With the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump is failing. The US president's naiveté and his dependence on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, are increasingly ostentatious and worrying. The facts are stubborn. The war doesn't stop, and Ukrainian fatigue and European bewilderment are as striking as Moscow's brazenness.
This Tuesday, Kremlin diplomacy ruthlessly scrapped the summit that the White House had announced would be held in Budapest immediately. Nothing, it will happen. Another backtracking. Last Friday, Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with his characteristic harshness, this time, however, behind closed doors at the White House itself. It's not clear what came of that meeting, but in any case, Moscow hasn't had enough. And Washington has had no choice but to cancel the meeting in Hungary.
This modus operandi It's starting to become a recurring pattern. Trump meets with Putin, they happily show their rapport, he buys a good part of his speech, then he pressures Zelensky, who resists with some concessions and with Europe by his side, and then Putin says it's not enough and the war continues in all its cruelty, consolidating a slight Russian advantage and causing great wear and tear on the Ukrainian side.
The most explicit and stellar moment of this fruitless strategy was when the American president literally rolled out the red carpet for the Russian upon his arrival in Alaska, on American territory. It was a full-blown symbolic endorsement of a historic enemy. The result? Trump came out saying that a peace agreement was close. This happened in August. But we're in October and not only has there been no progress, but the attacks on the ground have intensified. Trump's naive optimism is increasingly evident. In Alaska, Putin simply bought time and international legitimacy.
What happened now? Well, more or less the same. On Thursday, the two leaders of Washington and Moscow spoke by phone, presumably about the division of Ukrainian territory. On Friday, an aggressive Trump tried to soften Zelensky. It's unclear how far the Ukrainian resisted, but in any case, these days Europe, as always hesitant, has closed ranks with Kiev with a joint statement with the Ukrainian president in which they reject the idea that Ukraine must cede the entire Donbas region before sitting at the negotiating table, as it intends to do at the negotiating table. Even Poland has said it would arrest Putin if he dared to cross its airspace to travel to Hungary. Diplomacy made in Trump isn't getting results with Ukraine. Or rather, he's allowing the Russian army to gain ground. The war in Europe is getting more entrenched.
And if this is happening in the Old Continent, in the Middle East it can't be said that the war is going on either. pax Trump's commitment to Gaza is solidified. In fact, there is concern in Washington about the possibility of Netanyahu violating the established ceasefire again, a possibility that Vice President J.D. Vance tried to dismiss on Tuesday during his trip to Israel.
