By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
President Donald Trump has just won the Vietnam War – except that he’s too modest to declare it a victory over Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, or claim theirs was a war against Vietnam which would never have happened if he had been president.
In the first place, Trump’s predecessors would not have contemplated expressing their honour and pleasure in dealing with a Vietnamese Communist. In the second place, they would never have imagined declaring victory over the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army by requiring them to buy US-made SUVs, not when the retreating and defeated US Army was surrendering their vehicles for no charge at all.
“It is my Great Honor to announce,” Trump tweeted on July 2, “that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam after speaking with To Lam, the Highly Respected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam…The Terms are that Vietnam will pay the United States a 20% Tariff on any and all goods sent into our Territory, and a 40% Tariff on any Transshipping. In return, Vietnam will do something that they have never done before, give the United States of America TOTAL ACCESS to their Markets for Trade. In other words, they will “OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,” meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff. It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam. Dealing with General Secretary To Lam, which I did personally, was an absolute pleasure.”
The telephone call with To Lam took place on July 2. There had been an earlier one between Trump and Lam on April 25. Between the two, the Vietnamese abandoned their demand for a zero-percent tariff for their exports to the US. There is no telling, however, not from Trump nor from Lam, what agreement they reached on Trump’s demand that Vietnam join his trade war against China and stop importing high-technology components and electronics from China and re-exporting them to the US.
The smell of Trump’s victories over his enemies comes at a small price. Between this latest one over Vietnam, a fresh capitulation over Hamas, announced on July 1, and the “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear programme on June 22, Trump has announced that he is selling a line of victory fragrances for men and women; that’s to say Trump’s Fight Fight Fight cologne and Victory 45-47 perfume at $199 and $249, respectively; $100 discount if you buy two.
No president of the US has ever marketed the scent of his body parts; no president has ever collected money for turning elected office into a brand-name for consumer sales. Not even the kings and queens of England charge merchants for issuing royal warrants. But Trump has made the smell of victory an “official fragrance for patriots who never back down…your rallying cry in a bottle…embodies strength, power and victory”.
From the Russian point of view, this newest victory of Trump’s confirms he’s nothing more than a вонючка (“stinker”), a conman, a fraud. President Vladimir Putin has already appointed a special negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, to negotiate bribery, fraud, grand larceny, tax evasion and money laundering with Trump and his business allies.
Putin has said himself in his most recent remarks on Trump: “We have good prospects for economic cooperation. We are aware that American businesses are demonstrating interest, showing intent, and sending signals about their desire to return to our market. We can only welcome this. However, all such developments require consistent preparation. That said, overall, such a meeting [with Trump] remains entirely possible, and we would be pleased to arrange it.”
This wasn’t exactly the victory smell Trump calls 45-47 Victory. About the negotiations to end the war in the Ukraine, Putin told Trump to look at the term sheets, the 22-point memorandum tabled by General Keith Kellogg for the Ukraine and the 33-point memorandum tabled for Russia by Vladimir Medinsky. “Regarding the memorandums,” Putin said, “there were no surprises. I will not tell you anything surprising, either. These are two absolutely opposing memorandums, but that is precisely why talks are set up and held – to find ways to bring positions closer. The fact that they were diametrically opposed does not seem surprising to me, either. I would not like to go into details, as I believe it would be counterproductive – even harmful – to get ahead of the talks…The agenda? In my opinion, the discussion should focus on the memoranda from both sides.”
In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, Ray McGovern and I report how our noses smell what is happening between Trump and Putin. The noses have also detected two new smells in the wind – the US arms delivery pause to the Ukraine, and the telephone call of July 1 between Putin and the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
We start by poking our noses into Israeli and Iranian politics by answering Nima’s question: Who won the war?
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhpK2A_I7tQ
On the Ukraine war, Ray selects as his source Dmitry Peskov. He’s the Kremlin spokesman, the equivalent of Karoline Leavitt at the White House. Here is the official Tass news agency record of what Peskov says.
My Moscow sources keep their names to themselves. In their latest news, they disclose there is active debate between the military and political decision-makers, and the intelligence services, over Trump’s rationality in his recent warfighting in the Middle East and against Russia. “Iran is now central in the Russian discourse,” commented a Moscow source in a position to know. “Putin will not deviate from the pure diplomacy. There’s a two-track approach. It is part of Russia’s warfighting strategy. We now know that Trump is refusing to come to any of the terms we have tabled in Istanbul for a peace settlement. He keeps threatening to escalate. His record is showing the US won’t withdraw from the Middle East war and he is refusing to stop running the Ukraine war. So we draw the obvious conclusions. What’s the point of Putin announcing those if Trump shows he isn’t listening, won’t agree, maybe can’t understand?”
