The “king of toxic masculinity” and the death of the West

Trump’s shown you who he is – believe him

Andrew Tate: the face of the new far right (Wikipedia)

Here in Europe, there are still politicians clinging to the hope that Trump is not the vicious fantasist he gives every appearance of being. The US president is a “transactional” politician who believes in making deals, they say.

We should ignore the half-mad ravings that fill Trump’s public pronouncements. They are just a show. He’s still a guy we can work with.

Keir Starmer is clinging on to this hope like a drowning sailor hugging his ship’s wreckage.

Pat McFadden, one of Starmer’s most trusted advisers, spoke as if America was still a reliable ally and force for good in the world. The Trump administration’s bellowing could be safely ignored.

“It is in the national interest that we keep a good dialogue in public and private channels,” he said, “and that we don’t overreact to every announcement.”

He talked a good game. But in private senior government sources mournfully confessed to the Times that the UK had no idea what promises Trump had made Putin.

It gets worse. Today, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are negotiating away the fate of Ukraine in Saudi Arabia.

Starmer and the UK government are not represented at the talks. Nor is any other European government. Nor, and most shamefully, is the government of Ukraine itself.

Like the imperial powers of the 19^th century dividing Africa, Trump and Putin are partitioning Europe without Europe’s consent.

Maya Angelou’s advice that “when someone shows you who they are, believe them” remains as good as ever.

Trump has shown us who he is so often there ought to be no room left for doubt.

He has shown us that he does not see Putin as a war criminal and pariah, but as a business partner.

He shown us that he despises America’s old allies.

He shown us that, just as he wants to “own the libs” at home, he wants to own the lib democracies abroad. Quite literally so in the case of liberal Canada and liberal Denmark, whose territory Trump wants America to take in a Putinesque land grab.

Pity poor Europe caught between Russian and American imperialism – for there is no other word to describe it.

Almost lost in the noise caused by the breakdown of the old Atlantic alliance were the grim details of Trump’s attempt to extract imperial tribute from Ukraine. To Trump’s mind the loot was “payback” for the support the Biden administration gave to Ukraine – support you will have noticed that Trump is now withdrawing.

His demand for $500bn (£400bn) went far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals, a leak to the Telegraph revealed. It covered everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas. The US proposed taking 50% of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from resource extraction, and 50% of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for future resource monetisation.

There was to be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children,’” a Ukrainian source close to the negotiations told The Telegraph.

Ambrose Evans Pritchard, the veteran financial commentator, noted that Trump’s demands would amount to the US taking a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than the reparations imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty of 1919. The victorious alliance of Britain, France and America demanded payments from Germany at the end of the First World War. As every school child once knew, the terms were so punitive they helped fuel the rise of Nazism.

In this instance, Britain, France and indeed America supported Ukraine. Now Trump wants to treat America’s friends more harshly than its enemies and impose a Carthaginian peace on an ally.

Maybe Starmer and other European leaders can still kid themselves that Trump is just another transactional politician. Maybe they will go along with that gormless excuse from Americans who cannot bear too much reality that “it’s just Trump being Trump”, and you should not take him too seriously.

I doubt that Starmer has any illusions, and suspect he is just trying to prevent European security unravelling.

In case he does, however, he should remember that the devil is in the detail. You can see the malice and extremism of the US far right in miniature by looking at its efforts to help Andrew Tate, who currently faces charges of human trafficking, sexual misconduct and money laundering in Romania.

You’ve never heard of Andrew Tate, I hear you cry.

Well, lucky you.

He is the “king of toxic masculinity” and in its small and pathetic way his case shows why the Western alliance is finished.