Trump's new Ukraine peace push

On the merry-go round again

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Over the past year, Donald Trump has seemed to reverse himself on Ukraine as many times as he’s had breakfast. One moment he’s lecturing Zelensky in the Oval Office, the next he’s warning that he’s really going to get pretty mad with Putin, and the next moment he’s back to having a go at Zelensky.

I think that throughout this back-and-forth, people have tended to over-interpret each move as somehow evidence of what Trump’s “real” position has been all along, or to see the latest twist as a sign that he’s “finally” broken with Putin/had it with Zelensky/done whatever.

And my response to this has always been to say that this gives Trump too much credit. There is no “real” Trump position and there is not a “final” move towards one side or the other. We ought instead to see Trump’s approach to the conflict as a process that is always evolving. And if blundering, indecisiveness and ignorance to basic facts are what seem to characterize that process, that’s because they actually do. Trump’s on an endless merry-go round, and we’re all on it with him.

The latest turn of the merry-go round has brought us the framework of a peace deal which has reportedly been negotiated between Trump’s emissary Steve Witkoff and Moscow. We still haven’t seen the text of the framework, but some details have begun to leak out, and they sound quite ominous.

According to the reports, the deal involves Ukraine making significant territorial concessions, pledging that no foreign troops will be present on its soil, reducing the size of its armed forces by half, and promising not to develop or possess weaponry in certain categories. That sounds pretty bad.

Russian spokesmen have also touted this as a deal not just about Ukraine, but also about broader European security issues. In the past, that has been code for Russian demands such as the withdrawal of NATO forces from certain parts of Eastern Europe and a U.S. agreement not to deploy certain types of missiles or other weapons to Europe. That also sounds pretty bad.

This plan was developed without any European or Ukrainian input. Essentially, it was negotiated on the one side by Witkoff, a property developer with precious little experience of international politics and a history of getting taken for a ride by Moscow, and the Kremlin, a ruthless bunch of operators who know exactly what they want. It seems here then we see a familiar trope in the Trump regime’s dealings with Russia: getting completely outplayed and not even realizing that it’s happening.

Still, now that Witkoff has been handed this framework by the Russians, the real experts are going to have a look at it. And so far, they don’t sound too thrilled. Apparently the framework doesn’t even address Kyiv’s future international alignments, and hence whether the country will ultimately be a member of NATO. That’s a pretty big omission. Other aspects of it appear to repeat proposals that have already been rejected by the U.S. side.

And there’s clearly a lot more work to do to give the framework anything like a concrete form. Senior leaders of the U.S. Army were in Kyiv earlier this week, presumably to go over some of the technical military parts of it in more detail. Zelensky is also going to have something to say about it. White House officials are leaking that they don’t really care what the Europeans think, but it’s a bit harder to not care what the Ukrainians think - although if it really wants to, the Trump regime could probably pull that off.

And perhaps they do really want to pull it off. After a string of damaging domestic setbacks, Trump really needs a win, especially one that will be favored by his MAGA base. And he may view liquidating the U.S. commitment to Ukraine’s security as just such a win. White House officials have been quoted in the press saying that a recent corruption scandal has put Zelensky in a position of weakness, and that maybe they can strong-arm him into accepting a bad deal. That tells you something about where the White House’s priorities lie.

There’s also another trope of Trumpian diplomacy to consider. The president loves to have press conferences to unveil flashy agreements and then declare a problem solved, even if little has actually changed. Most of his Gaza “peace plan” is considered ludicrous by all involved and is not remotely fleshed out in detail, despite the great fanfare with which it has greeted. In that case, at least the fighting did actually stop, even if the rest if it isn’t going to happen.

But the fighting only stopped because both sides wanted it to stop. That’s not the case in Ukraine. Trump’s aim might be to hold a big international summit in which some vague “framework” is signed and then declare himself to have done a great job. But that’s unlikely to stop the killing, or Russian attempts to furiously manoeuvre for every pound of flesh it could extract. And in the case of Kyiv, faced with that future, why the hell would you sign a deal that Trump puts in front of you?

And then there’s Trump’s indecisiveness to consider. Presumably one reason that he has not simply walked away from this conflict already is because he fears the political repercussions of a complete collapse on the part of Kyiv. He thinks that would make him look like a weak president, much as he pilloried Joe Biden for the fall of Kabul. So far at least, this instinct has stopped him from imposing utter defeat on Ukraine.

Presumably, at some point, someone who knows a lot more about these things than Steve Witkoff is going to explain what a bad deal this would be for Ukraine, and we’ll be back to intractable negotiations.

In other words, don’t expect to get off the merry-go round just yet.

Thanks for reading America Explained! Paid subscriptions are what keeps this newsletter a going concern, so please upgrade if you’re able to spare a few dollars or euros or whatever (I’m not picky!) a month to support independent commentary and to access all of our posts. And as always, students and educators can get a full subscription for free - just drop me a line.