Trump’s Now-Apparent Plan for Ukraine — and for the World

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by Eric Zuesse, The Duran:

Whereas I have previously stated that I expect Russia to ultimately take all of Ukraine — that there will be an unconditional surrender of Ukraine’s government to Russia — the great geostrategic analyst Alexander Mercouris, in his January 26th video, comes right to the point here (which is at 54:41 into the video), about the process by which it will happen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dXh4Y_OLyc&t=3281s

saying that Putin is planning to meet privately with Trump, and that Trump and Putin will agree upon “Istanbul+,” and that when Zelensky rejects it, Trump will blame Zelensky and let Russia do whatever it wants — to conquer all of Ukraine if Putin decides to do that.

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“Istanbul” refers to the deal that both Ukraine and Russia had initialed in Istanbul during April 2022 (in which Ukraine would commit to neutrality and never join NATO, and in which Russia would keep only the parts of Ukraine that it then controlled — but this was not defined in the text). Joe Biden’s agent the British P.M. Boris Johnson rushed to Istanbul on April 9th to tell Zelensky that if he would sign it “The West” would no longer arm Ukraine nor provide Ukraine any security “guarantees” (though Johnson couldn’t offer those “guarantees” anyway); at which point, there was an urgent flurry of diplomatic activity by many countries to try to save the deal, but Zelensky finally accepted Johnson’s advice late in April, because by that time Russia already increased the areas it controlled (and so it would now be what Mercouris is calling “Istanbul+”), and Zelensky decided that with NATO’s continued support he could simply defeat Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine and win the war outright, not sign the compromise deal.

Here is the reason why I still think that this (Russia’s taking all of Ukraine) will be the outcome: Nothing has changed about my argument on 22 February 2023 that the answer can only be “Yes” to the question “Will Russia take all of Ukraine?” Nothing.

This outcome isn’t, at all, what Putin had hoped for or expected to result from his invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022; he had not expected that Russia would need to “go all the way” and take control of all of Ukraine in order to prevent the U.S. Government from ever placing a nuclear missile near Russia’s border such as in Sumy Ukraine a mere 5 minutes of missile-flying-time away from blitz beheading Russia’s central command in The Kremlin.

The U.S. and UK Governments have been leading Europe into an economic abyss by this rabid anti-Russia policy of imposing anti-Russia sanctions against importing or exporting to Russia, because Russia had been by far the cheapest source of energy to European countries, pipelined in — which is vastly cheaper than by means of containerizing it and shipping, trucking, and training, it in, from the U.S. across The Atlantic, such as is now the case because of all of those anti-Russia sanctions (and the blowing-up of the Nord Stream pipelines), which the U.S. Government is now enforcing more than ever before. It’s strangling Europe’s economies.

On January 25th, the progressive economist Michael Hudson wrote:

Trump told the Davos Economic Forum January 23: “My message to every business in the world is very simple: Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on earth.” Otherwise, if they continue to try and produce at home or in other countries, their products will be charged tariff rates at Trump’s threatened 20%.

To Germany this means (my paraphrase): “Sorry your energy prices have quadrupled. Come to America and get them at almost as low a price as you were paying Russia before your elected leaders let us cut Nord Stream off.”

The great question is how many other countries will be as quiescent as Germany as Trump changes the rules of the game: America’s Rules-Based Order. At what point will a critical mass be achieved that changes the world order as a whole?

Can there be a Hollywood ending to the coming chaos? The answer is no, and that the key is to be found in the balance-of-payments effect of Trump’s threatened tariffs and trade sanctions. Neither Trump nor his economic advisors understand what damage their policy is threatening to cause by radically unbalancing the balance of payments and exchange rates throughout the world, making a financial rupture inevitable.

The balance-of-payments and exchange-rate constraint on Trump’s tariff aggression

The first two countries that Trump threatened were America’s NAFTA partners: Mexico and Canada. Trump has threatened to raise U.S. tariffs on imports from both countries by 20% if they do not obey his policy demands.

He has threatened Mexico in two ways. First of all is his immigration program of exporting illegal immigrants and permitting short-term work permits for seasonal Mexican labor to work in agriculture and household services.

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