Translator’s note: Since this article was originally published, Trump has halted military aid to Ukraine.
At a much-anticipated meeting in the Oval Office, Donald Trump dragged Volodymyr Zelenskyy through the mud in front of the whole world. He shoved his face in it, demanding that Zelenskyy thank him, then threw him out, soiled and humiliated. Humiliation and arrogance are indeed in the DNA of imperialism, which does not spare even its closest “servants,” especially when they seem too “comfortable.”
The February 28 meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy was supposed to mark an important moment of détente after several days of tense exchanges: the Ukrainian president was to sign an agreement for the imperialist plunder of Ukrainian natural resources and the de facto colonization of the country in exchange for the “aid” the United States has provided during the war. But something went wrong.
An Unprecedented Scene
In the Oval Office, before their official meeting, the two presidents, and vice president J. D. Vance, explained their disagreements, notably over security guarantees as a prerequisite to signing a ceasefire with Putin. The tone quickly rose. Zelenskyy wanted to emphasize his mistrust toward the Russian president; Trump and Vance, trying to force Zelenskyy’s hand, pointed out the current weaknesses of the Ukrainian army.
Trump, interrupting Zelenskyy, went so far as to accuse him of playing with the lives of millions of people and with the prospect of a third world war. The scene was quite humiliating. Trump and Vance demanded that Zelenskyy thank the United States immediately, because without their help Russia would have conquered Ukraine in two weeks. After this exchange the meeting was over.
Did Trump get what he was looking for, namely, to appear as being in the camp of “peace,” and Zelenskyy and the European leaders as fanatical supporters of war? This is presumably the narrative that the Trump administration and its allies want to convey. The fact is, however, that no agreement was signed on Ukrainian mineral resources. “He can come back when he is ready for peace,” Trump later said. The U.S. president, who was accused of negotiating directly with Putin, excluding Ukraine and the EU, is now threatening to “walk away” from the negotiations. “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for peace if America is involved,” he said on social media, “because he believes that our involvement gives him a great advantage in the negotiations. I don’t want an advantage, I want PEACE.”
A Struggle between Imperialisms
All this opens up many uncertainties, accentuating the divergences and tensions within the Western alliance. One can even wonder whether this alliance still exists. On the speculative level, it will be necessary to see what the attitude of the United States will be regarding financial and military assistance to Ukraine in the coming days, weeks and months. No less important, it will be necessary to see what the effect will be on the morale of the Ukrainian army and population.
This crisis could seem beneficial for Russia. On the one hand, it also opens up a significant contradiction, because, as it stands, the Russian army would be forced to continue the war, even if potentially in a more favorable position. On the other, too great an advance by Russia on the ground could more strongly unify the European powers in the effort to support Ukraine. It is uncertain that in this context the Russian army will succeed in delivering a sufficiently decisive blow to Kyiv to force Zelenskyy to capitulate. In other words, Putin could be forced to find, in one way or another, an agreement with Ukraine and the Europeans in a potentially less favorable situation. The United States, meanwhile, could still manage to impose an agreement of plunder on Ukraine: they cannot let the Europeans profit from Ukrainian wealth.
For the Western powers, the situation is very complex. They present themselves as the guarantors of Ukraine’s self-determination and dignity, expressing their support for Zelenskyy. But can they support the Ukrainian army militarily without the United States? In addition, the White House incident was not appreciated in the same way everywhere in the EU. Hungarian president Viktor Orbán praised Trump’s attitude, presenting him as a defender of “peace.” The reality is that the European imperialist powers are very worried because they are squandering a lot of money in this war. The agreement on Ukrainian mineral resources effectively excluded them from the “sharing of the spoils.” Because if one thing should be clear to workers all over the planet, it is that the Western imperialists are dividing themselves over the sharing of Ukraine’s wealth!
Indeed, contrary to the image they present of themselves, the European imperialists would also like to take advantage of Ukraine, especially in an international environment that is increasingly competitive and hostile to the EU’s interests. An example of this was the French minister of defense, who acknowledged that the French government had been negotiating for several months with Ukraine over the exploitation of the country’s rare earth minerals in favor of French multinationals. In other words, the European imperialist powers may denounce Trump’s attitude, but they have exactly the same ambitions of plunder on the backs of the Ukrainian people in this war.
Lessons
This should be a reminder to the workers and popular classes of Europe and the planet that there can never be true national self-determination at the hands of imperialism. Neither U.S. imperialism nor the European imperialists! Western “aid” and weapons have always been conditioned on the subordination of Ukraine to their interests. Trump is trying to recover the “loot” by getting ahead of the EU imperialists. But we would be wrong to conclude that this is only the fruit of Trump’s policy. Let us recall that Joe Biden had indeed “conspired” behind the back of French imperialism in the Australian submarine affair. That is to say, the imperialist powers are always competing with each other, even if occasionally and on certain issues they can agree to better defend their interests. Whether it is their agreements or their competition, the imperialists always make the workers and populations of the states of the capitalist periphery, but also of their own countries, pay the price.
Trump is making Ukraine pay for its dependence on Western powers. This situation, however, would never have been possible without Zelenskyy’s own pro-imperialist and subordination policy. In this sense, it is interesting to read Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s praise of Zelenskyy’s “courage.” He wrote on X, “Zelenskyy was courageous. Without his aplomb, our continent would display the status of a simple colony of the United States whose leaders will pat themselves on the back with their buddy Trump.” But contrary to what the left-wing French politician claims, Zelenskyy does not represent any “anti-colonial” policy toward the United States, nor toward the European imperialist powers (of which France is a part). Zelenskyy’s policy, on the contrary, is to make Ukraine a territory totally integrated into the framework of domination of the Western powers. His policy is the colonial submission of Ukraine to the imperialists, as a way of “escaping” Russian domination. In other words, changing one “master” for another. That is why, immediately after the White House scandal, Zelenskyy backed down from Trump, even going so far as to apologize, in an interview with Fox News.
Zelenskyy’s policy has therefore led Ukraine to a dead end of semi-colonization of the country, and he cannot afford to break this framework, he has no other alternative and he has done everything to make it so. But European powers like France are not in the group of countries “subordinate to imperialism” but part of another group of imperialist nations ready to use Ukraine in a “proxy war” against Russia and to plunder it of its wealth, without any scruples.
Another important lesson of this situation is that in the face of Putin’s aggression, only a determined, massive, and powerful social force, organized around the Ukrainian working class, can fight for Ukraine’s real self-determination. Such a working-class force should fight independently of local oligarchs, all bourgeois factions, and all imperialist powers. This is how the Ukrainian working class could break the tacit support of Russian workers for Putin, which is fueled by the anti-Russian united front in the West, and build an internationalist class alliance between the Ukrainian and Russian proletariat. This is the only realistic alternative to avoid the colonial and imperialist trap in which Zelenskyy’s Ukraine finds itself today. This is a lesson not only for the Ukrainian people but for all peoples who fight for their rights and against oppression. The European imperialists who today present themselves as the defenders of Ukraine are the same ones who are complicit in the genocide in Gaza. No people can or should trust them or their “national” agents.
Originally published in French on March 1 in Revolution Permanente
Translated by Samuel Karlin