‘COURTING TROUBLE’

Murdoch Paper Goes Scorched Earth on Trump’s ‘Worst Idea’

The president could ruin Washington’s global credibility, the paper warned.

Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper has savaged Donald Trump for floating a summit with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board unloaded on the president, 80, after he suggested that he would be open to a Yalta-style superpower meeting next month without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the Wall Street Journal, Putin will attempt to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war that would favor the Kremlin.

The proposed meeting has drawn comparisons to the 1945 Yalta Conference, where U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet General Secretary Josef Stalin discussed the future of Europe after World War II.

“Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not, whatever I can do to end the war,” Trump said this week of the conflict launched by Putin nearly five years ago.

Putin floated the proposed summit during an Oct. 9 phone call with Trump. Relations between the two leaders have grown warmer over the last few weeks, alarming Ukraine and its allies in Washington and Europe.

Trump also moved this month to waive tariffs and sanctions targeting Russian energy buyers and officials, offering little explanation beyond saying the decision served the “national interests” of the United States. Russia on Wednesday released jailed U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard.

The newspaper’s editorial board attacked the proposal in an opinion piece titled “Trump’s New Global Triumvirate?”, published Tuesday.

“It’s true that Congress and the courts can’t stop a determined President on foreign policy, but they can make him pay a political price,” the paper said. “A second Yalta is arguably the worst idea of the second Trump term, and the President would be betting far more than his own legacy.”

The paper warned that any “coerced peace” in Ukraine would “divide NATO and broadcast to America’s Pacific allies that the U.S. is a dangerous friend.”

“Mr. Trump’s new policy looks less like opportunistic pressure on Ukraine and more like a larger attempt to produce a false peace by appeasing Mr. Putin,” the Journal said. “Meanwhile, he’s spent months chasing a deal with Mr. Xi. Is a larger accommodation with both what Mr. Trump is seeking as a legacy? If so, he is courting trouble at home and abroad.”

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Trump would also ruin Washington’s global credibility as a reliable ally by participating in trilateral dialogue with his counterparts, the paper’s editorial board said. It could also “plant the seeds for a larger conflict” beyond Ukraine.

“Any confab among Messrs. Xi, Putin and Trump that tried to dictate Ukraine’s fate would be a mistake… All the more so because Messrs. Xi and Putin are working together to undermine America’s interests and influence,” the Journal wrote.

The editorial board of the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, which Trump once described as his favorite paper, also warned that the proposed summit could spark a GOP civil war or lead to the 80-year-old’s impeachment.

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“If President Donald Trump wants a full-on riot within the Republican Party, going along with Vladimir Putin’s idea for a “Yalta 2” summit with Xi Jinping is the way to do it,” the editorial board wrote.

The Journal has not shyed away from criticizing Trump throughout his second term in the White House, angering the president, who last May said the “rotten” newspaper had “gone to hell.”

When contacted for comment, the White House referred the Daily Beast to a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“People need to grow up when it comes to foreign policy a little bit,” Rubio told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s unusual for the three most powerful, nuclear-armed nations on Earth to have their leaders communicate with each other,” Rubio said.

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Isabel van BrugenFreelance Writer

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