all-time high in 2022, and the U.S. remained the global leader in manufacturing value-added per worker.
    "Steel is one example. In 1980, one steelworker could produce 0.083 tons of steel in one hour. By 2018, one steelworker could produce 1.67 tons in an hour. This is a good thing. Wage and income data in the U.S. show the rising tide is lifting all boats—especially the smallest.
    "Americans don’t want their children to have to work punishing jobs in a steel mill, and it’s evident they don’t have to. Manufacturing jobs, as a share of total employment, have been on a downward trend since 1943—falling from 39% to under 25% by the end of 1970 and hitting 20% in 1980. This decline started long before Ronald Reagan ran for office, before China received Most Favored Nation status for outsourcing manufacturing, before Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and before the World Trade Organization was created. The trends even started five years before the U.S. joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade."
Free Trade Didn’t Kill the Middle Class - Norbert J. Michel, WALL STREET JOURNAL

“The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.”
          ~ Ludwig von Mises

"“When it comes to steel, it’s fantastic for our industry,” said Jack Maskil [president of the United Steelworkers Local 2227 in Pittsburgh’s Mon Valley], “but what about everything else?” ...

    "On the one hand, they are thrilled that their industry will be a key beneficiary of the 25 percent tariff imposed on steel imports to the U.S. ...
    "But while the steelworkers are also hoping that tariffs will bring about a revival of manufacturing jobs, they also worry about their effect on the economy, and on their own purchasing power."

What Do American Steelworkers Think About Trump’s Tariffs? - Ethan Dodd, THE FREE PRESS

"President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs risk domino effect across the globe as Chinese goods look for new markets."

The Rest of the World Is Bracing for a Flood of Cheap Chinese Goods - WALL STREET JOURNAL

"The proponents of protectionism say, “Free trade is fine in theory but it must be reciprocal. We cannot open our markets to foreign products if foreigners close their markets to us.” China, they argue, to use their favorite whipping boy, “keeps her vast internal market for the private domain of Chinese industry but then pushes her products into the U.S. market and complains when we try to prevent this unfair tactic.”
    "The argument sounds reasonable. It is, in fact, utter nonsense. Exports are the cost of trade, imports the return from trade, not the other way around."

In 1970, Milton Friedman Advocating Moving Unilaterally Toward Free Trade Rather Than Retaliating. We Still Haven’t Learned That Simple Lesson -Mark Perry, AEI

"This idea that Donald Trump is just playing hardball to negotiate tariff rates down on US exports is absolutely ridiculous. The % of tariffs applied to US-produced goods has declined consistently since WW2 and was nearly nothing...
    "UNTIL! Donald's first term, and now his second.
    "And yet I keep seeing so many MAGA supporters saying: 'We're already seeing countries backing down from their tariffs!'
    "You're literally winning a battle and losing the war at the same time ..."

~  Landon Walsh

"Then there’s Trump’s fascination with tariffs. The damage Trump has caused Ukraine and Nato pales by comparison to what his tariffs will do to America’s economy and the entire international economic system. If Trump had acted on April 1 instead of 2, he could quickly have said it was all an April Fool’s Day joke, thereby saving the global economy trillions of dollars of damage when markets started heading south. Unfortunately however, Trump is totally serious, a fact evident long before “Liberation Day.”
    "Here too, “experts” and anxious businesspeople steadfastly ignored Trump labelling “tariff” the dictionary’s most beautiful word. Tariffs, they said, will be targeted, carefully calibrated, and he’ll do deals quickly. It’s all a bargaining tactic, Treasury Secretary Bessent said in October, 2024: “escalate to de-escalate”. Even as global stock markets drop like rocks, experts are still rationalising what his “strategy” is.
    "Wrong again. Trump is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for literature than for peace."

I worked for Donald Trump. This is the key to understanding him: It’s not about America, and there’s no connection to the real world - John Bolton, TELEGRAPH (UK)

"Reminder: This policy was spearheaded and implemented by a man who thinks nobody says the word “groceries” these days because “it’s an old-fashioned word” and he somehow brought it back into the limelight.
    "Donald Trump is a motherfucking moron. Those who knew this and voted for him anyway because he gave them explicit license to be assholes deserve every last bit of pain his policies will cause them."

