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While Donald Trump’s second term has been anything but smooth sailing for Ukraine, it has not yet proved the unmitigated disaster many in Europe and Kyiv had been bracing themselves for.
So far, the reality on the ground has been a much more complicated saga, but one that reveals a great deal about the pitfalls of the America-first philosophy as it engages with actors outside the United States.
Despite returning to the White House promising swift peace in Ukraine, Trump has instead faced a revealing test of power and personality, and a complicated game of transactional geopolitics.
For the better part of a decade, the prevailing assumption about Trump’s foreign policy instincts could be condensed into a single word: Putin.
Since he first announced his intention to run for the presidency, Trump has exhibited a peculiar soft spot for the strongman in Moscow. He has consistently praised Putin’s “strength”, waxed lyrical about the symbiotic nature of their relationship, and repeatedly shrugged off accusations of election interference, routinely taking the Russian president’s word over the consensus of his own combined intelligence agencies.
The idea that Trump is indeed a Russian asset, if at least an unwitting one, is not altogether without merit. For much of his second term, his administration’s policies have afforded Russia breathing space to escalate its war on Ukraine.
The events of recent months, however, have complicated the picture. Trump’s actions over the last few weeks have put paid to the notion that he is Putin’s willing accomplice. If he is a puppet, he is now proving to be rather an uncooperative one.
The Art of the No-Deal
In essence, Trump’s relationship with Ukraine is not about values or even partnerships. It’s about leverage. That’s the through-line of his foreign policy: pursuit of the deal, contempt for diplomatic tradition, and a ruthless pragmatism where morality is secondary to results. Since returning to the office, he has sought to do what he believes he does best: strike a deal.
At the beginning of the year, he initiated talks with Putin almost immediately, believing that the fastest route to resolution would be found in offering Russia what it wanted most— a Ukrainian government willing to make concessions.
In Trump’s world, it’s a strategy that makes a great deal of sense. If getting a deal, not doing the right thing, is the ultimate goal, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leading the smaller country with the smaller military, battered, bruised, and facing severe ammunition and manpower shortages, would be the natural party to lean on. This is where the cracks in Trump’s approach to geopolitics begin to show.
Zelenskyy, showing willingness to make accommodations for Trump’s victory plan, bent but would not break. The scale of Trump’s frustration with Zelenskyy’s refusal to roll over was clear for all to see when in February a now infamous press event in the Oval Office devolved into a shouting match in front of the world’s media with Trump and Vice President JD Vance doing most, if not all, of the shouting.
“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump blustered, before promptly dismissing Zelenskyy from the White House. “If we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it will be pretty.”
He estimated, erroneously, that moving Zelenskyy would be easier than moving Putin. After all, Putin has long modelled the brand of authoritarian power Trump so admires; unyielding control cloaked in just enough legitimacy to keep a seat at the global table.
This miscalculation is revealing of Trump’s worldview and his fundamental approach to geopolitics. He holds neither diplomacy nor the nuance it typically requires in high regard, preferring to use blunt force to steam-roll his adversaries.
Donald is Drawn To Power Not The Person
Trump stands apart from other democratic, broadly liberal world leaders. His admiration for autocrats like Putin is neither accidental nor something he has ever made any particular effort to hide.
He has been unabashed in his expressed appreciation for power, particularly the unyielding, undemocratic kind, as well as those who wield it. Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad and even the late Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi have all been the beneficiaries of strange and often surprising tributes from the American president.
There is, however, an important distinction to be made when it comes to these commendations. In the main, that it is these leaders’ power that Trump is venerating, much more the leaders themselves.
In many ways, Trump has been a gift to the press. His outrageous statements sell papers and keep audiences glued to their screens. As CBS CEO Leslie Moonves fa