Trump’s dirty deal with Putin will damage him

For a long time there was an awful logic to Donald Trump’s breaking of norms. When he made up untruths about where Barack Obama was born, or led chants of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton, the outrage of decent Americans only amplified his messages to his own supporters, according to The Independent.

Even the dreadful events of 6 January 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, served only to energise his base and to give him a platform from which to regain power four years later.

Every time he crossed a line, there were enough voters in America who thought it proved he was strong, effective and on their side. Now, as we approach the midpoint of his second term, it is obvious that his powers are failing him. We do not need to stoop to his level and suggest that he is becoming senile at the age of 80, as he suggested Joe Biden was, when Biden, now 83, was younger than Trump is now.

We need observe only that Trump’s judgement seems to be deserting him. His crudely effective pitch to isolationists to get America out of “forever wars” has been confounded by his getting America into a forever war against Iran.

The bluster and contradiction might have been overlooked by his supporters if the assault on the Iranian regime had been short, sharp and effective. But even the most blinkered Maga fan can see that their president has been fighting a war in the Middle East for eight months now and succeeded only in gumming up the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, thus pushing up the price of gasoline and diesel at American pumps.

This is the same mistake Trump made in his first term, only worse. The reason he lost to Biden in 2020 was that he had allowed inflation to rise and Americans felt worse off. Now diesel has nearly doubled in price since last year and in his desperation to get the price down, Trump has blundered into another error, compounding the first.

His deal to buy diesel from Vladimir Putin’s gangster regime is as shocking in its cynicism as it is counterproductive. Trump and the average US floating voter may not care that they are pumping money into the Russian war machine, prolonging the war and killing Ukrainians. But they ought to care that the deal will not bring down the price of diesel — and that it makes Trump look weak. Michael Lynch, a fellow at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, points out that if America obtains diesel from Russia, “it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they’ll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now”.

No wonder Trump is trying to distract attention by his increasingly unhinged rants at “Norway” for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize (the prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament).

There is, in truth, little that the British government, or the governments of our allies in Europe and around the world, can do about Trump’s misjudgment of Putin — except to remain steadfast in our support for the Ukrainian people.

Andy Burnham said in a statement: “We will continue working closely with international partners to ensure Ukraine has the military and financial support it needs to defend itself.” We commend him on it.

He also said: “Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated it is serious about peace, but Russia has repeatedly rejected full and partial ceasefires while continuing attacks on Ukrainian civilians and energy. Russia could end this war today.” He is right, and Trump is wrong.

We understand the instinct of the prime minister to avoid public criticism of the thin-skinned president — but we can only hope Trump comes to his senses instead of mistakenly believing a flawed deal for Russian diesel will win over undecided voters in next month’s midterm elections.