A few weeks ago, I started an article with these words explaining the epithet “Ugly American.” The term was born out of the title of the 1958 novel The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and William Ledere. It was about the United States’s diplomatic insensitivity, ineptness, and bungling in Southeast Asia. The term has become a stereotypical representation of boorish and offensive behavior abroad by Americans and their government too.

The context of that article was the news that President Trump was thinking about taking over Gaza, sending the Palestinian inhabitants packing for Egypt and Jordan, and making the Strip in to a beautiful resort. Mar-a-Lago 2.0! I put that introduction on the back burner until this afternoon, as I watch watching in absolute horror the unhinged, vituperative and crass performance of the President of the United States in front of the world press brow-beating a guest, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. If you have not seen the whole video, see it at https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-meets-with-ukrainian-president-zelensky/656418 . After the joint appearance, the parties retreated to their respective conference rooms, at which point instead of coming out and rejoining each other for lunch, the U.S. asked the Ukrainians to leave – unceremoniously, with only the protocol officer escorting him to his waiting Limo - not as much as giving this foreign head of state the courtesy of a seeing-off.

Zelenskyy had signaled in advance of his departure from Ukraine that he was looking for U.S. security guarantees against any future Russian attacks or acts of aggression. Only under that condition he was willing to turn over the exploitation of his country’s natural resources to the U.S. in a so-called mineral deal. He also had stated that he was not looking for a cease-fire; he wants an outright peace agreement, because an iron-clad peace agreement is better than a cease-fire that will allow Russia to re-arm and reposition itself for yet another attack. Trump so wanted the optics of a grandiose deal signing ceremony – as if he was a Tsar securing from a defeated adversary all sorts of concessions – that he lost sight of not having elaborated anything to give Zelenskyy in return! Zelenskyy did the honorable thing – he fact-checked Trump and Vice President Vance – and at the end no deal was signed. Now begins a round of recrimination by Trump against Zelenskyy sinking the deal!

Trump’s dream of getting a Nobel Peace Prize eviscerated with his ethnic-cleansing idea about Gaza. Today, his ambition of “mediating” peace between Ukraine and Russia too –along with another stab at the Nobel – went up in smoke! The dummkopf does not understand that mediating peace between contestants requires a certain detachment from both. But when he is in bed with Putin and Netanyahu, how can he be neutral enough to be an honest broker. But then honesty is not his strong suit, anyway.     

The takeaway from today’s Trump melt-down for the next four years is as follows:

1. When Trump says “let’s negotiate” he means I dictate and you take it down. It is my way or the highway.

2. When Trump says “I like to make deals” he means what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine too.

3. When Trump says “to make a deal, you must be ready to compromise” he means YOU must be ready to compromise.  

I often tried to figure out why is someone who thinks of himself to be such a gallant, charming, wealthy, and sincere person – even if ignorant, insensitive, uneducated, naïve, and a moron – can have no modicum of class. The man is a con artist and today Zelenskyy, with the sang froid of a war-tested commander-in-chief, sat though 50 minutes+ of his drivel, with virtually no time given to him to respond to the vitriol thrown at him, showed the world the meaning of “Ugly American” in real time.