New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warns President Trump that if he continues with the diesel deal with Russia he “will enter the history books in the chapter on leaders who sold out their country’s democratic values to appease a dictator.” Friedman then compares Trump to, who else, Neville Chamberlain, who also, according to Friedman, was a “traitor to his country’s core values.” But, Friedman writes, Trump is worse because Chamberlain was trying to avert a world war whereas Trump is doing the diesel deal supposedly to avoid Republicans losing the midterm elections. The headline for the column says that Trump’s deal “shames us all,” but it’s Thomas Friedman who should be ashamed.

Friedman apparently cares more about Ukrainian “democracy” (in a country under martial law, with elections suspended, where Zelensky rules by decree, referenda are dismissed, opposition parties are banned, and media is nationalized) than with providing some economic relief to American consumers. In his view, making an energy deal with Russia in an effort to lower diesel prices in the United States and thereby lower the costs of goods that are transported by trucks and other diesel vehicles is to be against American “values.” Placing the interests of American consumers ahead of the interests of Ukraine, in Friedman’s world, is to be a “traitor” to America’s core values.