• ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Baiscally, POTUS invited Zelenskyy to the White House for a meeting to discuss potential terms for a peace deal with Russia. In a press conference, Trump and Vance basically blamed Zelenskyy for the war, told him that by not capitulating to US and Russian demands, he was gambling with WWIII, said that Ukraine doesn’t have any “cards” - that they can’t have a say in peace deals involving them, and literally started yelling at him and lost any sense of decorum. All of this was after Zelenskyy proposed a version of Trump’s “give us all your rare earth minerals” plan that involved US Ukranian mining partnership - so already a partial capitulation.

    It was a… bad… PR and diplomatic decision. It weakens US leadership globally, further erodes soft power, is going to make China evaluate if Taiwan has “cards” in the way that Ukraine does not, etc. It was disastrous for US foreign policy and further marks a decline in its importance glabally.

    • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      So they tried to bully him into selling out his country for a temporary peace? Didn’t they know that Zelenskyy has balls?

      • Kichae@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        No, they mostly succeasfully bullied him into giving away their mineral rights, and then when he showed up and said “this will guarantee peace, right?” they started screaming at him like enraged babboons on live television.

        The whole thing was a setup, designed to catch Zelensky on TV being ungrateful and uncooperative, but he played them like fiddles and absolutely destroyed any standing the administration may have had left with Europe.

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        If you find the full unedited versions you can watch two terrible US elected officials try to treat Zelenskyy like an adversary, talking down to him, talking over him, and spreading Putin’s talking points. Zelenskyy handled it well, probably biting his tongue, and showed what an actual leader looks like.

        As he said a cease fire with Russia means nothing, because Putin didn’t honour it previously.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        They assume that they are good at being bullies.

        Just because they try to be bullies and act like tough guys doesn’t mean that people are going to just sit there and take it, though. Especially when they’re dealing with someone who actually is both tough and smart.

      • nomy@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        They’re not familiar with testicular fortitude so no, they had no idea.

        They probably still think they “showed him” or something.