President Donald Trump is spending the end of the year trying to cash in huge foreign policy bets on which thousands of lives may depend and that will define his attempt to wield decisive power far beyond American shores.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida has become a center of global diplomacy, with high-stakes talks Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to follow Monday.
The twin meetings mark significant attempts by Trump to cement a legacy as a global peacemaker. In Ukraine, he’s seeking to finally end a war he once said he could fix in a day but that is still raging nearly a year into his second term.
Trump also hopes to deliver a jolt to Gaza peace efforts to initiate the second phase of a deal that stopped widespread fighting in October between Israel and Hamas but that could fail without progress.
His intensified focus on Gaza and Ukraine came after Trump put his stamp on the holiday season by ordering US military action in the Middle East, Africa and the Western Hemisphere.
Trump announced on Christmas Day that US forces struck “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria,” whom he accused of persecuting Christians. A US naval armada is meanwhile prowling through seas off Venezuela in support of Trump’s blockade of sanctioned oil tankers, the latest escalation in his apparent bid to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. US forces are chasing one vessel that fled into international waters.
And days before Christmas, the US struck ISIS targets in Syria following an attack that killed two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter.
The flurry of military and diplomatic activity underscores Trump’s wish to shake up the globe — untamed after 11 months of unpredictable leadership — just as comprehensively as he’s shattered the status quo at home.
It’s also a sign of a presidential legacy hanging in the balance before a critical midterm election year that could define the fate of Trump’s major global initiatives. The president is fighting to shore up his political foundation at home amid splits in the MAGA movement and falling confidence in his management of the economy.
Trump hopeful of Ukraine deal but warns it could all fall apart
The president emerged from a meeting with Zelensky in Florida on a revised 20-point peace plan optimistic that “we have made a lot of progress on ending that war.” He added: “I do think we’re getting a lot closer, maybe very close.”
But Trump was also realistic after the meeting, which included a call that patched in European leaders who have worked to reshape a US peace plan that was originally seen as a largely Russian blueprint. “We could have something where one item that you’re not thinking about is a big item, breaks it up. Look, it’s been a very difficult negotiation,” Trump said.
The leaders are all working to solve the perennial riddle of the conflict: Is there a formula that Ukraine can agree to that Russia will be forced to accept?
In recent weeks, US negotiators have pressed Ukraine to ease its resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands for it to cede strategically vital industrialized areas in the eastern Donbas regions that Russian forces have yet to conquer. Washington has suggested creating a free economic zone in the area. Zelensky has in recent weeks shifted his positions to suggest he may be willing to compromise — but he is demanding rigorous Western security guarantees in return, which Moscow opposes.
The Ukrainian leader said after his summit with Trump that the latest version of the peace plan proposes that the US guarantee his country’s security for 15 years. He said in a series of voice messages sent to journalists that he asked Trump to consider extending this timeframe to “30-40-50 years.” He added: “President (Trump) said he would think about it.”
A key sticking point however is that Russia has refused to consider the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil, which Kyiv and European nations consider imperative to making security guarantees credible.
And for all the talk of progress in the talks, the current scenario is one in which the US, Europe and Ukraine are bringing their positions closer — but there remains no sign of any willingness to compromise by Putin.
Still, the Trump administration appears to be showing more patience and a greater willingness to dive into the details of the process than at any point so far.
Critics argue that Trump is trying to browbeat Ukraine into a peace deal that involves huge concessions even though it’s the victim of an unprovoked invasion. Trump’s pressure is unfolding at the same time as the latest murderous Russian air attacks on major Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Trump on Sunday reinforced a frequent impression that he is leaning toward Putin by saying he’d bracket his talks with Zelensky with two phone calls with the Russian leader, who has shown little willingness to ease hardline positions.