Trump’s behaviour reveals what he thinks about the US’s role in the world

Donald Trump has said that he wanted each day of his presidency to be like an episode of a reality TV show. On Friday, local time, he certainly achieved that.

At the end of his astonishing Oval Office argument with Volodomyr Zelensky, Trump said, with apparent satisfaction: “This is going to be great television.”

It is easy to be distracted by the sheer awfulness of the scene: the presidents of two nations who are, at least theoretically, meant to be allies, bickering in full view of the world’s media as Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance. But it is important to look through the pyrotechnics on display to appreciate what Trump’s behaviour reveals, not just for the future of Ukraine, but about his view of America’s role in the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.Credit: Bloomberg

Trump’s petulance, and his evident personal disdain for Zelensky, make it difficult to watch the exchange without cringing.

The point at which things begin to go off the rails is when Vice President J.D. Vance – appearing to relish the role of provocateur – accuses Zelensky of being “disrespectful”. He wasn’t, he was merely putting Ukraine’s position.

From that point, first Vance, then Trump, berates Zelensky with increasingly excitable belligerence, as Zelensky – patiently and without discourtesy – stands his ground.

It was Trump and Vance, not Zelensky, who were disrespectful, a point European leaders, who rallied behind Zelensky, made in the subsequent hours.

Trump may be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, but Zelensky is the president of a large nation too, albeit one in a desperately weak position.

Trump’s behaviour revealed not just contempt for Zelensky, but utter lack of concern for the victims of Russia’s invasion. The egregious criminality of the invasion itself, and Russia’s conduct since – targeting of civilian populations, deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, gross violations of the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war (including the castration of teenage soldiers) were the furthest things from Trump’s mind. All he wanted was a deal that favoured US interests in exploiting Ukrainian critical minerals.

In dealing with a fellow world leader who stood in his way, Trump behaved less like an American president than a Roman emperor dressing down a visiting barbarian chieftain.

The issue to which Zelensky repeatedly returned – both in the Oval Office and, at greater length, in his interview with Brett Baier on Fox News immediately afterwards – was the necessity, as part of the overall deal with America concerning the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s critical minerals, of a US “security guarantee”. No such guarantee was part of the agreement which Zelensky left unsigned.

Earlier in the week, when they made separate visits to the White House, both UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, had also spoken of the need of US security guarantees (or a “US backstop”, in Starmer’s words).

Trump has given no indication to any of them that the US would provide any form of security guarantee, instead promising the presence of US companies on the ground in Ukraine to exploit its minerals, would be enough to deter Putin.

When Zelensky insisted to Trump that Putin was not to be trusted, Trump – evidently taking offence on Putin’s behalf – told him that while Putin may have lied to Obama and to Biden, he wouldn’t lie to him. On such flimsy hopes do the future peace of Europe now depend.

Although a security guarantee is, for Zelensky, the sine qua non of any deal with the United States, even if Trump were to relent and offer one, what use would it be? Trump is no less a pathological liar than Putin.

A security guarantee from Trump would not be worth the paper it is written on, particularly since – as was obvious from his confrontation with Zelensky – Trump’s sympathies lie with Putin anyway.

One immediate result of the meeting was the Republican Party rallying behind Trump. Most ominously, influential South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham – who, although close to Trump, was seen as one of Zelensky’s few Republican allies on Capitol Hill – was swift to condemn Zelensky for disrespecting Trump, and call for his resignation. Republicans have never much liked Zelensky. After this debacle, they will begin to demonise him.

Of deepest concern is what now happens to NATO. Its support for Zelensky has been, and remains, steadfast. (So, to Anthony Albanese’s credit, has been Australia’s.)

So far, talk of the European democracies deploying armed personnel to Ukraine has been limited to policing a ceasefire. If there is a ceasefire policed by European boots on the ground, what happens if it is breached and fighting breaks out between Russian and NATO troops? It seems hardly likely that Trump would, in those circumstances, commit America to armed conflict with Russia.

If the war continues without further American support, Europe’s limited capacity to continue to arm Ukraine makes it very likely that Russia will prevail.

When, last Monday, I published a column in this masthead asking if NATO would survive Donald Trump, and quoted an old remark of Kevin Rudd’s that Trump was a traitor to the West, I wondered if I had gone too far.

In the breakneck speed at which the global order is re-sorting itself, with Trump’s America abandoning allies and embracing autocrats, it seems I did not go far enough.

George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is now a professor at ANU.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.