          ~ Stephen T. Stone

"In times of upheaval, those closest to power often find ways to turn disruption into wealth. Trump’s erratic tariff wars, billed as economic nationalism, upended markets, collapsed sectors, and triggered retaliatory shocks. But while farmers went bankrupt and consumers paid more, the market opened space for those with foresight—or insider access—to buy low and consolidate.
    "Geographer David Harvey calls this accumulation by dispossession: crisis used not to correct the system, but to extract from it. Devalue public assets. Destabilise protections. Create just enough chaos to buy cheap what others are forced to abandon. It’s not just policy failure—it’s extraction dressed as populism.
    "The con isn’t just psychological. It’s material. It’s not just about being lied to—it’s about being looted.
    "And that’s what makes this moment different—and more dangerous. The scam isn’t happening outside the system. It’s running through it."

The Confidence Game: How Trump’s Con Threatens More Than the Truth - James Greenberg, JAMES'S SUBSTACK

"The latest rumor, when I started drafting this column, was that President Trump will suspend the tariffs for a 90-day period, with the exception of those on China. Markets started going back up again.
    "But “the very latest information” doesn’t stay current for long these days. The new report—but don’t count on it—is that the 90-day pause is not real after all. That revision came out before this draft was finished. And markets again whipsawed.
    "The Trump administration has created a new monster—one of unpredictability and erratic behavior. We simply cannot predict with any degree of accuracy what will happen next. By the time you are reading this article, there will probably be some newer report about the tariffs or threat of tariffs, and then another report after that.
    "Even if the White House winds up instituting a pause on the proposed tariffs—or ultimately adopts much better economic policies—this seesawing may plunge the American and perhaps also the global economy into recession."

A Contagion of Uncertainty - Tyler Cowen, THE FREE PRESS

[WATCH] Singapore must be clear-eyed about dangers ahead: Singapore's Prime Minister Wong on implications of US tariffs:

"Donald Trump has demonstrated his profound misunderstanding of the basic economic principles of international trade for several years now, and perhaps reached a pinnacle when he told the New York Daily News in an interview last August that “we’re getting hosed by the Chinese — and that we’ve done it with our eyes wide shut.” ...
    "[Trump adviser] Peter Navarro, in his Wall Street Journal opinion piece earlier this week (see related post here) demonstrated his fundamental misunderstanding of international trade when he opened his op-ed with the following question: “Do trade deficits matter?” Just to ask the question is to admit one’s ignorance of trade theory, which has been pretty settled on this topic since Adam Smith taught us in 1776 that “Nothing…can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade. ..."

Trade Deficits Don’t Matter; Understanding Deficits Do: Protectionists' idea of a trade balance is completely backward -Mark Perry, FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION

Tariffs are a suicide bomb":

Trump's team said they based their "reciprocal tariff" calculation for each country based on the tariffs and impediments put on American imports by those countries. But no. It's even more irrational: "[Trump's chart] features an estimate of 'Tariffs Charged to the USA' by other countries that nobody could figure out, until a financial journalist realised it was just how much we export to that country, minus how much we import, divided by how much we import."

"Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by regarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically: while, by increasing the general mass of productions, it diffuses general benefit, and binds together by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilised world."
        ~ David Ricardo (1817)

"Why is today’s Trump so different from the Trump of his first term? .. ". Turns out, the answer is very simple" Back then he had people, and a Congress who would say "No." But now the yes men are in power.

What happened to Trump? Why has be become so pro-Russian? - Roman Sheremata, UKRAINE TODAY

Trump's tariffs policy came from his economic advisor Peter Navarro, who invented a fake expert in his books to justify it. "Peter Navarro liked to quote a guy named Ron Vara in his books. Those books are largely what led to Navarro becoming a top adviser to President Trump and helping to shape U.S. policy on China. Here’s the thing about Ron Vara, though: He doesn’t exist. ...

"Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro."

Trump's China Muse Has an Imaginary Friend - Tom Bartlett, CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

 

Second-term Trump is who Trump always was. This is Trump without many adults in the room stopping him getting his way. This is Trump surronded by Yes Men in a cult. This is Trump. A freedom-hating, dictator-loving, trade-despising child who wants the power of a tryant. Someone who has no regard for facts and who will utter any lie he wishes - no matter how ridicolous it is. And his believers are expected to believe it. Under fear of discommunication from the cult.
This is what you asked for when you voted for Trump. This is what you got. I hope you are happy....

          ~ Dwayne Davies

"An often forgotten truth is that it is not just military warfare that can cause injury to innocent bystanders, the same inescapably happens in economic warfare initiated by governments, as well. But in the latter case the human “collateral damage” is a targetted victim. ...
    "Tariffs and counter-tariffs are tools of economic warfare that are said to be targeting the “aggressor” country. But the very nature of how tariffs and counter-tariffs work, results in the main targets being innocent bystanders in the countries concerned.
    "Once we disaggregate “nations” into their, respective, individual buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, we see that the most damage falls on the economic “non-combatants,” of whatever the original “dispute” may be about ..."

Trump’s Economic Warfare Targets Innocent Bystanders - Richard Ebeling, FUTURE OF FREEDOM FOUNDATION

"TikTok is a major bargaining chip in a grave geopolitical struggle. Given the data users have always sent to Beijing, it’s been a bargaining chip ever since it arrived on America’s digital shores. For Trump, though, it’s not exactly his chip to bargain with: Congress already determined the American course of action. The mystery is why nobody seems to mind Trump delaying its execution — or at least, why nobody is complaining publicly....

    "Trump’s motives here are not difficult to parse, and the bill in question is legitimately problematic. He’s popular on TikTok, and close to one of the company’s major investors. ...
    "As fallout continued from his tariff bombshell — including the legitimacy of his emergency authority to implement the new rates — barely anyone batted an eye at TikTok getting another dubious bailout."

Why Trump keeps saving TikTok - Emily Jashinsky, UNHERD

"Since my last essay on the crisis of democracy, the assaults on democratic checks and balances have escalated. Without agreement from Congress, Trump’s DOGE shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development with stunning speed. Although a federal court blocked further implementation, ruling that the action “likely violated the Constitution,” by then the agency had already been gutted and largely dismantled along with many other agenices. Then, in an alarming politicisation of the military high command, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, and the judge advocates general (the highest-ranking legal authorities) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
    "Pressing his claim to imperial power, Trump has moved to assert absolute control over all federal regulatory bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. This not only hobbles their capacity to act independently in the public interest but opens the door to massive corruption. As DOGE seizes control of more and more of the government’s most sensitive and highly centralised stores of data, the conflicts of interest proliferate for its chief 'overseer,' Elon Musk, who over the years has received 'at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits.' And Just Security has documented an 'alarming' pattern of 'politicisation and weaponisation of the Department of Justice since Trump has retaken office.
    "The United States now faces the grave and imminent danger of its democracy decaying into a 'competitive authoritarianism'.”

How to Undo Trump’s Growing Dictatorship and the Damage it Is Inflicting - Larry Diamond, THE UNPOPULIST

"We have to realise that Trump is not joking about any of this. He’s not joking about invading Greenland, and he’s not joking about running for a third term. He’s as serious about all of this as he was about the tariffs. The evidence indicates that he will do it all, whatever he can get away with. ...
"While we prepare a mass movement—and Donald Trump crashing the economy with the world’s stupidest tariffs will help us a great deal—we need to fight everything. What that will specifically mean is that we have to fight a lot of losing battles. ...
"There are five reasons to fight early and often, no matter the odds of winning any one fight.
    1. It lays down a marker. ....
    2. It mobilises others to fight. ....
    3. It delays and exhausts the strongman. ...
    4. Sometimes you win. ...
    5. You find out what works and who fights. ...."

How to Fight Back - Robert Tracinski, TRACINSKI LETTER

"Europe is at a critical turning point in its history."

