Whenever President Donald Trump makes a pronouncement and you want to know the real meaning of his words, look for the antonym. Trump’s social media platform, a purveyor of falsehood is called Truth Social; Trump’s defining domestic economic policy which he calls the Big Beautiful Bill adds over three trillion dollars to the United States’ national debt, provides over two trillion dollars in tax cuts to oligarchs who corseted the president during his inauguration, and cuts social welfare support from the most vulnerable Americans; Trump’s attempt to rewrite the United States’ history through executive order to review the exhibits and materials of the Smithsonian Institution is termed “Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History.”

Now, this latest event with the theme “Pursuing Peace,” in the glare of the world, the murderer from Moscow, indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and with the blood of Ukrainian children in his hand, some of the children bombed from Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, is welcomed to the United States with flowers and red carpet and a warm embrace from the leader of the free world! Welcome to Trump’s Horror Show in Alaska!!

Alaska was purchased from Russia by the United States under President Andrew Johnson in 1867, it is therefore a fitting location to receive the leader of Russia, not with flowers and red carpet, but to remind the supreme ruler of Moscow of the riches of the land which his ancestor, Tsar Alexander11 spurned and sold for $7.2 M, and to meet him with firm ultimatum to stop the unprovoked war in Ukraine. A long list of American presidents, worthy of the Office of the President of the United States would have done that, but not President Donald Trump.

Trump thinks the Oval Office is an extension of The Apprentice, moreover, Trump is beholden to dictators and sit-tight leaders around the world, Vladimir Putin is his favorite on that list.

The world waited with baited breath, some taken in by Trump’s tough talk in the build-up to the meeting, and hoped that it will at least produce a ceasefire. Before the meeting, Trump said: “I am President and he won’t mess around with me.” However, keen students of history like this writer, did not put any premium on those words. It was not surprising therefore when the old fox, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s long-serving foreign minister appeared in Alaska in a sweatshirt with “CCCP,” the Russian initials for the USSR splashed across the front.

Indeed, the Russians were in full voice in Alaska. For emphasis, the Alaska Summit, as Trump’s Horror Show is called, was intended to benefit three parties, Putin, who got a royal welcome on American soil and a pat on the back for his atrocities in Ukraine, Russia and Russians, isolated since the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, but now inched their way to a favorite spot in the heart of the United States; and Trump, who as usual, regaled in the attention, acclaim and applause that came his way, especially from his dotting guests. “I am happy that President Putin agrees that this war would never have happened if I was president,” Trump grinned.

Putin devoted a good part of his speech at the summit to lecture his audience about the long history of cooperation between the United States and Russia, and the huge, mutual economic benefits that could accrue from full restoration of relationship between the “two equal powers;” and the willy, seasoned former KGB agent did not forget to remind his listeners that his host, President Trump has the best interest of United States in mind.

When it was his turn to speak, the usually loquacious Trump was tongue-tied, stumbling over words that said nothing: “There’s no deal until there is a deal,” Trump concluded. Before the summit, Trump said only a ceasefire to the war would make him happy, he didn’t get the ceasefire and Putin offered no concessions, yet Trump appeared very pleased with himself.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is expected to meet Trump on Monday at the White House and the US president is wasting no time in setting the tone of the meeting. He nudges Zelensky to ‘make a deal’ because “Russia is a very big power” and Ukraine is not. In Trump’s rule book, might is right and any deal is good enough. For good measure, Putin warned European leaders not to use “back door” tactics to throw a wedge on the wheel of the “nascent peace.”

As Trump revels in the embrace of Putin, he should be reminded of President Woodrow Wilson’s concept of Peace without Victory, which he set forth before the Central Powers and the Entente (Allied) Powers in 1917, as the world pondered over the formation of the League of Nations. President Wilson posited that only ‘just and secure’ peace would bring lasting peace to the world and forestall a repeat of the evils of WW1.

As the Allied Powers insisted on extracting a heavy price from the Central Powers led by Germany, President Wilson warned: “Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s term imposed upon the vanquished.” He went further to state that such terms “would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting of resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.” President Wilson was derided as too idealistic and all of humanity paid a heavy price for the Allied Powers ignoring his 14-point agenda for lasting peace.

Putin insists on imposing harsh conditions on Ukraine for “peace” and Trump is coercing Zelensky to ‘accept the deal.’ However, unlike the Central Powers, the antagonist party in WW1, Ukraine is the protagonist in the present conflict and in spite of Trump’s best effort to validate Russia’s propaganda, the fact remains that if Russia stop fighting there would be no war but if Ukraine stop fighting there will be no Ukraine.

Let me be clear that all peace-loving persons wish that Trump succeeds in ending the war in Ukraine. For emphasis, Hilary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, and Trump’s opponent in 2016, says she will endorse Trump for the Nobel prize if he is able to bring an end to the war without forcing Ukraine to give up its territory. Trump’s Horror Show in Alaska and his pronouncements after the summit reveal that Trump intends to side with Putin to achieve his desires on Ukraine. Russians are celebrating, Ukrainians are mourning, and European leaders are aghast.