If Americans want lower food and energy prices, they should support and thank Zelensky and berate Trump

Ukraine Presidency

 In a now globally infamous episode, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his recent White House visit for not expressing enough gratitude for the United States’ support of Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s unwarranted and arguably genocidal invasion of its sovereign territory.

Global ire toward Trump aside, we have to recognize the bad faith and lack of care for Americans’ interests and pocket books in this notorious tantrum that resulted in Trump kicking Zelensky out of the White House.

Trump promised during his campaign to address inflation and lower costs for Americans, particularly food and energy costs. Yet if he really wished to honor this promise, he would be advocating for swift and substantial support for Ukraine and playing hardball with Russian President Vladimir Putin, instead of swooning in his autocratic bro-mance with him.

Let’s think about it.  Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine is and has been a key cause of rising oil and gas prices, of energy costs overall, and thus of the surging prices for all goods and services. Most things we buy–groceries, clothing, etc–have to be transported via boat, plane, or truck, so rising fuel prices make the cost of just about everything rise.

Ukraine, and Russia for that matter, provide large amounts of grain to the world food supply. The Russian occupation of Odessa, a major Ukrainian port on the Black Sea, left tens of millions of tons of grain unshipped and on the verge of rotting in 2022, with future harvests and shipments threatened as well. This blockage was a major cause of food shortages and swiftly rising food prices. To date, Russia continues to target Ukraine’s grain infrastructure, thus threatening the global food supply and spurring inflation.

And the cause? Let’s be clear: A monomaniacal dictator believed he had the right to violently and murderously invade a sovereign nation for his own selfish purposes, displacing millions, destroying lives and infrastructure, and disrupting and threatening the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions around the globe.

Imagine you woke up one day to find you had no food or energy, or your home had been bombed, you couldn’t walk safely in the streets you weren’t sure how you would eat or feed your family, or you had to evacuate to another country, leaving your whole life you had built behind.

Such is life with autocratic rule around the globe. One person’s petty and selfish desires can destroy and determine people’s lives.

And this isn’t just a fight for Ukrainians. Putin is happy to disrupt global food and energy supplies, portending mass famines across the globe as he seeks to blackmail global leaders to accede to his demands.

The fight for Ukraine and to open Odessa is the fight for global democracy, and—frankly—it’s the fight against inflation.

Global democracy creates the stable relationships and economic cooperation necessary to support the needs of the global population and generate political stability so we are not subject to the political and economic disruptions—which are deadly, inimical to human life—of one man’s idiosyncratic whims.

And yet we hear how inflation worries caused Americans to vote for autocracy, for Republican control of Congress, which we can see will mean less rights, less ability to vote and have a say in the political process, and less economic democracy, given Republicans have shown no tendency or desire to pass legislation to serve working-class and middle-class Americans.

During World War II, Americans endured rationing and made sacrifices for both the national and global good—for global democracy.

If we want to end inflation, we have to recognize how this dynamic is bound up in assaults on democracy around the globe and at home.