“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,

"Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero ...

"This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.

"The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin—but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.

"Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media. 

"This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution. 

"I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor. 

"Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. 

"Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military-service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign. 

"Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it. 

"And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. 

"The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it. 

"What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force. 

"This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favour of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.

Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada; yours are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe; his is Taiwan and the China Sea. 

"At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called 'diplomatic realism.' 

"So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second-largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated. 

"Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war. 

"The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands ...  

"It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books. ...

 

"Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. ... But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament. 

"We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left. 

"They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly ...  They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin. ...

"Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react. 

"Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical. 

"The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks. 

"But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads. 

"The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again. 

"Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost. 

"The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. 

"Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”

-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025.

 

There is no 'leader of the free world' anymore.

"There's no leader of the free world anymore. ...

"[T]he Trump Administration's ... stupid trade war isn't about leverage to get other economies to open up; it is old fashioned autarky* ... the economics of hardened Marxists and moronic economic nationalists ...

"[I]t is however the moral depravity of the line on Ukraine which deserves the most opprobrium.

"There is no morality in surrendering to an aggressor all that it has [grabbed] so that you have 'peace' while the aggressor rebuilds...  and at the same time your erstwhile ally has blackmailed you into signing a predatory deal to hand over resources [without even] vague promises of security. ...

"[T]o be even-handed between Russia and Ukraine is a complete moral inversion. [Trump] has been excoriating about Zelenskyy, but said nothing negative at all about Putin or the behaviour of Russia. ...  He has only demanded that Ukraine stop....

"Of course everyone wants the war to end. It could end tomorrow if Putin just decided to end it and withdraw. But he's a psychopathic kleptocrat who feeds young Russian men (from poor backgrounds) and North Korean men to their deaths. ...

"If the war does ends soon on [Trump's terms, with a capitulation to Russia granting it time to rearm and come again] then it will only prolong the inevitable. Russia can spend a few years rearming, and use its renewed economic potential after sanctions are lifted by the US, to steal military capability and be ready for another attack. ... 

"[Contemplate this:] If the territorial integrity of sovereign states doesn't matter in Ukraine, then maybe it doesn't matter anywhere that the Trump Administration doesn't care about, and that includes any country—in Europe, Asia, in the Indo-Pacific ...

"[T]he cost ... of letting it be known that the US is isolationist and won't act to protect any nation states from attack ... is going to be much higher than the tens of billions taken to bolster Ukraine. 

"Even Marine Le Pen is critical of Trump on Ukraine, because by and large, European countries want to ensure defence against the predatory criminal gangster state to the east that treats its neighbours with impunity.

"Perhaps a deal will be struck,... [Perhaps] Europe will do all it can to support Ukraine. Regardless, it is now a time for small countries everywhere to acknowledge that it's all on now — that the US doesn't care if you are attacked, that you have to fend for yourselves with any other allies.

"There is no 'leader of the free world' anymore."

~ Liberty Scott from his post 'There's no leader of the free world anymore'

"They talk endlessly about the cost of beating Russia. But they never talk about the more frightening and much more expensive alternative. The cost of not."

"Together, they were not simply telling Ukraine that America was overextended, or that the paradigm had shifted. They were broadcasting to the whole world that the United States could not offer so much as moral support to a country invaded by another country—a country run by a despot who wants to reassemble the empire the United States once crushed.
    "This was a betrayal not only of Ukraine, but America. ...
    "What is the point of an America that does not defend, if only from the bully pulpit, the right of ... smaller, weaker countries to defend themselves against their bigger, rapacious neighbours? How have we become so alienated from ourselves that we not only find it difficult to empathise with the Ukrainians but feel compelled to demonise them? We used to celebrate the likes of Zelenskyy, who proudly refused an American offer to airlift him out of his country two days after Russia invaded it. 'The fight is here,' he said. 'I need ammunition, not a ride.'
    "Neither Trump nor his subordinates ever says what will happen after Russia is rewarded for its aggression. They simply say that that is our only option. They don’t imagine or talk about the new world order according to the authoritarians ... Nor do they ever bring up the countless democratic movements that America helped usher into being.
    "They talk endlessly about the cost of beating Russia. But they never talk about the more frightening and much more expensive alternative. The cost of not."

