Washington – When President Trump returned to the White House in January, he promised to win large victories in foreign policy in record time.
He said that he would stop the Russian war against Ukraine in 24 hours or less, would end the War of Israel in Gaza almost as quickly and to force Iran to end its nuclear program. He said he would persuade Canada to become the 51st state, take the Greenland from Denmark and negotiate 90 commercial transactions in 90 days.
“The president believes that his personality force … can bend people doing things,” said his special envoy for everything, Steve Witkoff, in May in an interview with Breitbart.
Six months later, none of these ambitious goals have been achieved.
Ukraine and Gaza are still at war. Israel and the United States have bombed Iran’s nuclear installations, but it is not clear if it has ended the country’s atomic program once and for all. Canada and Denmark have made no territory. And instead of trade agreements, Trump mainly slaps prices on other countries, to distress American stock markets.
It turned out that the personality strength could not solve all the problems.
“He overestimated his power and underestimated the ability of others to grow back,” said Kori Schake, director of foreign policy at the Conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It often acts as if we were the only ones for a lever, strength or ability to act. We don’t do it. “
The president heard important achievements. He won a commitment from other NATO members to increase their defense expenses to 5% of the gross domestic product. The attack on Iran seems to have raised the Tehran nuclear project for years, even if it has not finished it. And Trump – or more specifically, his collaborators – helped the broker ceases between India and Pakistan and between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
But none of those who have been measured by the goals that Trump initially set – much less qualified for the Nobel Peace Prize that he has publicly desired. “I will not get Nobel Peace Prize for this,” he groaned when the Rwanda-Congo agreement has been signed.
The most striking example of unsatisfied expectations came to Ukraine, the grinding conflict that Trump said it could end even before its inauguration.
For months, Trump seemed to be certain that his warm relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin would produce an agreement that would stop fighting, will grant Russia to most of the territory that his troops have grasped and ended the American economic sanctions in Moscow.
“I think he wants peace,” said Trump about Putin in February. “I trust him on this subject.”
But Trump’s surprise, Putin was not satisfied with her proposal. The Russian chief continued to bomb Ukrainian cities even after Trump publicly implored him to stop via social media (“Vladimir, stop!”).
Critics accused Putin playing Trump for a fool. The president has bridged himself: “No one plays me.”
But from April, he admitted doubts about Putin’s good faith. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop war, he just makes me press,” he said.
“I talk to him a lot about doing this thing, and I always hang up and say:” Well, it was a beautiful telephone call “, then missiles are launched in kyiv or another city,” complained Trump last week. “After that happens three or four times, you say that the conversation means nothing.”
The president also underwent the pressure from the Republican Hawks at the Congress who warned in private that if Ukraine collapse, Trump would be blamed the way in which his predecessor, President Biden, was blamed for the fall of Afghanistan in 2022.
Last week, Trump changed CAP and announced that he would resume the supply of American missiles to Ukraine – but by selling them to European countries instead of giving them to Kyiv as Biden.
Trump also gave Putin 50 days to accept a ceasefire and threatened to impose “secondary prices” on countries that buy Russia oil if he does not comply.
He said he was still hoping that Putin will come. “I’m not done with him, but I’m disappointed with him,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
It is still not clear how many Ukraine missiles will obtain and if they will include long -range weapons which can strike targets deep in Russia. A White House official said that these details were still being developed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was not impressed by American actions. “I have no doubt that we will face,” he said.
Experts in foreign policy warned that the secondary prices offered by Trump could prove to be unnatural. The two largest oil customers in Russia are China and India; Trump tries to negotiate major trade agreements with both.
Meanwhile, Trump returned Witkoff to the Middle East to try to organize a ceasefire in Gaza and reopen nuclear talks with Iran-the goals with whom he started six months ago.
Despite his Mercurial style, Trump’s approach to all these foreign crises reflects basic premises that have remained constant for a decade, experts in foreign policy said.
“There is a Trump doctrine, and has three basic principles,” said Schake. “Alliances are a burden. Trade exports American jobs. Immigrants fly American jobs. “
Robert Kagan, a former republican assistant now at Brookings Institution, added one more director principle: “He promotes autocrats on Democrats.” Trump has a weakness for strong foreign men like Putin and Xi Jinping in China, and has abandoned American policy for a long time to promote democracy abroad, noted Kagan.
The problem, said Schake, is that these principles “hinder Trump’s ability to get things in the world, and he does not seem to achieve it.
“The international order we built after the Second World War made American power stronger and more effective,” she said. “Trump and his administration seem determined to chair the destruction of this international order.”
In addition, Kagan argued, the frantic tax of Trump punitive prices on other countries has serious costs.
“Prices are a form of economic war,” he said. “Trump creates enemies for the United States all over the world. … I don’t think you can have a successful foreign policy if everyone in the world deserves you.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump and his assistants do not agree.
“He cannot be overestimated how the first six months of this administration have succeeded,” said the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt last week. “With President Trump as commander -in -chief, the world is a much safer place.”
This complaint will take years to test.
