Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Washington, D.C. February 4, 2025 (Leah Millis/Reuters)
EA on Australia’s ABC and India’s WION: Israel’s War on Iran
EA on TVP World: Trump, Putin, and Ukraine
I joined Times Radio’s Trump Report for a special 35-minute VideoCast on Tuesday to explain how Israel manipulated Donald Trump into effectively abandoning US-Iran negotiations and supporting the assaults killing and trying to break Iran’s leadership.
First, I take apart the myth of a UK-US “trade deal”, announced by Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada. I explain how the limited agreement is more a case of Trump telling the British, “I won’t punch you as hard as I am punching that guy over there. And that one over there.”
The UK does not have a most favored trade relationship with the US. It has a most favored tariff relationship.
Then I take host Maddie Hale through the context for the Israeli airstrikes and targeted assassinations that began last Friday, persuading Trump — against all sense of reality — that the mass killings and devastation would strong-arm Iran into accepting his “deal” over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Israeli message went like this:
“You want to make a deal with Iran? It isn’t happening — Iran is insisting on having some type of uranium enrichment program. They are not going to get rid of that.
So, look if you want a deal, well, you got to get even tougher with them. You got punch ’em in the nose.”
I also describe Trump’s petulant walkout of the G7 summit, insulting French President Emmanuel Macron and spitting on attempts at a ceasefire.
The reason? Two days after the flop of his ego parade in Washington, Trump was irritated that he wasn’t getting enough attention among the world’s leaders — and had no interest in dealing with the issues from Israel-Iran to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to former allies who might now be ready to work around the US rather than with it.
Trump’s a bit stung because “oh, that parade didn’t go very well”. He pitches up at G7 and says, “Look at me, pay attention to me.”
But when it gets time to do the hard work, Trump just shoves off, maybe to play golf or to a big ol’ hamburger banquet in the Oval Office.
So where does that leave Ukraine? I repeat that “in a marathon, not a sprint” and with Vladimir Putin intent on breaking the country, the necessity is still for Kyiv and international partners to bolster political, economic, and military security. Along the way, they can reach out to any “adults in the room” in the Trump Administration, if not the tempermental Trump.