~ Peter Savodnik from his post 'My Ancestors Fled Ukraine. It Was America That Allowed Me to Return.'

"We are witnessing a very sad moment in American history." [updated with a FACTCHECK]

 

I confess that I never thought I'd be posting a video here by Bernie Sanders.

But it is the right time.

He captures the gravity, and the tragedy, of an American president dictating verbatim Russian propaganda lines to a willing American audience, an abject capitulation to dictatorial force, dismissing with a wave a Western Alliance that has lasted eighty years—and outraging folk as diverse as Bernie in Vermont, Emanuel Macron in Paris, and even the illiberal Peter Dutton in Canberra. 

It is indeed a very sad moment in American history.

There is literally nothing in Trump's recapitulation of Russian propaganda in any way based on reality.

"Trump Blames the Victim," says National Review, accurately. National Review! 'The American Betrayal of Ukraine' is its headline.

[S]o far in his second term, regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump has offered to Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will not retake all its annexed and occupied sovereign territory, that Ukraine will not join NATO, that there will be no U.S. troops on Ukrainian soil after the war, and that the U.S. will lift sanctionson Russia. And Trump might even throw in a withdrawal of the extra 20,000 U.S. troops that Joe Biden sent to NATO’s eastern flank after the invasion of Ukraine.
And in exchange, Putin offered . . . well, nothing, really. ... 

So much for the "art of the deal," huh.

"Peace" talks? These are talks to see how quickly Putin can be given all he asks for on a plate. 

    Russia has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, and more than 6 million Ukrainian citizens live under the brutal hand of occupying Russian forces, and our government is talking about [terms of surrender and] 'historic economic and investment opportunities' with them?
    What exactly does Russia have to offer us that we want so badly?

Who the hell knows. But this is Trump sending his Secretary of State to "impose terms of surrender on a sovereign nation that committed the crime—in his eyes now—of refusing to allow Russia to take it over." This, above and below, by the way, is written by a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.

Trump literally blamed [Zelenskyy] and the country he leads for the war itself:“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it—three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”
    You should never have started it. What madness, what cravenness, what repulsive factitiousness, is this?

"Started it"? Zelenskyy wasn't even within a sniff of his presidency when Putin invaded for the first time, in 2014. And the second invasion, in 2022, all he had time to start was firm resistance to Putin's bid for lebensraum.

As Volodomyr Zelenskyy responded, as diplomatically as he knew how, "Trump is living in a disinformation bubble."

[Trump's] claim is effectively that Zelenskyy is illegitimate; according to Trump, Zelenskyy has a 4 percent approval rating. That’s a near-psychotic lie. The last poll, for whatever a poll in the middle of a war is worth, had the Ukrainian leader at 52 percent.

That's a better rating than Trump's, for what it's worth.

Trump insists Zelenskyy holds elections, even as it struggles under the martial law imposed since Putin's second invasion. However, 

the Ukrainian constitution literally creates an election exception under conditions of martial law; not only are elections not to be held under its terms, but once martial law is lifted, there is to be no election for six months. As the scholar Elena Davlikanova explains, “Several laws would need to be changed in order for presidential elections to be held, which raises its own problems. Even if a legal solution could be found, security, financial, and organisational obstacles to holding free, fair, and representative elections are far more serious.”

It is not for Trump to decide whether Ukraine continues to defend its territory and its sovereignty. He is, of course, within his mandate as president to cut off aid, and thereby make the war sputter out—in order to make the Ukrainians suffer for their disobedience in refusing to walk quietly to the gallows while thanking him as they are hanged in the worldwide public square.

Down here, Oliver Hartwich weighs in on this historic shift in world affairs. 'The Day the West Died' is how he titles his piece.

