A WEEK: Has the U.S. been realigned with Putin?

THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025

Does anyone know or care? After the commander's joint address, are we the American people still trapped in a Week That Was? 

Are we involved in a Week That Was? Did Friday's Oval Office event kickstart a week whose developments may signal a change in world history? 

Among other questions which have arisen, we wouldoffer these:

Are we the American people now being realigned into an alliance with Putin? Also, does anyone seem to be able to care?

Those strike us as serious questions. Let's return to the scene of the carnage:

At the end of last Friday's event, one president sent the other president packing. In the course of the sudden, surprising blowup, a "rare earths minerals" deal went unsigned.

In the days which followed, military aid to Ukraine was suspended. So was help with military intelligence. 

And then, along came Tuesday evening's address! In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd, now sadder and wiser, highlights a largely overlooked part of that joint address:

The State of Himself

[...]

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

The thrust of Trump’s speech was, of course, to glorify himself, to claim sanctification bestowed on him by God when he escaped assassination.

Regarding Greenland, "One way or the other, we’re going to get it?" Also, we're going to be "reclaiming the Panama Canal?"

It's astounding to think that comments like those have largely gone undiscussed. We'd call that a tribute to the sheer volume of gorilla dust the commander threw into the air Tuesday night on a hundred other topics.

That said, yes—the commander did make those statements! So you can more fully evaluate his meaning, here's the fuller passage from the Tuesday night joint address:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (3/5/25): To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it.

But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria, they died of snakebites and mosquitoes. Not a nice place to work. They paid them very highly to go there knowing there was 25 percent chance that they would die. The most expensive project also that was ever built in our country’s history, if you bring it up to modern-day costs. It was given away by the Carter administration for $1. But that agreement has been violated very severely. We didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.

[...]

And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it—one way or the other, we’re going to get it. 

"One way or the other" may sound a bit menacing. But those were his fuller remarks.

In fairness, annexation of Canada went unmentioned on Tuesday night, as did ownership of Gaza. But that's what the commander said about the way we'll be taking the canal back, and about the way we'll end up getting Greenland.

Do those remarks display a "new imperialist attitude?"  If those remarks ever get discussed, some people will surely teach that question flat while others will teach it round.

In full fairness to Dowd, the other part of what she said in that passage was accurate. Here's the key spart of the commander's much longer presentation about what happened last July at the rally in Butler, Pa.:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to Make America Great Again—I believe that. I do. 

Thank you. Thank you very much.

He was saved by God to make America Great! (Perhaps to take back the canal?)

That remark in Tuesday's address has generally gone unmentioned too. As you can see in the full transcript, it's part of a much longer presentation about the way the president's life was saved by God that day, while others "were not so lucky:"

At this site, we're concerned about the president's possible mental state. Within the rules of American journalism, a topic like that cannot be discussed, no matter what the person in question may actually say and do.

Within the poverty of the American discourse, other highly significant topics routinely go undiscussed. With respect to last Friday's Oval Office event, consider this slightly fuller chunk from Dowd's new column:

The State of Himself

[...]

He offered a softer tone on Ukraine, citing a message from Volodymyr Zelensky urging peace and saying he was ready to sign the minerals deal. Now that Trump has forced the Ukrainian president to grovel, now that he has humiliated the war hero in public and put his own swollen ego above America’s longstanding foreign policy principles, he may give Zelensky another chance.

His new imperialist attitude was on display, a sharp contrast to his old rants about how awful George W. Bush was for his failed occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. About Greenland, Trump said, “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He also vowed, “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.”

According to Dowd, someone has now declared his readiness "to sign the minerals deal"—but to whom does she refer? 

Who has signaled this new readiness? Is it the lady, or is it the tiger? Is it Trump or is it Zelensky? 

For whatever reason, the answer isn't clear in Dowd's text. Someone's now ready to sign the deal, but it isn't real clear who that is!

That said, something else remains unclear at this point in time. As best we can tell, no one has the slightest idea what actually happened last Friday, and it isn't clear that anyone actually cares.

What actually happened last Friday in the Oval Office? Just for starters, who refused to sign the minerals deal? 

More to the point, what was in the minerals deal—the deal that didn't get signed?

As far as we know, most reporting has indicated that it was President Trump, not President Zelensky, who declined to sign the deal. According to all the reporting we've seen, it was Trump who sent Zelensky away, leaving the deal unsigned.

As to what was actually in the deal, have you seen anyone tell you? 

Fellow citizens, what was actually in the deal which suddenly went unsigned? Again, we'll link you to this analysis by The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) a centrist Washington think tank.

The detailed analysis was published last Thursday, one day before the Oval Office disaster. Here's what the CSIS seemed to report at that time:

It seemed to report that the original minerals deal—the deal Zelensky had originally refused to sign—had been vastly watered down by the time of the Oval encounter.

The original deal had been widely described as a virtual looting of Ukraine's rare metals wealth.  The renegotiated deal—the deal which was on the table last Friday—offered far less material advantage to the U.S., or so said the CSIS.

Was that an accurate account of the matter? We can't tell you that, but the CSIS is no flyweight org.

Did the CSIS give an accurate account of the adjusted minerals deal? If so, could that perhaps explain why Trump sent Zelensky packing without the deal being signed?

We don't know how to answer those questions. Within our flailing American discourse, others don't much seem to care.

No one else even seems to have noticed that these are fairly obvious questions. In the poverty of the time, this is the way our discourse works.

In fairness, gorilla dust was widely scattered during Tuesday evening's joint address. Crazy claims were made in droves, many of which are still in the process of being fact-checked.

Amidst the attendant confusion, less attention has been paid to the commander's pledge to Make The Canal American Again and to pull a snatch-and-grab with respect to Greenland. Also, little attention has been paid to what actually happened last Friday with respect to the minerals deal, the contents of which have gone almost wholly undiscussed.

In the course of all this turmoil, has the shape of a global realignment started to come clear? As he queered the minerals deal—as he then suspended aid to Ukraine—was the commander moving the United States into full alignment with Putin?

We get Greenland, he gets Ukraine? Could that have been the state of play at the start of a possible Week That Was? 

Donald J. Trump was saved by God! Was he saved to produce realignment. Does anyone actually care?

Tomorrow: We recommend that you pity the child. But what was he like at 13?

This afternoon: A very different factcheck of the address, as performed by the Washington Post