“Thank you, Mr. President. … Thank you. … Thank you, dear Donald!”
The gushing gratitude that the leaders of Ukraine, NATO allies and the European Commission showed the White House this week was not a simple nervous ICT. It was a fundamental characteristic of their mission high issues to safeguard kyiv from a potential peace agreement supported by the United States according to the conditions of Russia.
And it was the most recent and dramatic sign of a sea change in the way many leaders around the world are now approaching relations with the United States.
Why we wrote this
In their relations with the American president, foreign leaders find that it responds better to a personal approach than geopolitical arguments or details of diplomacy.
With each week that has passed since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, their objective is more from traditional diplomacy to psychology – with the essential goal of staying on the right side of man in the oval office.
Partly, it is because of the disproportionate personality of Mr. Trump, as well as his thirst not disguised for praise and for distinctions such as the Nobel Peace Prize.
But the main concern was the effects of the real world – the result of its unprecedented, almost undisputed control, of the levers of power and its penchant for politics distance and turn around.
This was true for his declarations on the Middle East, on the prices and above all – because the main actors were all deeply aware this week – on the Russia War against neighboring Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is committed to his supported by Trump. He continued this campaign at the summit last week in Alaska – a meeting to which he not only kept his main requests in Ukraine, but apparently convinced Mr. Trump to accompany them.
Earlier, in Moscow, he had presented an American envoy – and a friend of Trump – Steve Witkoff with a portrait of the American president by one of the main painters of Russia. Putin also said that when candidate Trump escaped an assassin ball, he had gone to the church to pray for his guard.
In Alaska, Mr. Putin supported the frequent affirmation of Mr. Trump according to which if he, rather than Joe Biden, had been president at the time, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine. To make a good measure, he also echoes the insistence of Mr. Trump that his electoral loss of 2020 was “faked”.
Ukraine and its European allies initially reacted to the top of Alaska with alarm.
They thought that, during a pre-summit call, they had obtained the agreement of Mr. Trump to put pressure for a ceasefire, leave territorial arrangements to direct the negotiations of Russia-Ukraine and guarantee credible security guarantees for kyiv as part of a possible agreement.
When this did not prove to be the case, it only took hours to the main political leaders and the security of Western Europe to decide to join the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his own White House summit on Monday.
However, while their travel plans had to be arranged in a hurry, their very personal and psychologically informed approach For this week’s talks, months had been for months.
He started taking shape last February, when Mr. Zelenskyy underwent a humiliating public disguise at the White House of Vice-President JD Vance. Mr. Vance reprimanded the Ukrainian chief for not saying “thank you” to President Trump for American military and financial support.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP
Mr. Zelenskyy was then uplé without ceremony of the White House and the officials announced a suspension of American aid.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer – who once soon started started her Discussions of the White House by giving Mr. Trump a coveted royal invitation for a state visit – led to the efforts to control the damage of Europe, joining other leaders to reiterate their support for kyiv.
But Mr. Starmer did more than that.
He estimated that he and others failed by not trained the Ukrainian chief on the key importance of committing personally with Mr. Trump during the talks. He sent aid to Kyiv to help repair Mr. Zelenskyy’s bonds with the American president and to avoid a repetition of the diplomatic debacle.
This week’s meeting had a political objective with a hard nose: bringing Trump back from his apparent embrace of the Ukrainian agenda of the Russian president.
But the apparent success of the mission – at least for the moment – had a lot to a psychological approach that European leaders have perfected for months.
It is not only thanks, which have run several dozen in all.
Mr. Zelenskyy dressed more formally. He wanted to present a letter addressed to Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, who underlined the fate of the Ukrainian children victims of the war.
As a key figure in the efforts to persuade Trump to involve the United States in Ukraine’s post-war security, NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, has made months of awareness. This included an alliance summit in June that he choreographed in personal homage to the role of Mr. Trump in European rearmament.
It was Mr. Rutte, this week, who offered his gratitude to “Dear Donald”.
The extent of the change of old-fashioned diplomacy when she dealt with the American president was captured in recent remarks by the British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson.
“I have never been in a city or a political system that is so dominated by an individual,” he said, describing Washington by Mr. Trump. “Usually you enter an ecosystem rather than the world of a personality.
“But it is a phenomenon. A unique politician.”
