The ramifications of the president’s appeasement of Russia will be felt widely, not least in the alliance he recklessly undermined

In Graham Greene’s 1955 novel, The Quiet American, Alden Pyle, a CIA agent, reckons he has all the answers to conflict in colonial era Vietnam. Pyle’s ignorance, arrogance and dangerous scheming, intended to bring peace, result instead in the deaths of many innocents and ultimately his own. In today’s too-real, nonfiction world, Donald Trump is Pyle. Except he’s The Noisy American.

He thinks he’s a great deal-maker. He never stops trumpeting his brilliance. Yet his North Korea “deal of the century” was a fiasco. He handed Afghanistan to the Taliban on a plate. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu runs rings around him. Now Trump-Pyle proposes another rubbish deal – selling out Ukraine. America’s very own surrender monkey is Vladimir Putin’s useful idiot. No matter how officials spin it, Trump’s concessions, made before ceasefire talks with Russia even begin, are calamitous, primarily for Ukraine but also for Europe’s security, the transatlantic alliance, and other vulnerable targets, such as Taiwan. As stated, Trump’s giveaways – accepting the loss of sovereign Ukrainian territory to Russian aggression, denying Nato membership to Kyiv, withholding US security guarantees and troops – are shameful appeasement, amounting to betrayal.