DONALD TRUMP’S MILITARY OPERATIONS – ROUGH RIDER (YEMEN), SPIDERWEB (RUSSIA’S TRIAD BOMBER BASES), MIDNIGHT HAMMER (IRAN)
Sources from the front have added that the longer Trump fights on, and with the European allies continues the supply of arms and battlefield intelligence to the regime in Kiev and Lvov, the less territory will remain for negotiation, and the deeper the demilitarized zone will extend westward. “The pace of the energy, industrial, and other infrastructure attacks is picking up because our drone and rocket production has been increasing. There is greater inventory of all weapons now; there are no material shortages. But there is extreme caution to avoid casualties. The only additions [for incorporation] are Odessa and Krivoy Rog.”
In this week’s new podcast there are two breaking news topics:
- The Ukraine arms pause. The first news leaks (from US and Ukrainian officials opposed) came from this report. It represents an acknowledgement from Washington that Trump’s military operations in Yemen, Israel, and Iran are running out of ammunition. Peskov’s comment is that “as far as we understand, the reasons behind this move were empty warehouses, as well as a lack of arms in these warehouses. But in any case, the fewer arms supplied to Ukraine, the closer the end of the special military operation will be.” This is less optimistic than Ray’s assessment in the podcast. Trump’s intention, he said he had expressed when he met Vladimir Zelensky last week at NATO. “They [Ukrainians] do want to have the anti-missile missiles, as they call them, the Patriots and we’re going to see if we can make some available. You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them, too. We were supplying them to Israel and they’re very effective. 100 percent effective. Hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing, as you probably know.”
- The Macron-Putin telephone call of July 1. Putin initiated the call, according to the practice of Kremlin communiqués which explicitly identify initiative on the foreign side when that happens; omitting this from the Kremlin text signifies either that Putin initiated the call or that both sides prepared it together. Here is the Kremlin communiqué.
Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77337
Peskov told Tass a day later that the call “was initiated by the French side. It was the French side’s idea.” He added: “There have been no requests from Germany or the UK.” He also said the presidents “have not discussed such a meeting. So far, phone communication has been sufficient for exchanging positions.” Asked whether in the two-hour call either president had touched on terms for the Ukraine negotiations, Peskov reportedly said: “No, he did not. They exchanged views in detail. This was a good opportunity to inform each other of their positions.”
McGovern interpreted Peskov to have been dismissive of the significance of the French move. McGovern followed dismissively in the podcast.
I explained there was more to the call than that. The Russian strategy is to explore the extent to which French suspicion of German and British schemes of expanding their territorial control of Europe and Macron’s distrust of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prime Minister Keir Starmer can be mobilized into a new “holy alliance” of the Catholic states (France, Italy, Spain with Orthodox Greece) against the Protestants and Anglo-Saxons (Germany, UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland).
The evidence for this potential division includes newly released opinion polling of European state attitudes towards NATO, war with the Ukraine, Russia, and Zelensky.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/06/23/views-of-nato-2025/
The combination of the Kremlin and Elysée read-outs also indicates the potential for France and Russia to oppose Trump’s “total obliteration” line towards Iran’s nuclear programme. According to the Elysée “with regard to Iran, the President of the Republic recalled the responsibilities of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and therefore of France and Russia on the nuclear issue. He stressed the urgency for Iran to comply with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and in particular full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors must be able to resume their work without delay. He expressed his determination to seek a diplomatic solution that would allow a lasting and demanding settlement of the nuclear issue, the issue of Iran’s missiles and its role in the region. The two Presidents have decided to coordinate their efforts and to talk to each other soon in order to follow up together on this topic.”
The Kremlin read-out says: “it was noted that respecting Tehran’s legitimate right to develop peaceful nuclear technology and continue fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which includes cooperating with the IAEA, was crucial. The two leaders spoke in favour of settling the crisis around Iran’s nuclear programme and any other differences arising in the Middle East exclusively via political and diplomatic means. They agreed to maintain contact in order to coordinate their stances if necessary.”
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