Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Britain, Defence, Europe, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

A defining moment for the future of Europe

EUROPEAN SECURITY

EIGHTY years ago, Franklin D Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill met in the Crimean city of Yalta to determine the future shape of Europe.

Together the United States, Soviet Union, and Britain had defeated Nazism. The symposium was intended to deliver lasting peace and security on the continent.

There were echoes of that momentous occasion this week when representatives of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin gathered in Saudi Arabia to thrash out an agreement over the future of Ukraine.

Significantly, Ukraine itself is excluded from the talks, leading to suspicions of an impending sell-out.

For Putin it’s a diplomatic coup. A pariah just a few weeks ago, the swaggering and revanchist bully is back at the global top table.

For President Trump it’s a signal that America will no longer bankroll Europe’s security without getting something in return.

He has made it clear he wants an end to this war and that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blocks his plan for peace, military aid may be withdrawn.

In addition, he says the aid already provided by the US should be repaid by Ukraine handing over oil, gas, mineral rights, and infrastructure that totals around £400billion.

Mr Zelensky had himself raised the idea of giving America a direct stake in Ukraine’s lucrative mineral industry in the hope it would deter Putin from attacking in a similar vein again.              

But what Mr Trump is asking for is more than the reparations demanded of Germany after the First World War. Battle-ravaged Ukraine simply couldn’t pay.

This is a defining moment for the future of Europe and NATO. If Mr Zelensky rejects a Trump/Putin deal, European nations must decide whether to keep backing the war effort without US support. The situation is becoming more precarious and volatile by the day.

They have only themselves to blame for this dilemma. For decades they have spent far too little on defence, expecting the US to ride to the rescue in times of trouble.

President Trump is demanding, not unreasonably, that from now on they bear more of their own security burden.

Sir Keir Starmer has been talking tough in recent days, saying Britian is ready to put “boots on the ground” to guarantee any peace deal. Such an announcement has not gone down well with Moscow or with some of our NATO allies including Germany who are furious that such a suggestion has been made when a peace deal hasn’t yet been brokered. Nevertheless, is the UK actually capable of doing so, given the depleted state of our armed services after years of draconian cuts?

The incumbent government in Britain still hasn’t made good its pledge to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence. This is the minimum required. Most military experts say it should be at least 3 per cent.

There’s no denying that money is tight, especially after the Labour Government’s disastrous budget increased the tax burden on families and businesses by £40billion. Imposing even higher taxes would send Britain into a deep depression.

Borrowing to boost defence would increase already stratospheric debt repayments, so the only sensible option is to cut the bloated, unproductive state. For the sake of national and European security Keir Starmer has no other option. Many in the public sector are likely to be offended when the axe starts to swing.

If Yalta taught the world anything, it’s that Russia can’t be trusted. Within weeks of that conference it had reneged on all its commitments to allow the occupied nations self-determination and the Iron Curtain came crashing down.

In the words of Roosevelt’s ambassador to Moscow, Stalin’s aim was “the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty, and democracy as we know it”.

Putin’s ambitions are not dissimilar. If he is allowed any sort of victory in Ukraine, it will not be long before he moves on to menace another European democracy.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, Ukraine, United States

Trump’s peace deal. At what cost?

EUROPEAN SECURITY

CONFUSED, contradictory, and deeply concerning. That is the verdict passed at the Munich Security Conference on Donald Trump’s hectic first month in the White House. The alarm in the air is unmistakably fraught.  

That’s chiefly attributed to the Trump administration being in the driving seat with the Europeans not even on the bus. Though his destination is unclear to many of us, what we do know is the US President wants a Nobel Peace Prize and believes a deal with Vladimir Putin will deliver it – no matter the cost to Ukraine, Europe, and Britain.

Trump assertively believes in a might-is-right world where the strong do what they can and the weak accept what they must. Forget high-minded appeals to past sacrifice and shared values; flattery and greed are the currencies that count now.

Ukraine’s mineral riches will sate that thirst. Lindsey Graham, the US Senator who represents the old-style Atlanticist wing of the Republican Party, has told the President that Ukraine is valuable real estate and that Russia must not be allowed to develop it.

So, it is mystifying that Mr Trump, the supposedly hard-nosed author of The Art Of The Deal, has given Putin major concessions before the talks have even started.

Will he allow Putin to dominate Europe in return for Moscow severing its alliance with Beijing? He’s capable of pushing such a horribly mistaken policy that could be disastrous for our security.

The good news is that the Conference’s dreadful proclamation – inviting Russia back into the G7, promising friendly summits with Putin, and excluding Ukraine from NATO membership – may be dumped tomorrow.

The US President changes his mind with impunity. His desire, according to reports, is to lead the news every hour of every day. Consistency and predictability can be disregarded, attention is what matters.  

The bad news is that his bullying streak is consistent. European leaders are playing with fire when they rebuke him publicly. It will be all too easy for Trump to withdraw the vital 8,000 US troops who protect NATO’s eastern frontier.

