Crazy Talk, Vol. 1: Trump's Radical Plan to Force Putin to Talk Peace

It's been a busy month for the Trump 47 administration these first few days in February, so I hope you'll forgive me if I missed one of the potentially biggest developments until a full 36 hours after it happened on Monday. It was Tuesday evening — a good three weeks after lunch on Monday in Trump 47 Standard Time — that I read about another one of those crazy-stupid Trump ideas that just might work.

If world peace is your thing, that is — and I'm not even talking about his plan to Make Gaza Casinos Again. Although I will have more on that later today in "Crazy Talk, Vol. 2."

"U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 3 that his administration is continuing efforts to end the 'ridiculous war' in Ukraine but will continue supporting Kyiv’s defense against the Russian aggression," VOA reported on Tuesday, which is nothing new. But this is: "In exchange for the military aid, Trump said, Ukraine must give the United States access to its rare earth elements essential for the high-tech industry."

“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accused Trump of being "very selfish, very self-centered," with the proposal but, to be fair, Scholz is an idiot.

Let me tell you why Trump's proposal could prove over-the-top brilliant — and is more about finding the necessary leverage to force Vladimir Putin to recognize that "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war." The time for peace is now, I wrote last week in a VIP-exclusive essay, and Trump's seemingly "self-centered" proposal from this week might just get us there.

And Another Thing: I realize how disappointed certain readers will be by this news. But if you'd just give up the idea that Trump is going to appease Putin by giving him Ukraine, and understand that nobody gets peace by rewarding aggression, I think you'd be so much more relaxed.

The element working hardest against Ukraine's war effort isn't the Russian Army, but as I've been reminding readers for almost three years now, the West's short attention span. Trump's deal would correct that.

The earliest reference I can find to our short attention span is from a July 2022 piece headlined, "UKRAINE WAR: The (Not Quite) God's-Eye View, Five Months In." You should re-read it — it's held up surprisingly well. But the relevant part is that Western war material was keeping the Ukraine Army fighting. "Anyone who doubted the difference a few modern howitzers and HIMARS launchers have made should by now realize how slow the Russian advance has been and how dearly it has cost them," I wrote then. But I warned, "The West has a short attention span, so who knows how long our largesse might last?"

While the largesse has gone on, it has been fitful and incomplete. We send enough material, now and then, to keep both sides drawing blood — but never enough to convince Putin that negotiations are in Russia's best interest. And who knows how much was skimmed off by the Biden cabal?

Putin has always banked on the West getting bored and giving up. A war against Ukraine and an indecisive West, Russia can win. But a war against Ukraine that's made a long-term deal of rare earths in exchange for a steady stream of American weapons? Should a deal like that materialize, Russia's chances are much diminished.

Zelenskyy told reporters on Tuesday that Ukraine is open to “investment” from “partners who help us defend our land and push the enemy back with their weapons, their presence, and sanctions packages. And this is absolutely fair.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov "slammed" the proposal, according to Politico yesterday, which tells you a great deal about how Moscow views it. "It would be better of course for the assistance to not be provided at all, as that would contribute to the end of this conflict."

Well, no. Trump's deal would keep Ukraine in the fight at a time when the Russian economy is showing serious wartime strains of inflation, labor shortages, and crippling 21% interest rates that even defense contractors are choking on.

"If we continue like this, most companies will essentially go bankrupt," Sergei Chemezov, head of the giant Rostec defense contractor, warned in December. "At rates of more than 20%, I don’t know of a single business that can make a profit, not even an arms trade." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard concluded recently that Moscow's "oil export revenues are too low to sustain a high-intensity war, and nobody will lend Putin a kopeck."

Now is the moment to leverage Putin to the negotiating table. Trump's rare-earths-for-weapons deal could do just that.