The moment American policy shifted... | Simon Marks' American Week

There are two types of people at the end of this American week. Those who, like our own Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, profess that President Donald Trump has not entirely slipped over to the dark side, but remains available to be pulled back from his alliance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Here's Mr Streeting talking to LBC's political editor, Natasha Clarke, on Wednesday. The United States ultimately knows which side it's on, and it's on the side of freedom. They are trying to broker a diplomatic solution with Russia. It's got to, I mean, it's the only way that the war will end is through negotiation, but it's got to be acceptable to the Ukrainians. The UK's role now, he said, is to try and bring friends back together and to repair the tattered relationship between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, following the American leader's historic betrayal of his Ukrainian supposed partner. but then there are those people who say you've got to be kidding me because uncomfortably for Mr Streeting on the very same day that he was insisting the United States is on the side of freedom and to be fair to him he said ultimately that's where they would position themselves President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff walked into the Kremlin his ninth visit to Moscow so far he's only shown up in Ukraine twice and if that weren't sufficient a clue as to where his loyalties lie his audience on Tuesday with Putin surely sealed the deal you talk so much about my president President Trump being a humanitarian you are you are a humanitarian also sir and i salute that i commend you and i thank you again now look Mr Witkoff is certainly not a professional when it comes to the diplomacy game he's still very new at it having become one of the world's most powerful men thanks only to a chance encounter many years ago with Donald Trump in a New York deli at two o'clock in the morning. You know how it is, you pop in for a pastrami on rye, you get chatting to the fella next to you at the counter. Next thing you know you're on your knees before a murderous dictator in the Kremlin calling him a humanitarian. Mr Witkoff himself has conceded that he learnt the art of diplomacy by watching history documentaries on Netflix, which suggests that the Open University has just about still got the edge in the scholarly stakes over the outfit that brings you the bodice ripper Bridgerton. But I digress. The White House defence of Mr Witkoff's shameful conduct is America is in the middle of a delicate negotiation on Ukraine and Vladimir Putin had just agreed to let a 74-year-old American teacher trapped in Putin's gulag for the last four years to go free without any quid pro quo so you've got to butter the guy up a little bit except that proposition was not true we have a gentleman coming home from Russia that they've been after for years he was captured or taken during the Biden administration he's a highly respected man Mr Hubbard Stephen Hubbard and we were in the midst of negotiating and a lot of stupid people said and people that don't know how life works they said why aren't you putting Russia's sanctions on all this in the midst of a negotiation to try and get a long-term hostage back from but you said you didn't give Russia anything in exchange for his release you would not have Mr Hubbard coming so you did give him something in exchange for the release the sound of the White House story falling apart under some incisive questioning of the president from CNN's Caitlin Collins. A legitimate scoop, definitely not a fake one. The Russia sanctions that Trump last week suddenly upended by carving Russia out of them were passed only last month in Congress, overwhelmingly supported by Republicans. The law is named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, whose last act in July, two days before he passed away, was proudly proclaiming that he had finally brought President Trump around too, and stop me when this becomes familiar, Mr. Streeting, getting tough on Russia. These were literally the last public comments Senator Graham would utter. We've reached agreement with the White House on a version of the Russian sanctions bill that they will support. It means it's going to become law that would give tools to President Trump to punish those countries that prop up Putin. Three months on and America is now one of those countries propping up Putin buying his diesel trying to secure other business deals with him even while he continues pounding Ukraine and killing civilians there aiding him by slowing intelligence to Ukraine and slowing the speeds of Elon Musk's Starlink and Starshield internet connectivity platforms that are used by the Ukrainian military to control their armed drones as they prepare to attack Russian targets and this week backing Putin's proposal for a three-way summit next month in China Putin Trump and President Xi Jinping now appear likely to meet without Zelensky and without any European presence at all to agree terms for the carve-up of Ukrainian territory this is the man number 10 still thinks it can peel away from his backing of Putin that's the formal moment when American policy shifted the Biden administration and Kiev's European allies always use the phrase "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine" meaning you can't sit down and carve the country up unless they are part of the conversation. The Trump formulation is now everything about Ukraine without Ukraine which is why the Ukrainians consider all of this such an historic betrayal. So do lots of Americans and they included this week Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News anchor who was incandescent about the Witkoff meeting with Putin. Steve Witkoff says, "Thank you you are a great humanitarian." I mean, the Russians must be laughing their heads off. Oh, are you kidding? I cannot believe this is happening now is if it's a means to an end to end a war in a way that's going to give Ukraine some sanctity and some security, I'll be willing to I'll be willing to suck that up but I don't know how that helps. That just makes you look naive or even just craven. We should not overlook the fact that this was also the week when Pete Hegseth the Secretary of War who is not now going to be allowed to preside over the first public execution in America for 90 years and must be very disappointed because it was his own wizard wheeze once again besmirched the memory of UK and allied troops who laid down their lives alongside the Americans in Afghanistan. Here he is speaking at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I was a captain in Afghanistan and we would go to the headquarters of Kabul and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters and it was a beautiful thing to see. 50 different countries from 50 NATO allies in and the ISAF mission there, except there were like maybe five that contributed. It was actually closer to one or two that actually, by the end, were actually involved in kinetic operations. In fact, the patch ISAF, the joke that it meant I saw Americans fighting, which is sort of a, it's a joke, but it's demoralizing when you feel like it's not burden sharing, it's actually a burden. 457 British troops lost their lives on the Afghan battlefield. he thinks they were a burden and we think we're going to be able to find a way of working with these people of course the Trump administration may now be just 10 days away from a very significant political reversal if the polls are right and they have been wrong before the president's Republican Party is on the brink of losing its majority in the House of Representatives and possibly also even the Senate he has spent another week doing absolutely nothing to help them, traveling mostly to what should be safe Republican states. But even there, he has faced demonstrators wherever he has gone. And of course, he has engaged in unconcealed racism to try and whip up his base. If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what's happening in France, a once great nation that is being conquered, looted and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists and communists who hate Christianity and they hate, frankly, the Western civilisation itself. The riots in France, he told them, are all the fault of treasonous, globalist, left-wing politicians. And he insisted if the Democrats win next month, those scenes will be repeated on American streets. The most interesting aspect of those comments is that he was reading them from a teleprompter. They were scripted for him, rooted in the view of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that Europe is on the brink of civilizational erasure. But take a listen to what the President had to say this week about one rising star in the Democratic Party, Abdul El-Sayed, who may be on the brink of becoming the next US Senator from Michigan. President Trump nicknamed him Muhammad. Listen to this and you think about which side of the Atlantic is flirting with the loss of its civilization. You know, I took a lot of heat for calling him Mohammed. And then today, a guy sends me something. His name is actually Abdullah something. It's Abdullah, pa-pa, pa-pa-pa. Mohammed, I'll say it. So his middle name is Mohammed. So I was right, almost. By the way, how about that guy? He's a jihadist. He's a radical left person, hates our country. He's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. How about putting him on the Senate Intelligence Committee? Abdul El-Sayed is, of course, none of those things. And while the polls in Michigan show that he is about three points ahead of his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, there was some evidence this week that the president's racist intervention was having an impact on at least some voters. Al Jazeera's Richard Gaisford interviewed this 19-year-old first-time voter in Detroit. Abdul's barely out there. He doesn't even say his real name. like why can't you share your real name what what is his real name his real name is Dr. Abdul El-Sayed you didn't see where he said it's Muhammad it's Abdul Muhammad El-Sayed yeah but my name is Richard Paul Gaisford but i always like he's running for the Senate yeah but he wouldn't he should write his full name on there what is Mike Rogers middle name but that's not that's Muhammad's not his middle name only in America in 2026 could a man called Abdul El-Sayed be accused of trying to avoid detection of his ethnicity by failing also to use his middle name. I mean, it's not exactly a secret that he is a Muslim and quite possibly poised to become the first one ever to take a seat in the US Senate.