Trump Won’t Let Russia and China Trump Ukraine – Welcome to the flavor of the week. Moscow and Beijing outplay Trump, with Ukraine thrown to the wolves. Here is the problem with that taste test. Baskin-Robbins is not geopolitics. Real assessments conform to reality. The flavor of the week does not.
If the U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, really wanted to abandon the people of Ukraine, he would have done so over two years ago. Even if America had no important interests in Ukraine (the U.S. does—there is no advantage to us if Russia and China run wild across Western Europe), there is still zero chance Trump would mimic the humiliation that Biden committed in Afghanistan and run away from a challenge to American power and prestige.
Donald Trump – Image by Gage Skidmore
So, what is up with the president saying he might be willing to meet with Putin and Xi?
A couple of scenarios might explain what is going on and how it might affect Ukraine:
Blow it Up
Trump loves a challenge. Sometimes, when he can’t solve a problem—like bending Russia’s war against Ukraine—he wraps it in a bigger problem. Despite much speculation and hand-wringing, the president claims this meeting would not be about Ukraine but, “[w]e would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization…” Actually, he predicted back in 2019 that, at some point in his presidency, Trump would take a run at an arms-control agreement, particularly if he thought he held a position of strength.
Now, between the Pentagon’s defense build-up, the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, ousting Maduro in Venezuela, humbling Iran, and a fistful of policies that ensured Kyiv fought Moscow to a standstill—not to mention encroaching on Russian and Chinese interests in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Pacific (as well as a checkmate move in the Arctic with the Greenland deal), the White House thinks it has the upper hand. Further, blah-blah about diesel and energy deals aside, as Treasury Secretary Bessent has noted, the Russian economy gets no real relief without Putin cutting a deal.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy faces its own challenges, including being marginalized from the American market—and no good solutions. Dumping goods on the global market may mask Beijing’s economic failure for now, but that’s not a long-term fix. With Beijing and Moscow both skittish about their future, this might be Trump’s best shot to get the two powers to the table on arms control.
If he could, sure, he might throw in a Ukraine deal, but the odds that the U.S. would agree to concessions are ludicrous. At best, the side deal would be to accept a frozen conflict, which Trump always thought was the most realistic outcome to begin with.
Deal or No Deal
The defining feature of Trump’s policies is his need to win. He likes deals, but he doesn’t like bad deals. So his preferred outcome is winning—deal or no deal. This was the case in dealing with Maduro. Trump offered a full pardon and safe passage out in exchange for Maduro resigning and catching the next flight out. Maduro rolled the dice and didn’t take the deal. Trump won anyway.
The same was absolutely true in Iran. The U.S. goals were to eliminate the nuclear threat, cut off the IRGC from its surrogates, and humble the regime. Trump did that, and he reopened the Strait of Hormuz, too. Trump wins. Now, the final deal, if there is one, is mostly details.
Ditto for the war against Ukraine.
No one is going to hand Putin anything at the negotiating table he couldn’t take on the battlefield. That means he gets nothing more. His summer campaign was a bust. The Ukrainians are actually taking back territory. All the chicken-little talk aside, Ukraine will get through the winter. Moscow will be as far from victory next spring as they are now (minus many more dead Russians, North Koreans, and assorted mercenaries). Putin can hold out and make a deal all he wants, but the days ahead won’t be any better for him.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president says he is ready to negotiate a deal. A recent survey shows that most Ukrainians favor a peace deal. That said, Ukrainians also have no intention of handing over their land to Putin.
At the same time, Trump and Putting are circling. Russia decided to release some hostages and open up diesel exports. Trump put a hold on more sanctions, with a 60-day review. All this activity may mean something in the long term—or nothing. The same goes for a series of shuttle-diplomacy talks between U.S. envoys and Russian and Ukrainian leaders. These discussions were labeled as “constructive,” but we have heard that before.
At the same time, Russia and Ukraine continue to exchange punishing long-range attacks on each other’s infrastructure.
Where does that leave us? As long as Putin is stiff-armed in his territorial aggression and NATO is rearming and a serious conventional deterrent to Russia (which is happening), let’s face it, U.S. interests are safeguarded, deal or no deal—meeting or no meeting with Putin and Xi. Trump wins.
Trump Is an Idiot
The only other scenario is that Trump is the biggest buffoon since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his infamous declaration in 1938. The president will not only give away the farm, but the farmer, and his daughter, and all the other farms within reach.
Trump, however, is not the yahoo in an SNL skit. He has been president for six years, and it’s impossible to point to a time when the United States lost ground on his watch. He flattened ISIS and stiff-armed Iran in his first time at bat. Putin didn’t dare attack Ukraine during the president’s first term in office. Trump didn’t even give an inch in Afghanistan (and he hated being in Afghanistan).
Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Today he is one of the world’s most experienced leaders, with a competent national security team that has kicked butt in battle and outsmarted American enemies from Foggy Bottom and Turtle Bay, while delivering economic tsunamis to Tehran and narco-terrorists. He also presides over the world’s largest economy, pulling away from the competition; reducing strategic dependence on foreign powers; making America the world’s lone energy superpower; winning the space race; and, surprisingly, being super at promoting super intelligence.
Clearly, he has outclassed Obama, who would prefer we forget Benghazi and sending pallets of cash to Iran, and Biden, who, not to be outdone by Benghazi, delivered a greater catastrophe in Kabul, barely a month into office.
Would we really expect President Harris, Newsom, Buttigieg, AOC, Abdul El-Sayed, or Hassan Piker to be a stronger peace-through-strength president than Trump? Seriously. And who else will end the war, Macron? Carney? The Dalai Lama?
All the angst over President Trump’s latest unorthodox initiatives to break the logjam in the war against Ukraine, from both the right and the left, from allies and enemies, rings more like Monday-morning quarterbacking by folks who either never played the game on Sunday or currently coach the Miami Dolphins.
Let Trump be Trump—which he will be anyway. Even if his peace efforts fail (which is entirely possible), American interests will be protected, and Ukraine will still be a free and independent nation.
About the Author: Dr. James Jay Carafano
James Jay Carafano is a national security expert and a 25-year Army veteran. His most recent books are Cold Combat: Mountain Warfare in Italy and the Battle of San Pietro, 1943, and Digital Dominance: Winning in a Socially Networked World. He is a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor. Carafano is also a Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.