By Baton Haxhiu
Yesterday Trump didn’t just make a mistake for himself, he destroyed us all. Even Kosovo before anything even started. But when a president sees states as corporations and alliances as trade agreements, he doesn’t just make personal mistakes, he changes the rules of the game for everyone. And when the game is based only on strength and profit, the little ones no longer have a place at the table
I saw and experienced the meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. I wasn’t there physically to understand more, but I was watching and feeling the weight of every word, every awkward pause and every blank look of Zelensky.
It was a moment that could not pass without being experienced, even by a person like me, who comes from a small country like Kosovo, a periphery of the world that is rarely or almost never seen as a factor. But I felt what I experienced, since I saw and heard Trump and the whole event, I realized that I am not here to remain silent, because I know and am very clear about what will happen to Kosovo.
Yesterday there was a heavy silence that falls on people when the power of empire is brutally displayed.
Many prefer not to speak. Perhaps out of fear of what might happen when you tell the truth, perhaps even out of the feeling that it makes no sense, because those who make decisions do not listen. But I do not believe in silence. I do not believe in that illusion that if we do not express our concern, then it does not exist. That is why I am writing my concern from the periphery of the world about the Trump-Zelensky meeting.
What happened at that meeting was not simply a clash between two leaders. It was a clear demonstration of a fundamental change in the way the great power sees the world and its allies.
It was a moment when the language of diplomacy was stripped away like an unnecessary mask and replaced by a blunt, brutal discourse with no attempt to maintain even the slightest desire for respect.
When the President of the United States told the President of Ukraine that he had no more soldiers and was finished, he was not just humiliating Zelensky. He was sending a message to the whole world that if you have no power, you have no value.
This was not a political statement, but a proclamation of a new world order, where relationships are no longer built on shared values or on a history of alliances, but on a pure hierarchy of strength and weakness. The strong over the weak. It was a clear message that in this new order, small states have no place except as territories to be exploited or forgotten.
Trump scared me because he did not want to understand, and did not hide, the difference between a state and a corporation.
States form alliances, maintain global balances, build long-term security. Corporations make deals, seek profits, see only the bottom line.
The White House is not a business office, and an international relationship is not a contract where one party can buy the other in the name of net profit.
When the leader of the world’s greatest power fails to understand this distinction, then everything is at stake.
The meeting between Trump and Zelensky was a return to the order of the “balance of power” before the two world wars, when diplomacy did not exist and power was the only language spoken.
There was no attempt to find common ground. It was a duel, not a conversation. A battle for dominance, not a search for a solution. And this shows something even more dangerous: that those who govern no longer have the patience to negotiate. They stand their ground and wait for the other to give in.
I come from a small country like Kosovo, a region that knows all too well what happens when the powerful treat the weak as useless. History has shown us that when diplomacy fails, there is no vacuum, only violence. When the world starts to see small states as commodities to be traded rather than allies to be defended, then no country is safer.
But for me, this is not just a theoretical matter. This is tangible.
I come from a country that exists thanks to the support of its allies. From a country that knows what it means to be small, to not have a large army, to not have large natural resources to negotiate, to not have the influence to buy the world’s attention.
I come from Kosovo, a country that knows better than many others what it looks like when the world decides to stop caring about you.
And for that I curse this government and Kurti in particular, for not putting an end to the solution to the Kosovo problem.
And that is precisely why what I saw at that meeting scares me.
Because today it is Zelensky who is being told that he is finished, but tomorrow it could be someone else.
It could be Kosovo!
Because yesterday I saw that America is starting to see every relationship with other countries as a commercial transaction and not as a strategic engagement between allies.
The question is what will happen to countries that have nothing to offer except their history and the need for support? What will happen to us?
Should we turn to those countries that will emerge as potential candidates to offer protection?
In a world where the language of force is the only one being spoken, the small ones no longer have a voice. And if the great powers decide that small states are simply an unnecessary cost in their strategic balance, then history teaches us that their fate is not good.
I am not writing this because I believe that my voice can change something. I am not that naive. But I believe that the truth must be told, even if it is not heard.
And perhaps, in this dark time, telling the truth is the bravest act we have left.
That is why I do not like why today there is silence.
And, from experience, I know that when silence becomes a tactic of human life, then freedom will be sold as a business.
From experience, I also know why people remain silent. They always do it because fear is easier than confrontation.
And of course, they make calculations with silence because they hope that Trump will make so many mistakes that he will collapse on his own.
But those who remain silent forget one thing: when a leader behaves like a businessman and not like a statesman, he does not make mistakes only for himself, he turns the world into a market with no other value than profit, and power is the only price.
What I saw on the screen in the meeting with Zelensky made me understand that Trump is no longer a free America, he is an America of business.
I understood that for President Trump, countries are not allies, but clients. And clients either pay or are left to go bankrupt.
Freedom, for him, has no meaning if it cannot be sold. Diplomacy has no value if it cannot be capitalized on.
Thus, the world is going backwards, to an era where there are no more agreements, no security between allies, but only power.
In an order where the little ones no longer negotiate for their existence because they either buy it or disappear.
And in this new world, where everything has a price, what happens to us? In the end, not what will happen to Ukraine and the Baltic States and Kosovo, but what will happen to man, under the reign of Trump.
Surely Trump will fail, or the world until now based on the order we know, that of security between allies, of international law, of the strength of international institutions will have a terrible end.
This is why his language is disrespectful, why his meetings seem for what they are, an aggressive show and not like diplomatic talks. /Albanian Post/
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