Oval Office Showdown

After five weeks in which President Trump made clear his determination to scrap America’s traditional sources of power — its alliances among like-minded democracies — and return the country to an era of great-power negotiations, he left one question hanging: How far would he go in sacrificing Ukraine to his vision?The remarkable Oval Office shouting match yesterday provided the answer.As Trump admonished President Volodymyr Zelensky and warned him that “you don’t have the cards” to deal with Vladimir Putin, and as Vice President JD Vance called the Ukrainian leader “disrespectful” and ungrateful, it was clear that the three-year wartime partnership between Washington and Kyiv was shattered.Maybe it can be repaired, but it’s hard to imagine how.Still, the venomous exchanges made evident that Trump regards Ukraine as an obstacle to a far more vital project.What Trump really wants, one European official told me as the administration had its first, ugly encounters with America’s allies this month, is to normalize the relationship with Russia.

If that means rewriting the history of Moscow’s illegal invasion, if it means dropping investigations of Russian war crimes or refusing to offer security guarantees that would keep Putin from finishing the job in Ukraine later, then Trump, in this assessment of his intentions, is willing to make that deal.Trump and UkraineTrump believes that the post-World War II system, created by Washington, ate away at American power.That system prized relationships with allies committed to democratic capitalism, even when those alliances came with a cost to American consumers.

It sought to avoid power grabs by making the observance of international law, and a respect for established international boundaries, a goal unto itself.To Trump, that system gave smaller and less powerful countries leverage over the United States, leaving Americans to pick up the tab for defending allies and promoting their prosperity.We are havin...