Forget geopolitics or alliances. In the looming negotiations between the US and Russia on Alaskan soil, Donald Trump appears to be backing only one side – his own.
There are a 48 hours left to Friday’s summit, which will be attended by the US president and Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has not made the guest list.
Trump has already said this would be a ‘feel-out meeting’ aimed at urging the Russian leader to end the war, but that ‘some swapping and changes in land’ between Russia and Ukraine would happen.
Jason Pack, host of The Disorder Podcast, told Metro that the Republican is not working to protect Russian or Ukrainian interests, or even American, and that his endgame is a personal victory.
He said: ‘Trump is not protecting US interests. He doesn’t have a coherent view of what US interests are.
‘He has engaged in this diplomacy not because he believes it is in the US interest, but to get the Nobel Peace Prize or to aggrandize himself… or to distract from [his connection to] the Jeffrey Epstein case.
‘This is the way in which he disorderly makes foreign policy.’
Calls for transparency have been mounting after it was reported that the president is mentioned in the sealed Epstein case documents.
(Picture: State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
Pack previously told Metro that Trump has been ‘freaking out’ over the sex trafficking investigation and all the ripple effects it could have on him.
Separately, the politician has been formally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Cambodian prime minister Hun Manet for his role in halting the the country’s recent border conflict with Thailand.
Nobel Prizes are set to be unveiled in October, but Trump has had his eyes on one since at least the beginning of his second term in the White House.
Pack stressed that the Alaskan summit is about ‘the showmanship and his own psychological needs’ rather than a coherent through-line of strategic interests.
He added: ‘When Trump came into office and promised to make peace in 24 hours, he proposed a series of very pro-Russian deals and even the Russians did not accept them; they wanted more.
‘He then got upset with the fact that Putin was continuing to bomb Ukraine.
‘And even though he had humiliated Zelensky in the Oval Office meeting, he did a few more pro-Ukrainian moves, like letting arms being sold to Europe to pass onto Ukraine, restarting the intelligence sharing.
‘It is because he has definitely got frustrated with Putin – not because his actions are against US strategic interests – they always have been – but because Putin is denying him the psychological and media win that he wants.’
Whatever comes out of the negotiations, Pack said he does not believe it will be ‘viable’.
Unconfirmed media reports say Putin has told Trump he wants Ukraine to hand over the part of the Donetsk region that Russia does not control.
But Zelensky has publicly pushed back against the idea of ceding territory to Russia, saying any peace deal must be a just one.
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