Donald Trump has made no substantive statements since his election victory on Tuesday; and yet it is already being felt in the two main world conflict zones, Ukraine and the Middle East.
With a diametrically opposite impact depending on whether your name is Volodymyr Zelensky, president of a Ukraine in military difficulties facing Russia, and on the verge of losing its primary support, America; or Benyamin Netanyahu, prime minister of a state of Israel at war for more than a year, and now benefiting from the total protection of president-elect Donald Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister is in the most enviable position in the new political configuration
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He knows that his hands are free until January 20, until the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States, to pursue his total war as he sees fit.
The 46th president, Joe Biden, is ipso facto transformed into a “lame duck”, a “lame duck” as the Americans say, that is to say that his words are greatly devalued during his last months in office. Netanyahu will know how to make good use of it.
Netanyahu has not given in much to Joe Biden's injunctions to change strategy for a year, except on the strikes in Iran, the targets of which were negotiated with Washington. Today, he no longer even has to worry about what people think at the White House, until the tenant changes.
This will allow him to carry out the ethnic cleansing which does not speak its name in the north of the Gaza Strip, without really displaying its objectives. To avoid any risk, he even dismissed his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. Yesterday, the sacked minister estimated that Israel had achieved its objectives in Gaza and that the time had come for an agreement, allowing the hostages still alive to be saved. But he accused Netanyahu of making decisions alone, based on criteria that are neither military nor political.
Donald Trump will let him do it until he enters the White House
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Then he will want to appear as the peacemaker. In Gaza, Lebanon, and, it remains to be seen, perhaps Iran, the next two months will likely be terrible.
The equation is different in Ukraine. Trump has already announced the color: he wants to resolve the conflict “in 24 hours”, no one knows how, but it seems difficult to imagine that this will be done to Ukraine's advantage in the current context.
kyiv's European allies met last night in Budapest, on the sidelines of a pan-European summit. Huge paradox, they were welcomed by Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, who has in fact become the main European interlocutor of the next American president – while remaining the only one to continue speaking to Vladimir Putin.
As of yesterday, the choreography of this turning point was put in place. Putin congratulated Trump and said he was ready to talk with him about his ideas for Ukraine. And Zelensky, present at the Budapest Summit, warned those who are tempted to push him to negotiate that it was “suicide for Europe”. How will the Europeans manage to prevent the Trump-Orban duo from making Ukraine capitulate under conditions more favorable to Putin than to the Ukrainians? It is all the more delicate since the Europeans will not want to start the new mandate with a standoff with a resentful president, who is already threatening them with a trade war.
We are only 48 hours after the announcement of Donald Trump's victory: and the world has become a little more uncertain.
