Although Donald J. Trump has only just become U.S. president, many Americans are already wondering if he will survive his full term in office or be forced to resign. This problem afflicts Petro Poroshenko as well and his confidence in clinging to power until May 2019 is rapidly evaporating.

What is different is that the U.S. has a vice president who would take over if Trump was forced to resign (impeachment is very difficult and President Richard Nixon also resigned). In Ukraine, there is no vice president (lawmaker Ihor Kononenko does not count) and therefore Poroshenko’s only way out would be like Leonid Kravchuk, who called early elections in 1994 which he lost. Poroshenko would also lose early elections.

Although Ukraine is not beginning good relations with the new U.S. president, there is a way for Poroshenko to cement a strategic partnership with Trump that would reduce the need for Trump to cozy up to Vladimir Putin. Therefore, in the interests of defending Ukrainian national security, I would like to propose Poroshenko the following advice how to make Trump his strategic ally.

Trump and Poroshenko both have a similar problem in low public support (44 percent do not approve; and only 36 percent approve of Trump).

Trump is beginning his presidency with the lowest support of any U.S president for four decades. Only 36 percent say Trump is honest while 56 percent do not, which is probably similar to how Ukrainians view Poroshenko; 54 percent believe oligarch Trump has “more conflicts of interests than other politicians,” which is again similar to how Ukrainians view Poroshenko.

Poroshenko could loan political technologists and spin doctors to Trump who would apply the dark powers of “political technology” developed in the U.S.S.R. and post-Soviet Eurasia to American politics. Trump with his fondness for Putin will be receptive to being surrounded by Eurasian political technologists who would propose tried and tested “technologies” to attack his opponents and ensure the correct election results. Poroshenko’s people can show Trump how to buy opinion polls that show the great leader is still the country’s most popular politician. This would go down well with Trump who is obsessed with ratings and numbers.

Poroshenko’s political technologists would show how to train journalists to write “jeanzy” in the American media. The prevalence of fake news stories among Trump supporters using social media would be a match made in heaven for Ukrainian political technologists who have long perfected the art of fake news and trolls acting as fake online supporters.

Poroshenko’s knowledge of the television market would be invaluable advice for Trump to buy his own channel. It could broadcast Reality TV 24 hours a day. After all, as in ancient Rome, Trump could keep the lesser educated masses who voted for him happy with electronic circuses.

Trump and Poroshenko share a character trait of narcissism. I am unsure if Poroshenko is similar to Trump who never reads books. Nevertheless, Poroshenko should ask “Ukraine’s Oxford” (Kyiv Mohyla Academy) to award Trump an honorary doctorate. Another way to salute Trump’s vanity is to offer him Ukrainian academics as ghost writers who would write intellectual endeavors that would be then published as the great leader’s wise thoughts.

Trump’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon is a white American nationalist who hates outsiders. His work would be assisted by Poroshenko pressuring oligarchs to loan their fake nationalist Oleh Lyashko to assist Bannon. Lyashko would undoubtedly be able to offer advice on how to talk outlandish rhetoric and gibberish, do crazy stunts, and provide super fake news stories for Bannon.

An important area of expertise that the Ukrainian president can provide will be controlling criminal prosecutions. Poroshenko believes that controlling the prosecutor general’s office provides him with control over other oligarchs, is a means to make money from selling protection and a way to threaten oligarchs and politicians if they step out of line. Trump could, therefore,m learn a lot from Poroshenko how to control and use the attorney general’s office. Very important will be Poroshenko’s advice on appointing an attorney general who has, like Yuriy Lutsenko, no legal training.

Bannon’s people and Poroshenko’s speech writers share a common provincialism. While writing speeches for their great leaders when they are traveling to foreign countries, few of them have ever traveled abroad. This makes it understandably troubling how they can write speeches for their leaders for state visits in the outside world that they know nothing about. Few Ukrainian speech writers know English or routinely read English; indeed, Poroshenko’s people loath the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s only English-language newspaper.

Presidents George W. Bush’s and Trump’s advisers do not know the outside world, have never traveled there, watch American news that has no foreign news and do not speak any foreign languages.
Only a third of Americans agree with Trump’s plans to transfer his business interests to his sons rather than place them in a blind trust. Trump and Poroshenko both agree on not selling their businesses while they are presidents. Poroshenko could provide advice – as one oligarch to another – on the important question of how to get one’s kids elected to congress. Oleksiy Poroshenko is an important deputy in the Poroshenko bloc.

Poroshenko’s Grey Cardinal, Ihor Kononenko, could be loaned to Trump to train a counterpart how to cajole, bribe and threaten members of the lower house of the US Congress to not hurt the presidents’ interests.

Poroshenko can provide advice on how to keep one’s business open in a country with which your country is at war. Poroshenko’s Lipetsk factory earned $72 million in dividends during the three years Ukraine was at war in 2014-2016.

If the U.S. and Mexico go to war, Poroshenko could, therefore, provide invaluable advice how Trump could continue to make money from his business assets in Mexico.

Poroshenko could also provide advice to Trump on how to make money from continuing to sell a country it is at war with (Mexico) with fresh water and energy. Poroshenko has years of experience in selling energy to Crimea, a territory occupied by Russia which tries at every opportunity to prevent Ukraine itself buying gas. If Trump has problems with Indians in Dakota over his proposed oil pipeline he can turn to Poroshenko who is an expert on handling Crimean Tatars.

A major area Trump could receive advice about from his Ukrainian strategic partner is on the question of offshore tax havens. Ukrainian oligarchs are the most professional in the world in the many ways of how prevent the payment of taxes. Poroshenko could open up an entire new tax-free world for Trump by acting as his tour guide in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, two of Ukraine’s biggest foreign investors, Lichtenstein, and Panama.

During this difficult time for Ukraine’s economy, the provision of presidential advice to foreign leaders and oligarchs could become a major Ukrainian export. Over time it would come to rival Ukraine’s export of arms.

Taras Kuzio is a senior research fellow at CIUS, University of Alberta, and author of “Putin’s War Against Ukraine. Revolution, Nationalism and Crime” published next month.