Drooling idiot, wannabe fascist dictator and US President Donald Trump has unveiled his plans for Ukraine if a peace deal with Russia is concluded, leaving critics accusing him of practicing the ‘Art of the Steal’. “Look, Ukraine could be a really beautiful place without this conflict – the ‘Riviera of the Black Sea’. But the problem is the people there – they don’t want to be part of Russia – that’s where all the friction comes from. They’re surrounded by Russia, so the best thing is for them to move away to someplace where there isn’t any Russia,” he told a bewildered press conference. “That’s why I’ve been discussing with President Putin the possibility of clearing the whole of Ukraine of Ukrainians and redeveloping the whole area with hotels and resorts where the whole world, or at least Russians, can enjoy their leisure time. The Russians have already made a pretty good start in redeveloping the areas they already control – just look at the job they’ve dome in demolishing the eyesore that was Mariupol. So we might as well just press on and finish the job.” Both the Ukrainian authorities and the country’s European allies have been left stunned by the Mango Mussolini’s latest pronouncement, which, typically for Trump, seems to have been made without any prior consultation with any of the parties involved in the Ukraine war, other than the aggressor, Russia. The general consensus is that the so called plan, which echoes Trump’s recent pronouncements on the future of Gaza, has been directly inspired by the Kremlin.
“After all, back in the days of the USSR, the Black Sea coast of Ukraine was the favoured holiday destination of senior party functionaries,” points out Dr Colin Preaks, Fellow of the South Ruislip Institute of Strategic Studies and International Dairy Security. “So the main beneficiaries of this plan would be the Russian oligarchs who support Putin, restoring their former playground. I should imagine that the main concession that Trump would get from it would the involvement of his companies in the redevelopment of the country.” While many are clinging to the hope that, as the plan seems dependent upon a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, which still seems unlikely to materialise, it might never come to fruition, Preaks is more pessimistic. “The inside word is that, if Ukraine won’t agree to the terms of any peace deal cooked up Trump and Putin, then he’ll simply cut off military aid to Ukraine so that Russia can bomb it into rubble,” he says. “Then Trump, or one of companies, will buy the resultant wasteland from Putin to turn into a holiday resort for those Eastern European oligarchs. One way or another, they aim to steal Ukraine’s territory.” The question perplexing many commentators is that of exactly where the evicted current tenants of Ukraine would go. “I should think that was obvious,” observes Preaks. “Why else do you think that Trump keeps on talking about annexing various neighbours, like Canada and Greenland? Before you know it, they could become giant resettlement camps for displaced Ukrainians – but probably not Palestinians from Gaza. I mean, the Ukrainians might be Slavs, but they are, at least, white.”
Preaks’ speculations seem to have been confirmed by right-wing US commentator Dick Cheeze – who reportedly has close links to the Trump White House – who used his online radio show to discuss the idea of annexing Canada as the 51st state. “There’s still a lot of open spaces there, just crying out to be built on – with construction work potentially providing work for US contractors,” he opined. “I ask you, why wouldn’t Ukrainians want to be resettled there? I mean, Ukraine itself is a shit hole – full of bomb craters and wrecked villages and towns. In US Canada, they won’t have Russians on their borders, either!” Cheez held out hope that not all Ukrainians would be forced out of their own country under the Trump plan. “Doubtless some of them will be required as domestic staff for the new hotels and condos that go up in place of their homes,” he conceded. “Obviously, their new accommodation would be modest and tied to their jobs, which, bearing in mind that this accommodation would be included, would be modestly paid. But think of the fringe benefits – they’d have the opportunity to live in a peaceful, conflict free Ukraine, full of ultra-modern new condos, resorts and hotels!”
While European leaders still seem shell shocked by Trump’s approach to Ukraine, other commentators feel that we really shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events, arguing that it is entirely consistent with his usual modus operandi. “You have to remember that he’s basically just a property developer,” explains Henry Rockballer, Senior Lecturer in International Affairs at the East Pirbright College of Advanced Hair Care. “And this is what property developers do – they take land, whether by buying it or obtaining it by more dubious methods, then clear everyone and everything already there off of it, before turning it into something that benefits only a minority, but from which the developer can wring maximum profits.” He believes that the attraction for Trump with regard to Gaza and Ukraine the demolition of existing property has largely already been done for him, courtesy of Israel and Russia, just leaving those pesky native populations to be cleared off the land. Rockballer also suspects that Trump’s renewed interest in Greenland is also motivated by a belief that changing circumstances might give him an advantage if a deal can be struck. “With global warming – which Trump professes not to believe in – doing for the polar ice cap, moving Greenland into a more temperate zone, he probably sees the island as another property ripe for redevelopment into a holiday paradise for the ultra-rich,” muses the academic. “Perhaps he’ll even move some of those displaced Palestinians there to provide low paid staff.”
Rockballer, though, is at pains to point out that Trump isn’t unique amongst US leaders in trying to leverage the fall out from wars to their own advantage. “To be absolutely fair, this idea of using conflict as a way of making the world safe for US commerce is nothing new – the US tried it in occupied Germany after the war, for instance, giving exclusive contracts to US companies to redevelop parts of the infrastructure,” he says. “General Motors’ EMD subsidiary, for example, was given exclusive rights to build and import diesel electric locomotives into the occupied German territories, which resulted in the German railways developing their own, locally produced, diesel hydraulic locomotives, instead.” He also cites the more recent example of Iraq. “Even before the Gulf War commenced, numerous US firms were given exclusive contracts to rebuild the country and operate vital parts of the infrastructure,” says Rockballer. “So, really, Trump is just continuing another American tradition, the only difference being that, rather than trying to give an unfair advantage to US commerce in general, he’s aiming to directly benefit himself, his family and billionaire buddies.”
