Rachel Marsden

PARIS — Trump is clearly looking for an exit ramp in Ukraine, but someone desperately wants him to blow right past it. That someone needs a swift kick to the curb.

Word has it that U.S. President Donald Trump is now entertaining the notion of outsourcing America’s role in the Ukraine war to private contractors. So says Britain’s Telegraph.

That way no one will know that America is even there! At least not until some spectacular error by these militarized American “civilians” makes global headlines.

Why even bother playing these stupid games? Just get the heck out of there, already. Instead, Trump is being manipulated to stick around Ukraine in exactly the same way that your broke friend tries to convince you to stay with him at the bar until closing time — to pay for his drinks and cover his tab.

So who might this “friend” be?

When he isn’t being lectured by the European Commission bureaucracy about his country’s debt being out of control, French President Emmanuel Macron spends his time drumming up fear on the global stage to justify deploying European boots on the ground in Ukraine. In the latest instance, the French health care system is now being asked to prepare for a wartime footing by next year, per the Canard Enchaine investigative outlet.

Macron spent the Covid fiasco telling citizens that France was “at war” with a virus, drumming up business for Big Pharma. So here we go again, except with Big Defense as the beneficiary. Against whom this time? “The Russian threat is here and is affecting European countries, affecting us,” Macron said back in March.

It isn’t “here,” actually. At least not here in Paris. Unless you count any rogue beef stroganoff still managing to infiltrate the local bistros.

But the mere notion of France or the European Union having to go to war with Russia certainly assists Macron to fulfill his longstanding fantasy of a pan-European army. Africa was supposed to serve as the theater for that — until Europe’s counterterrorism and stability operations resulted in so many coups occurring right under their noses that they were ultimately kicked out in favor of new local partnerships with … Russia. Sounds like the kind of “threat” posed by someone who starts dating your ex and moves in with them after you get dumped. Who wouldn’t go around badmouthing them after that?

What the world (and Trump) see is much different than the front-row view from here in France. The country is headed for yet another non-confidence vote this month, and potentially a fifth government in less than two years. Macron’s latest handpicked prime minister, Francois Bayrou, has just publicly tossed his hands in the air at the notion of needing to cut another EUR48 billion from the budget.

Bayrou has blamed boomers who insist on now being paid what they massively contributed in taxes to their own retirement during their entire working lives. He blames the French people for availing themselves of the entitlements given to them by the trough-gorging lawmakers. He wants the French to give up two stat holidays per year but admittedly refused to disturb the summer vacation of the French ruling class to address these issues.

Still, Macron has insisted on going all-in on French defense production — “for Ukraine,” of course — even while the French struggle under clawbacks of state relief measures initially used to offset the explosion of energy costs from the EU’s decision to forego cheap Russia gas in favor of pricier American LNG.

French consumers are now seeing the tax on their energy bills increase from 5.5 percent to 20 percent, while Macron shovels their cash into the defense industrial complex.

Bet Ukrainians didn’t know their fighting and dying happens to serve as a useful pretext for Macron to whitewash France’s tanking GDP. Various analysts, including the EU itself, have calculated that spending tens of billions more by 2030 could add up to 0.5 percent GDP per year compared to a flat path, particularly in light of the heavy role that defense manufacturing plays in the French economy.

So it’s not hard to imagine why Macron desperately needs to maintain this war as a marketing tool for this state-backed tax cash laundering operation. It also explains why he’s done everything short of strapping on Napoleon’s old bicorne in calling for European boots on the ground in Ukraine — but only if Americans are there to act as a bouncer for his show against any Russians.

And that’s where Trump comes in. By entertaining any notion of continued involvement, even via contractors, Trump is just enabling this lunacy. Instead, he needs to put an end to it. Cut Macron and the EU off from their war racket and pull out entirely. Focus on peace and business deals to secure it. Any private security can be deployed in strict service of those economic interests, not to babysit Europeans with another agenda or ulterior motives.

Dropping it in the EU’s lap and walking away is precisely what they fear. But only because it would force them to sober up and face their own spending problems, for which Russia and war serve as convenient distractions and even more convenient bogeymen.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com.