President Trump conducts foreign policy on personal instinct and tactical impulse, and his abrupt Friday turn on Russia and Ukraine is a classic illustration. Whether it’s the start of a road to peace, or to appeasement, is impossible to know. We’re not sure if Mr. Trump knows himself.
The President went into the summit promising “severe consequences” if there was no agreement on a cease-fire. He left the summit having dropped the cease-fire with no consequences in favor of Vladimir Putin’s wish for a long-term peace deal as the war continues. Mr. Trump took new sanctions on buyers of Russian oil off the table.
Mr. Trump also said the burden is now on Ukraine to close the deal. European leaders told the press that, in his conversations with them, Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin demanded that he get all of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which would mean that Ukraine give up its main line of defense in the east.
White House leaks to friendly media suggest Mr. Putin promised that, in return for Donetsk, he’ll stop his assault and won’t invade other countries.
No wonder Russian commentators and Putin allies were celebrating the summit’s results. Their President ended his isolation in the West, made no public concessions, and can continue killing Ukrainians without further sanction.
Mr. Putin’s promises are worse than worthless. He has broken promise after promise to Ukraine and the West. This includes the 1994 Budapest Memorandum promising to defend Ukraine against outside attack, and multiple Minsk agreements. He wants Donetsk because he would gain at the negotiating table what he hasn’t been able to conquer on the battlefield. It would also make it easier to take more territory when he or his successor think the time is right to strike again.
The silver lining is that European leaders say Mr. Trump told them Mr. Putin had agreed to accept “security guarantees” for Ukraine. The suggestion is that the U.S. might even be one of those guarantors, albeit outside NATO. But Mr. Trump provided no details.
For guarantees to have real deterrent effect, they would have to include foreign troops in Ukraine. Kyiv would need the ability to build up its military and arms industry. The U.S. would have to provide intelligence and air power to back up the ground forces. It isn’t clear if Mr. Trump or Mr. Putin would agree to any of this, and without the U.S. playing a significant role, European leaders may not be willing to deploy troops.
It’s encouraging that Mr. Trump invited Volodymyr Zelensky to meet at the White House on Monday, and that European leaders will join them. Maybe they can counter Mr. Putin’s lies about who started the war and the security guarantees required to end it. But the reality is that no one knows what the U.S. President will do or say.
The Europeans and Ukraine aren’t without leverage. Mr. Trump would pay an enormous political price if he abandons Ukraine or tries to impose a deal on Mr. Putin’s terms. The President can say all he wants that this is Joe Biden’s war, not his. But like it or not, what happens next is on his watch. A defeat for Ukraine will echo at home and across the world for the rest of his Presidency.
Mr. Trump has made his role as a peacemaker a major theme of his second term, and it’s an admirable ambition. But the question is, as always, peace at what price?
Cunning adversaries like Mr. Putin and China’s Xi Jinping can sense when the desire for a Nobel Peace Prize can be exploited for far more substantive strategic gains.
With his military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mr. Trump began to re-establish the American deterrence that Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave away in Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Middle East. What Mr. Trump does next in Ukraine will decide if he builds on that success, or gives it away for a dubious declaration of peace in our time.