He can cancel the intelligence-sharing with Ukraine that provides its hard-pressed troops with their electronic eyes and ears.

A broken, defeated Ukraine will be a catastrophe for Europe, with millions of refugees fleeing west.

It will embolden Putin to find his next victim – perhaps Estonia, where Britain has scraped together 1,000 troops as part of a NATO tripwire force. But without Americans, that tripwire rings no bells.

Yes, European countries are belatedly boosting defence spending. But it will take many years before they can fill the gap the Americans would leave. They cannot even provide a credible force to protect Ukraine after a ceasefire deal. When it comes to European security, the Americans are the only game in town.

All this leaves Britain in a dreadful position. We cannot join the Europeans in denouncing Trump’s selfish, cynical approach. Our intelligence and nuclear relationship with the US are central to our own defence. We know they can be a difficult ally, but the alternative is worse.

Yet we do not want to see Europe isolated, failing, and splintering. Nor do we wish to see it falling prey to Russian – and Chinese – influence. That would be a catastrophe for our own security.

We should also be vexed about a European superstate taking shape without our participation. President Zelensky has called for a European army and increasing fear of Putin is driving continental leaders to take collective security seriously as never before.

The bleak and hard truth is that Britain’s hollowed-out Armed Forces, stagnant economy, and lightweight political leadership risk leaving us marginalised and on the sidelines. And for that we have only ourselves to blame.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Shrinking the British state requires an Elon Musk

GOVERNMENT-ECONOMY

THE Left is hysterical after Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to head up a new US Department of Government Efficiency.

The Tesla billionaire will try to radically shrink the inefficient state, slash red tape, and cut trillions of dollars of wasteful spending.

Never has the intellectual divide between political leaders on each side of the Atlantic been greater.

And nothing better symbolises this chasm separating Keir Starmer’s Labour and Donald Trump’s Republicans than Trump’s choice of hi-tech billionaire Elon Musk to be his efficiency tsar.

Since taking office in July, the Labour Party have been intent on expanding the bloated British state. You just need to look at the details of the eye-watering tax hike of £40billion in the Budget, the huge injection of £22.4billion into the NHS, and the creation of additional quangos.

The contrast couldn’t be any starker. Not only has Mr Trump tasked Musk but also appointed pharma and tech pioneer Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a new Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE). Both have already trumpeted their ambition to wipe $2trillion from the cost of running the US federal government. Word has travelled at lightning pace as Mr Musk declared on his social media channel X that there was no threat to democracy but is to be a direct attack on bureaucracy and America’s big spending state.

Yet, in the UK the Labour Government is set on a course of adding to its spending rather than cutting costs. The British state now spends a mind-boggling 44 per cent – up 5 per cent since the pandemic – of the £2.7trillion annual output of the UK economy.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, a self-confessed admirer of the US, has an opportunity as head of the UK Treasury to follow suit and embrace a new world of efficiency. Just imagine the positive impact in the City if she decided to lay credible plans similar in proportion to those announced by Mr Trump.

There is no doubt that Britain is desperately in need of its own Elon Musk-type efficiency tsar. It would certainly change attitudes. If the US Department of Government Efficiency achieves $2trillion of savings without damaging outcomes, then the debate on the depth of public services will change at the next UK election.

Any efficiency here would start by dismantling Labour’s plans for new quangos and organisations which do little more than mimic bureaucracies and other government affiliations which already exist.

These include the new “Border Security Command” which is duplicating work done by the immigration and security services and the National Crime Agency; and “Skills England” which is doubling up on work being done by private sector trade organisations and trades unions.

The list goes on. Labour’s plans for an Industrial Strategy Council and a National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, despite their elaborate and grandiose names, will simply add more red tape and wage bills, increasing the size of the state rather than improving productivity.

Across government, budgets have exploded over the last decade. The NHS which consumed £144billion in 2016 is now projected to cost £277billion in the current fiscal year. Education spending has climbed from £102billion to £146billion over the same period. The nation’s welfare bill has rocketed from £240billion to £379billion. And the Transport budget has gone from £29billion to £66billion. Staggering sums of money all round.

Still, no one can say that state services have improved – in fact, quite the reverse. Anyone seeking to claim “Pension Credit”, following the Chancellor’s brutal assault on the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, can testify for that.

If we had our own Musk to drive efficiency and better productivity in the public sector the red tape and bureaucracy would be peeled away without the unions being indulged. We were shown what could be achieved when, as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson appointed a vaccine tsar (Dame Kate Bingham) who harnessed the efficiency of the private sector to enable the NHS to produce Covid-19 vaccines in record time.

It says everything about Labour’s approach that British pharma giant AstraZeneca, which developed the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, has just announced it is to plough a record £2.7billion of research and development expenditure into the US rather than the UK.

Only by having the willpower to challenge the inefficiency of the state will there be belief in it being shrunk to manageable levels.

That would create a more agile and productive nation. It is so needed.

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