Beyond stating that the president "wanted it to end," what exactly is he doing to make it end? Our Secretary of State cites, “his good interaction and phone calls with Vladimir Putin…" But admits, [the phone calls] are "not leading to anything."
It is likewise impossible to infer a foreign policy by Trump for Ukraine as it might have existed before these phone calls. On the one hand, he had made clear his opposition to foreign wars and specifically for the war in Ukraine. On the other hand, in an official act as President United States he was the first president to supply Ukraine with arms with which to repel the Russian invasion, and later bragged that he had done so. So he was for defending Ukraine while he was against it. A unique and incomprehensible foreign policy.
Nor can one divine a foreign policy about the war in Ukraine from these phone calls. Let us consider these calls; the president, evidently without securing authorization from his ally (yes, ally at the time and evidently ally once again), Ukraine, unilaterally undertook to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf, ( as well as his own), with Putin. All that emerge from that call was a list of a negotiable demands from Putin from which Trump did not budge Putin nor, evidently, did he try to move Putin off his demands. Instead, the president made it clear that Ukraine must comply with Putin's demands. What can we say at this point about the foreign policy of the United States? That Ukraine must surrender or we abandon them?
That's the foreign policy, what can we say about the negotiating policy of the United States concerning the war in Ukraine? Donald Trump made it clear before taking office for a second time that the United States had no or only a very limited national interest in the sovereignty of Ukraine. If he had such a concern, he might have begun the moment he took office to move heaven and earth to gear up the production of armaments to send to Ukraine to fortify the negotiating position of an ally that had been illegally invaded.
More, that ally had taken positions that invited the invasion at the behest of the government of the United States. Then, the United States, through its representatives, scuttled a peace plan that might have ended the war in a way that provided for the survival of Ukraine.
By statements of the President of the United States, acts of Congress and statements made by elected representatives of both parties, by a laws passed by Congress and signed by the president, by grants-in-aid, by training Ukrainian troops, by supplying weapons, by providing satellite and other means of intelligence, by enlisting our allies in NATO to join in supporting Ukraine, by imposing sanctions on Russia, by imposing sanctions on those who traded with Russia, by receiving Zelinski and almost unanimously endorsing his address to a joint session of Congress, the United States had made an ally of Ukraine in a war we had inveigled Ukraine to wage.
All of these commitments were done in accordance with the United States Constitution. They were thus inherited by Donald Trump upon his ascension to office a second time. At that moment, a man adept in the Art of the Deal might have increased his negotiating clout by moving heaven and earth at the Department of Defense and among our multibillion dollar arms industries to gear up to provide Ukraine with arms to match our promises. But Trump did nothing.
Instead Trump ambushed Zelinski in the Oval Office and humiliated him on international television. He told Zelinski and the world that Zelinski could not win, you "have no cards." At this moment the only discernible foreign policy of the United States apparently is, Ukraine must surrender or else.
But Ukraine was too brave to surrender, to put themselves under the boot of Russia. Unable or incapable of moving Putin, Trump then discovered that his power over Ukraine was more potent. Trump literally threw Zelinski out the White House and proceeded for a time to withdraw Biden provided arms and intelligence, vital to the survival of Ukraine. Thus, the man who had bragged about being the first to supply Ukraine with arms became the first president to withhold arms, all in the wake of failed, if inverted, negotiating attempts.
If the humiliation of Zelinski and the betrayal of Ukraine did not cause them to surrender, Trump's pause in supplying matériel and intelligence evidently caused Ukraine to sign on to Trump's mineral extraction deal, which apparently restored a limited flow of arms in exchange for mineral rights in Ukraine, but not in exchange for any security guarantee of Ukraine's sovereignty. One can only imagine the reaction of our European NATO allies and partners who supported Ukraine at this series of events. One can only imagine the shock of our allies in the Pacific rim whom we will need to confront China as they ponder whether they will have a reliable ally and partner in the United States, or do they suspect they will be treated by Trump the way he has served Ukraine?
The president blandly announced that Ukraine was "not his war" and moved on to other matters. At this point one might consider the foreign policy of the United States to be not so benign neglect. Not his war? The one in which he had supplied arms, undertook negotiations, sided with one side over the other, imposed sanctions on Russia and traders with Russia, signed a minerals deal, and then washed his hands of the damage he had done, leaving Ukraine vulnerable. Not his war, indeed.
But Ukraine actually had cards to play, they pioneered the art of making war with drones and fought the Russians to a standstill trading space for lives and inflicting massive casualties on advancing Russians who gained little at terrible cost. Once again Donald Trump injected himself into the fray and conducted a telephone call with Vladimir Putin which was clearly acrimonious. Donald Trump expressed himself personally exasperated with Putin. This is an odd way to conduct foreign policy or conduct negotiations. In the wake of that phone call Trump agreed to a plan of supplying weapons to Ukraine if paid for by our European allies and threaten Russia with severe sanctions if a cease-fire is not agreed to within 60 days. Has Trump's foreign policy now come full circle? Is the President who was the first to supply arms to Ukraine, the first to withhold arms, now the first to resume arms to Ukraine?
When Trump embarked on this new policy, it appeared to observers with access only to public information that Ukraine was secure in the short and medium-term at least because it was inflicting so many casualties on Russia. Over time, the Russians have compensated for their corruption and ineptness and have slowly developed massive forces. The Ukraine war now appears to be a grind to see which side first runs out of assets and allies.
At this point is reasonable to ask, why have we not put the massive potential of the United States defense industrial complex to work for the last six months to provide those arms that would ensure the survival of Ukraine and, certainly, equalize their negotiating position with Russia?
Instead, we have conducted a foreign policy that is not only incoherent, it is a mishmash of flip-flops and bellicosity. It has weakened our ally and favored Russia. It has dismayed our allies in Europe and frightened our allies in the Pacific. It has unwisely extended a ultimatum over 60 days that permits Russia to set up ways to evade the effects of the sanctions. It does not articulate any understandable new policy. The President, "losing patience," is not foreign policy. 