Predictable though these developments were, they are still shocking. Not since the end of World War II has there been such a dramatic shift in the global security architecture. And rarely has a great power abandoned its allies with such devastating consequences.
    If you are not sure just how dramatic the events of the last week are, think about them this way. When World War II was coming to an end, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at Yalta to plan post-war Europe. But they did not invite Hitler to these discussions.
    Now, as the Ukraine War appears to be ending, it is the aggressor (Putin) and a sympathetic US President planning Ukraine’s future.
    Meanwhile, Ukraine and America’s European allies are effectively excluded from the talks.
    As Estonia’s former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, now EU foreign policy chief, put it, “Why are we giving Russia everything they want even before negotiations have started?” ...

    As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt observed on X, “It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started. Not even Chamberlain went that low in 1938.”

If Europeans had fronted up when they needed to—as a friend pointed out, if NATO were even barely competent, "this shouldn't matter. It'd be the same as Luxembourg negotiating with Russia on Ukraine's behalf." But they've made it matter by sitting on their hands when it mattered, and now it matters that an American president is hearing siren songs from a saurian despot.

Historian Niall Ferguson summarises, in firing back at a raving J.D. Vance:

I simply cannot understand the logic of beginning a negotiation this difficult by conceding so many crucial points to Russia. 

    As I understand it, before negotiations have even begun, NATO membership for Ukraine has been taken off the table and the loss of 20% of its territory has in effect been conceded. Correct me if I am wrong. 

    I have read also (though it may not be true) that “American officials are suggesting a different sort of peacekeeping force, including non-European countries such as Brazil or China, that would sit along an eventual ceasefire line as a sort of buffer.” China? Seriously? 

    On Wednesday, President Trump accused Ukraine of having “started it,” meaning the war. He also cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Zelensky’s government. 

    It is not “moralistic garbage” but a hard and realistic lesson of history that wars are easy to start and hard to end. As for “historical illiteracy,” here are some facts. 

    It took 1 year, 10 months, 25 days for Woodrow Wilson to negotiate an end to World War I (it helped that the Allies won); 2 years, 18 days to negotiate an end to the Korean War; 3 years, 5 months, 24 days to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War; and 5 years, 5 months, 1 day to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt. 

    I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. 

    But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome.

A line has been drawn here. A line Bernie is not alone in recognising. Writing on The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt observed that

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” 

The distinction right now is between those who are still reality-based, and those willing to entertain the ravings of a fantasist. A fantasist in thrall to dictators, oligarchs, and his own headlines.

 

But one who holds, for another four years, the once-respected office of the US presidency.

FACTCHECK:

Claim: Ukraine started the war

Fact: Russia started the war, openly initiating in 2022 what they termed a special military operation after denying for weeks that they were preparing to invade. Russia also invaded Crimea by force in 2014 and organized the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk starting that year to destabilize Ukraine, using Russian forces masquerading as local separatists.

Claim: Zelenskyy is unpopular with approval rating polls at 4%.

Fact: Zelenskyy approval rating polls are ~50%.

Claim: Zelenskyy is a dictator.

Fact: Putin is a dictator. Zelenskyy was elected in a free election and would win a second term depending on whether or not General Zaluzhnyi (popular former C-in-C, currently Ambassador to UK) runs. Pro-Russia politicians are extremely unpopular. Elections with much of four regions under Russian occupation would be difficult, and Ukraine's Constitution forbids elections during martial law, a status that Parliament must approve every 90 days (and has). Russia's last even partly free election was in 2000.

Claim: Russia is winning the war.

Fact: Russia has lost half of its military capability in the war, and proven that a supposed first rate military power cannot defeat a third rate power. Russia's economy is crippled by sanctions, brain drain, and 21% interest rates. They have suffered an estimated 500,000 battle casualties, naval decimation, and a recent embarrassing loss of its satellite state in Syria. The cards dealt to Trump in negotiating are actually quite strong.

Claim: U.S. has spent $350 billion on the war, half of which is missing.

