Trump takes a pass on brokering peace in Ukraine

Has Donald Trump just announced the most consequential foreign policy reversal of his presidency? If so, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and France’s Emmanuel Macron – the last leaders to speak to Trump just before his epochal announcement – should be careful what they wish for.

In the mother of all flip-flops, Trump on Wednesday posted on Truth Social that “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” That’s a position that even Biden, in his most optimistic moments, never dared to take. Trump claimed that Russians were finding it “almost impossible” to buy gasoline (by implication, as a result of Ukrainian drone strikes), that “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble.” To add insult to injury, Trump also called Russia a “paper tiger” that had been “fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.” 

Ouch. That’s about as hard a diplomatic gut-punch that Trump could deliver, short perhaps of calling Putin a coward and a liar. Trump also went out of his way to praise Zelensky at a civil sit-down meeting at the United Nations. “Frankly, Ukraine is doing a very good job of stopping this very large army,” Trump said. “It’s pretty amazing.” That’s a very far cry from Trump’s confrontational “you have no cards” speech to Zelensky in the Oval Office in February. 

On the face of it, Zelensky got exactly what he wanted from Trump, pushing the line that Moscow faces economic collapse and that Ukraine has a realistic chance of expelling Russian forces from its territory. But in truth Trump’s announcement is terrible news for Kyiv and the future of its war effort. 

Trump’s statement is not a declaration of support for Ukraine, it’s Trump’s resignation from further participation in the peace process. And the sting in the tail of Trump’s announcement is a crystal-clear declaration that he now considers the Ukraine war Europe’s responsibility. A Ukrainian victory is possible “with the support of the European Union,” wrote Trump. All it will take is “time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO.” Except, crucially, that Trump clearly refers to NATO as something distinct from the US, promising that Washington “will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them.” Note the weasel word “they.”

To be fair to Trump, walking away from trying to make peace in Ukraine was always on the cards. Back on April 18, Trump told reporters at the White House that he wanted to get a peace deal “quickly.” But he also warned that “if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”

Turns out Trump did end up taking a pass, just like he promised – and Vladimir Putin is to blame. Despite a reputation in some quarters for being a master manipulator, Putin utterly failed to correctly read Donald Trump. Defying media criticism and resistance from parts of the Republican party, Trump took a major political risk in inviting Putin to Anchorage, Alaska, giving the Russian leader red-carpet treatment and even repeating some of Putin’s talking points. Trump gave Putin respect, face and made him a supremely generous offer essentially to freeze the front lines in Ukraine and allowing Russia to hold on to the occupied territories. 

Instead of banking that amazing breakthrough and calling it a day in Ukraine, Putin stupidly did not give Trump an inch. Instead of stopping his missile bombardments of Ukraine – something that clearly angered Trump and prompted his angry message “VLADIMIR, STOP!” – Putin instead doubled down and intensified his attacks on Ukrainian cities to unprecedented levels. Instead of continuing talks with Kyiv, Putin high-handedly ignored Trump’s calls for him to meet Zelensky. And instead of winding down the war, the Kremlin has done the opposite, launching a series of incursions into NATO airspace. Seen from the White House, Putin’s recent behavior has not just been murderous and provocative – it’s been downright disrespectful. And Trump does not appreciate being disrespected. 

There is possibly another, more calculating hypothesis behind Trump’s reversal. It’s been clear for a while now that the peace process with Putin is dead in the water – which means no great oil and gas deals or multi-billion dollar mineral rights that will help make America great again. So it’s time to open the shop doors wide and allow Europeans to buy hundreds of billions of high-end weapons from the US for use by Ukraine. The bill just for Patriot missiles of the kind that Ukraine says it needs to create an Iron Dome-like air defense system is $100 billion for that system alone. That way the US economy gets a different kind of boost, while Trump washes his hands of any political downside.

If there’s one thing Trump hates more than disrespect, it’s to be seen to fail. With his peace initiative floundering on Putin’s intransigence, small wonder that Trump chose to walk away from the coming train wreck and leave European allies to sort out the mess – and foot the bill. 

Essentially, Trump has called Europe and Zelensky’s bluff. You say you can defeat Putin? You go for it, buddy. You say you won’t allow aggression to be rewarded in Europe? Sure, guys, knock yourselves out. Trump also made it clear that he’s walking away from sanctions, too, by pointing out the painfully obvious fact that it’s Europe, not just China and India, which remains a major importer of Russian energy and therefore one of the biggest funders of the Kremlin’s war machine. Trump told the Europeans he would not sanction Russia further until they stopped importing Putin’s oil and gas – which the EU can’t and won’t do, despite all their fighting talk. 

For the whole duration of the war European leaders have been making fine-sounding promises to Ukraine that it expects the US to pay for. That includes Macron and Sir Keir Starmer’s latest idea of creating a “coalition of the willing” which proposes a “reassurance force” on the ground in Ukraine – just as long as its backed by US air-power. With his flip-flop on Ukraine, Trump has clearly signaled that Uncle Sucker isn’t going to play that game any more. Trump may still be willing to defend its NATO allies – but when it comes to Ukraine, Europe is on its own, militarily and diplomatically.  By the same token, the White House is through with listening to any more of Putin’s bull-crap. In the rich Russian phrase, Putin “doprygalsya” – literally, jumped himself into a bunch of trouble. 

Ukraine, Russia and Europe have nothing to celebrate and a lot to rue. Thousands more people are going to die pointlessly, with little prospect of achieving a significantly different outcome than the one Trump put on the table and Putin rejected. The dogs of war remain off their leashes, and the havoc will continue until Ukraine runs out of men – or Russia runs out of money.