The day the old American order cracked in the Oval Office
Catastrophic Trump-Zelenskyy meeting crystalizes historic turning point
It would take some scrounging around the bottom of the barrel to find a historical precedent for what transpired Friday in the Oval Office.
There simply aren't good parallels.
On live TV, the U.S. president argued with the leader of a friendly nation facing existential peril — then expelled him from the White House and cancelled their lunch.
U.S. President Donald Trump pointed angrily at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and even did a mocking impression of him as a faux-tough guy.
What's the precedent for that? Is it the 1959 kitchen debate — where the U.S. vice-president and Soviet leader sparred on camera? But those weren't allies, and it was a relatively civil debate of ideas.
This wasn't. This turned personal.
A new geopolitical era
To find a precedent, one expert looked back to the defunct Soviet bloc, and how the Kremlin would treat subservient communist leaders.
"How they humiliated them in public. How they bullied them. There has been no precedent in the United States," said Aurel Braun, an expert on eastern Europe at the University of Toronto, calling the meeting "extraordinary."
The catastrophically bad meeting signalled our new geopolitical era — where tributes to allies, democracy and the postwar order are fading in the rear view.
We're seeing flashes of something else ahead: Hard power, wielded by hard leaders, lorded over their neighbours on a scale unseen in generations.
This fundamental turn in U.S. foreign policy played out in real time, on camera. What does this mean for American allies? One senior U.S. senator, Democrat Mark Warner, said he's worried for Canada.
America's traditional adversaries had reason to rejoice on Friday.
In Moscow, the celebratory posts online popped like champagne corks. Referring to Zelenskyy, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on X: "The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office."
In Asia, anxiety is already mounting in Taiwan after Trump refused to comment on whether he'd defend it from invasion; geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer said on X that China might be increasingly tempted after Friday's performance.
Trump's allies: Zelenskyy blew it
Of course, Trump's allies describe events differently.
In their telling, Zelensky was impudent and insulting — asking for more and more, and lecturing without thanking. The photo op soured, as Zelenskyy publicly pressed for a U.S. security guarantee.
"Have you said, 'Thank you,' once this entire meeting?" Vice-President JD Vance asked. Trump cut off the Ukrainian leader at one point: "No, no. You've done a lot of talking."
Trump even ridiculed Zelenskyy's enmity for Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it an impediment to a deal: "He's got tremendous hatred."
In Zelenskyy's view, of course, he's perfectly entitled to disdain the dictator who invaded his country in a war that's destroyed countless communities and potentially killed hundreds of thousands.
He's reluctant to sign a ceasefire agreement that lacks a U.S. security promise. Zelenskyy spoke of how Putin has broken agreements in the past, and insisted he would sign a ceasefire, but only with guarantees.
It was an awkward day for the subset of Americans who consider themselves friends of both the Ukrainian people and of Trump.
Sen. Lindsey Graham is one such person — he's frequently visited Ukraine, has supported its war and is politically aligned with Trump.
He said Zelenskyy blew it.
Graham noted that he had spoken to the Ukrainian leader earlier in the day and urged him to be courteous; to keep the Oval Office meeting positive, celebrate signing a new economic deal and work out the complicated security questions later.
"Devastated" is how Graham described his reaction, speaking to Fox News and calling the meeting an "absolute, utter disaster."
He questioned whether Zelenskyy is capable of leading Ukraine to a peace deal and suggested he may need to be replaced if Ukraine wants a deal.
A witness to history buries her face
Most Americans are unlikely to be pleased by Friday's spectacle.
Americans remain infinitely more sympathetic to Ukraine than to Russia. It's no contest, even among most Republicans.
Yet they also want the war to be over. Americans' interest in aiding Ukraine's defence is waning badly — especially, but not exclusively, among Republicans.
So maybe this was the blowup before the resolution, an unusually dramatic bit of Trump-style theatrics before a deal most people can support.
"It is not over. Mr. Trump can change his mind in a New York minute," Braun told CBC News. But whatever happens, he says, "This has very long historical implications."
Online, there were people celebrating. Not just Medvedev, but also the hard core of the MAGA right, revelling in the slapdown delivered by their leader.
In that room, as the scene unfolded in real time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat stone-faced, and Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, buried her head in her hands, covering her eyes as a witness to history.
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