It was well after 2 am, but an assistant to the vice-president JD Vance was trying to run a high Ukrainian official in his bed in a Munich hotel. He wanted a face-to-face meeting to conclude an agreement allowing the United States to extract precious minerals in Ukraine, a priority of the new president, Donald J. Trump.
This had to be done that evening, said the aid before Mr. Vance met the next day with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine at a transatlantic security conference. The Ukrainian protested that it was late and refused to leave his room, according to an informed foreign policy advisor from the incident. The next day’s meeting was continued, although the proposal was not signed.
The mineral agreement, which was finally signed on Wednesday, and the attempt before dawn to pass it in February, are a revealing symbol of the American Statecraft in the second Trump administration. Exploitation, transactional, almost imperial in his requirements, the agreement summarizes Mr. Trump’s approach to the world in his first 100 days, a chaotic period which is not like in the post-secret world war.
From the NATO Alliance to the World Trade System, Trump has balanced a giant demolition ball across the existing world order.