Fact: U.S. government figures have Congress approving $183 billion for Ukraine and NATO partners assisting Ukraine, of which $86.7 billion has been spent. $58 billion of that was spent in the U.S. fulfilling arms orders, and $32 billion on direct budget support for Ukraine's government. A private estimate by the Kiel Institute adds indirect spending to total $124 billion to date. The $350 billion number is a 2022 World Bank estimate of the cost of rebuilding Ukrainian infrastructure after the war. Zelenskyy's comment about missing money was about the U.S. not spending the full amount Congress has approved.

Claim: The U.S. has spent $200 billion more than Europe on aiding Ukraine.

Fact: Europe has spent more total aid, $140 billion to date. The U.S. has spent slightly more on military equipment ($67 billion vs $65 billion) but Europe has spent more on financial and humanitarian aid.

Claim: Ukrainian provinces have voted to join Russia.

Fact: The sham referendums - claiming 87% to 99% support for Russia - were hastily arranged with no secret ballots, involved armed men going door to door to collect ballots, multiple ballots cast by supporters, and documented reprisals against those who refused to cooperate. Many residents had also fled the Russian occupation of their regions. Prewar polling of Russian annexation of their region ranged from 1% (Kherson) to 13% (Luhansk).

Claim: The U.S. launched a coup in 2014 against Ukraine's government.

Fact: Russia attempted a coup against Ukraine's government in 2013-14, sending support to a pro-Russian President's attempt to end an agreement with the EU that Parliament had ratified, jail his opponents (deploying "Berkut" riot police against them), and curtail press freedom. Ukraine's Parliament voted 328 to 0 to remove the President, who fled to Russia. Polling showed overwhelming Ukrainian support for his removal and the country had a free election later in 2014 to select his replacement.

Claim: Ukraine could have made a deal.

Fact: Ukraine negotiated up until the full-scale invasion in 2022, and even after it began. Russia's pre-conditions were (and remain) annexation of Crimea and four Ukrainian regions including portions Russia does not currently occupy, NATO rejection of Ukrainian membership and withdrawal of NATO forces from eastern Europe, and the replacement of Ukraine's democracy with a pro-Russia government. Ukraine ended negotiations after the Bucha massacre.

Claim: Zelenskyy was asleep and refused to meet with Treasury Secretary Bessent last week and refused to agree to Ukrainian mineral wealth being sold to the U.S.

Fact: Zelenskyy and Bessent met (see photo). The mineral wealth deal - Zelenskyy's idea of encouraging post-war investment while showing tangible value for American aid - is continuing to be negotiated. The first draft did not contain security guarantees which Ukraine views as vital and was written as a joint venture between governments rather than a private investment arrangement.

 

TEN YEARS AGO: Putin's Libertarians

 

Since this blog has been going so long (nearly twenty years!), and so much is still so relevant, I'm going to start a regular series of posts and writing from ten and/or twenty years ago. 

From twenty years ago comes my interview with painter Michael Newberry, in which we get down and dirty on art, creativity and passion — and on his call for a Moral Revolution of Human Values in the Arts.

And from ten years ago this month comes this still timely post by Russian libertarian Mikhail Svetov  on the strange attraction felt by some so-called libertarians to the would-be destroyer of Ukraine. (Some of the pics have sadly been lost.)

(And if you want to search the archives here yourself, click down there on the right-hand side on the "Everything We've Ever Written" drop-down menu.)

Putin's Libertarians

Guest post by Mikhail Svetov

I DECIDED TO WRITE THIS after I noticed that western libertarians have unaccountably developed a soft spot for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The consensus among them seems to be that Putin is in the right in Ukraine. Even Ron Paul, whom I normally admire, has fallen for his charms. But as a Russian libertarian myself, it leaves me disappointed and terribly sad.

The biggest complaint from libertarians about the Ukraine seems to be that the government in Kyiv is somehow “fascist,” which in their eyes warrants Russian military intervention. I would like to start by outlining some facts about Russia and Ukraine, and hopefully dispel some myths about the war in the Donbass region of Ukraine (also known as the Donetsk Basin).

The simplest way is to focus on some of the most notable characteristics of fascism. The defining characteristic of Fascism is that the good of the State comes before the good of the individual, identified by Laurence Britt as being commonly manifested in the following ways …