Michael Willard, an American publicist, political analyst and CEO of the international PR-agency The Willard Group, shared his opinion on the results of 2019 and their global implications.
- The most important political events of 2019 were Brexit and Donald Trump’s impeachment. How you can characterize both of them? What were the biggest successes and failures?
- I woke up on a June morning in Kyiv in 2016 to a shock. Britain had narrowly voted to leave the European Union. In the time since, the country has appeared rudderless, and its leadership incompetent. It was ironic that at a time Ukraine was trying to become closer to the EU, Britain was opting out. In my view, it was a xenophobic reaction to immigration and a Brexit campaign that was anything but truthful. For example, I have a second home in Turkey. I have British next-door neighbors who favored Brexit and were forever complaining about immigrants flooding into Britain. They seemed not to realize the irony they were immigrants in Turkey. I think Britain is like a train heading into a tunnel—not realizing that the supposed “light at the end of the tunnel” is an on-coming train.
On President Trump, I am fearful every waking moment that he will do something careless. His generals have left, the wisest of his advisors have left, and there is not a supervisory adult in the room to monitor the actions of the five-year-old child at the helm. I am not encouraged about the future but have confidence that he will be tossed out next November. Hopefully, he will not do too much harm in the coming months. There is little chance he will be convicted in a US Senate dominated by Republicans. However, as long as there is a free investigatory press, his malfeasance and the “Ukraine issue” will not go away.
Ironically, when I had a company in Ukraine and we were asked to be involved in Ukraine competing for the L’viv Olympics way back in 2013, I nixed the suggestion that Trump would be a good paid spokesman for the effort. I said he was a clown at that time. My mind hasn’t changed.
- How would you describe Ukraine-US relations this year? Some of our politicians – such as – Lutsenko, Shokin and a "Servant of the People" MP Dubinsky – were trying to affect the impeachment procedure, even starring in Giuliani’s series. What would you recommend Ukraine to do?
- Ukraine can shut the door on politicians that peddle easily discredited conspiracy theories.
- Whom do you mean?
- Rudy Giuliani and other Americans responsible for these theories.
As of today, Giuliani’s reputation is in the toilet. He has torched what career he might have had left. However, I think Ukraine and the US can have good relations moving forward. I certainly don’t blame Zelensky for either his timid remarks in the meeting with Trump or in the telephone conversation he had with Trump which is the impetus to impeachment. He was, as the saying goes, caught between a rock and a hard place. Gaining lethal weaponry was important to the war effort and he wanted to be as accommodating as possible.
- Do you believe Zelensky can turn this situation around?
I favored Petro Poroshenko in the run-up to the Ukrainian elections. I felt he had done a creditable job following the revolution, particularly in building Ukraine’s military force so it could stand up — within reason — to Russia. So, in short, I think Zelensky can be a good President, and relations with the US are really more under US control.
- How would you assess Russia’s actions in 2019? Does it look like it might take a step back?
- There is no doubt that Russia has attempted to influence elections in the US and throughout Europe, and they will continue to do so. It is an inexpensive way through propaganda and deceit to win hearts and minds by dominating social media. They enlarge their influence on the cheap—while losing some influence at home with a so-so economy that is one-tenth the size of the US economy. They will not calm down—they will advance, not retreat when it comes to attempting to enlarge their sphere of influence.
- What steps did the US take to support Ukraine in light of the conflict with Russia? What else could be done?
Providing lethal weapons will be helpful. Under Obama, such help would merely aggravate Russia’s aggression at a time when Ukraine—right after the revolution—was ill-prepared to deal with it. Now, with a stronger military—again thanks to Poroshenko—it can be helpful. However, the most important thing in my view is that Ukraine needs to distill its message to the fact it is a thriving—though often flawed — democracy like that of the US, while Russia still is Reagan’s Evil Empire. In other words, Ukraine deserves help. It also needs to keep up efforts against corruption where it has made strides. Ukraine needs to billboard what it does well—both economically and politically. When I first came to Ukraine in late 1994, I would return home and knowledgeable people would remark that I was in Russia. No, Ukraine, I would reply. And one governor responded by saying, “Yes, I know Russia.” After two revolutions and fighting against Russia, Ukraine is on the map and has top-of-the-mind awareness. This is good.
- What political and economic tendencies would you highlight? What are this year’s main lessons?
I am not an economist, but as far as the US influencing the global economy, I think we are—an old expression here—“cruising for a bruising”. Due to Trump’s whopping tax cut to America’s richest—without a corresponding investment in human capital and American infrastructure—we have a deficit economy as we have never before had in our history. No economy can stand for long simply making the rich richer and forgetting about the other 99 percent. The rise in the US stock market is not a harbinger of good times, merely blue smoke and mirrors for a coming recession. We didn’t build anything that that tax cut. We didn’t focus on our roads, our airports or our rail system. A meltdown in America will have a ripple impact around the world.
- "Green" movements have become rather powerful in economy and policy. “Vegan” was the word of the year. What does it mean? Do you believe in such a tendency?
What I favor is this: Doing more with less. Experts predict the world will expand to more than nine billion people in the next 30 years. However, we will only have sufficient, useable, year-around water for a third of that number. We need to conserve. Hence, I favor innovation that uses less water to grow food, such as hydroponics and using irrigation techniques that conserve. However, as to veganism. I admire those folks, but I am not one of them. I believe in animal rights, but I also believe there must be a commonsense balance in terms of the food chain. There are too many people around the world who are at the bottom of the food chain pyramid in terms of supply and nutrition. However, I certainly believe all of us must work harder to lessen our carbon footprint, including moving more swiftly to renewable energy which is becoming less expensive and employing greater numbers of people.