U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in the Oval Office at the White House., June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Donald Trump just got another chance to fight charges that he’s soft on antisemitism. Let’s hope he took it.
The president held talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Washington on Tuesday. The Ukraine leader emerged from the meeting saying Kiev had “received strong support from the U.S. side” over sovereignty, territorial integrity and the “independence of our state.” For Ukraine, the meeting was a win because Poroshenko got to visit the White House ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For Trump, it seems to have been a missed opportunity to win political capital at home.
Trump should have spoken out against what many see as Ukraine’s troubling glorification of Nazi collaborators. Poroshenko presumably focused on Russia’s occupation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region. Trump should have broadened the agenda to call out Kiev for its official state policy of honoring controversial figures from World War Two.
The latest example: local authorities in the capital recently voted to rename a major street after a former Nazi collaborator and anti-Semite named Roman Shukhevych.
Read more: Commentary: How Trump can show he’s tough on anti-Semitism | Reuters
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