I *wish* Trump were Neville Chamberlain

Chamberlain at least had good intentions in trying to appease Hitler. Trump is hardly capable of good intentions at all.

On Wednesday, President Trump had a phone call with Vladimir Putin, proving that even becoming President of the United States doesn’t mean you’re no longer required to check in with your supervisor:

President Donald Trump revealed he has begun negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

In a 90-minute phone call on Wednesday the two leaders also laid the groundwork for historic summits between them in the U.S. and Moscow.

Trump made the bombshell announcement in a lengthy post to his Truth Social account, declaring that 'the war must end.'

He also said the two leaders agreed to visit each other's countries soon. Trump would be the first U.S. President to visit Russia since Barack Obama in 2013.

Announcing the negotiations, Trump wrote: 'We want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, 'COMMON SENSE'.

'We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other's Nations.'

Okay, maybe that’s not fair. If Donald Trump were an actual, on-the-books Russian asset, the Kremlin would have ordered him to be way more subtle about it.

The call between Trump and Putin took place as the administration announced that America will no longer front the lion's share of aid to Ukraine. The decision is a devastating blow to Kyiv and will pile pressure on Europe to fill the void.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Washington will 'no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship' with its allies, adding that 'Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine'.

He stressed that the United States was no longer 'primarily focused' on Europe, and said that the old continent would have to fund most of Ukraine's defense itself - as experts warned the demands on Europe were 'unachievable at this time'.

In a boon for Putin, Hegseth added that the United States would not deploy troops to Ukraine to uphold any peace deal with Russia - one of the key security guarantees requested by Zelensky.

Hegseth also said that it was implausible for Ukraine to expect to return to a pre-war state, assessing that any peace process 'must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective'.

'The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defence partnership with Europe, full stop,' he said. 'But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency.'

Washington's allies have been waiting nervously for clarity from Trump's administration after the he demanded that NATO more than double its defence spending target and vowed to end the war in Ukraine.

Hegseth's comments will compound Ukrainian fears and hand leverage to Russia, after Trump suggested the country 'may be Russian someday' in unsettling comments during an interview with Fox News, aired Monday.

I’ll steelman the Trump/Hegseth position by conceding this much: most European NATO members have indeed shirked from building and maintaining their own armed forces at a high level, relying instead on American military might. (Come to think of it, they’re not much different from half of North American NATO members in that regard.)

And the best possible outcome for Ukraine after February, 2022, was likely a “Winter War” scenario: a moral victory in which the much smaller, less powerful country invaded by Russia fights more tenaciously than anyone expected, inspires the world, and preserves its independence.

And loses a lot of its territory to the aggressor.