Donald Trump has been in high dudgeon over the Russia-Ukraine conflict since its start. In the early days of the war, he applauded Russia's military action and scolded the Joe Biden administration for having failed to contain Russia. Afterward he claimed on multiple occasions that supporting Ukraine increased the financial burden on the U.S. and demanded that Europe shoulder more responsibility. During his 2024 presidential campaign, he pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and resume U.S.-Russia relations — a line he used as a unique selling point to win votes.
One of Trump's first acts as president was an attempt to reach a cease-fire deal and a peace accord. He didn't impose substantive pressure on Russia, nor did he agree to reprimand Vladimir Putin, although he threatened sanctions against Russia. In contrast, he piled pressure on Ukraine, including asking it to sign a minerals pact. This was followed by a fiery clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House. Then he paused U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing.
Trump's eccentric diplomatic maneuvers have left many countries in shock. But that's not difficult to understand: Trump has always been a mercenary who admires the strong and bullies the weak. In diplomatic exchanges, profit comes first. He insists that the U.S. has spent $350 billion on Ukraine aid and therefore Ukraine should accept his demand for $500 billion worth of deposits, though many experts estimate that the aid rounds up to only $120 billion. In addition, Trump values face a lot. He enjoys being flattered and is easily satisfied by immediate benefits and vanity projects.Instead of praising Trump like some other Western leaders, Zelenskyy has been criticizing Putin, causing Trump to lose face and get annoyed. Trump shows favor and even compliments the strong, while disdaining the weak and bullying them whenever possible. His pursuit of peace through power, which appears to be about maintaining peace via formidable national strength, is in fact using force to coerce the weak to make concessions to achieve what he calls “peace.”
Trump's foreign policy is highly nationalistic and isolationist. With a pessimistic perspective on the status quo of the U.S., he thinks the country has been in grave decline since the 1980s and that is has been exploited by other nations. He is unwilling to carry out America's international responsibility in avoiding unnecessary warfare. In particular, he fears nuclear war. What he wants is to gain as much benefit for the U.S. as possible while it still has power.According to Trump, the current international order and rules have cost the U.S. too much and hindered it from making a profit. Hence, he goes out of his way to wreak havoc, trying to pull the U.S. and the world back to the state of great power competition, where alliances and values of liberty and democracy give way to money — the top priority in each and every one of his diplomatic moves.Furthermore, Washington is using its power to force both its allies and opponents to surrender to unhealthy competition. Trump's ultimate vision of the world order might be some combination of power in which the U.S. takes absolute control of the Western sphere of influence and governs global affairs along with other great powers.
Trump and the American far-right have strong affection for Russia and Putin. Since the 1960s, American society has become more diverse and secular, with an ever-declining proportion of Whites in the population. These developments have stoked a sense of anxiety and crisis among conservatives. In the view of the far-right, the U.S. is on the edge of moral and spiritual collapse, straying away from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant -dominated country of memory. Thus they have turned abroad to seek allies in their fight against liberals and also to find nations that are spiritually aligned and racially pure. In their eyes, Putin is a pious defender of White Christian values while American liberals and the Democratic Party are terrifying threats and enemies.The pro-Russia attitude of the American far-right and the widespread support for Russia among European far-right groups are similar at their root. At the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that the greatest threat facing Europe was not from Russia but “from within.” He asked European governments to implement far-right policies.
Whether Trump can realize his peculiar diplomatic vision is questionable and merits close attention. His confrontation with Zelenskyy over the minerals deal will be, at most, a small step toward a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, far from signing a peace agreement between the two countries and improving U.S.-Russia ties. Trump has excluded the European Union from the talks. But if the EU doesn't lift sanctions on Russia, it's hard for U.S.-Russia relations to change for the better and for American and European companies to return to Russia.Since the Barack Obama era, U.S.-Russia relations have been reset many times. Trump made enormous effort in this regard during his first presidential term. However, the prolonged distrust between the two sides cannot be resolved easily. Although many Americans expect the war will end sooner rather than later, an equal or greater number neither like nor trust Russia.
Trump aims to enhance ties with Russia while aggressively suppressing Europe. This approach may appear reasonable to him, but it's a dubious proposition. For the U.S., Russia is in no way more economically and strategically valuable than Europe. Even though Trump emphasizes economic values, U.S. goods exported to Russia before the war were no more than $6 billion — a meager fraction of U.S. exports to Europe. Moreover, Russia's mineral and strategic resources are not something the U.S. can exploit at will.
Many claim that Trump aims to counter China through alliance with Russia. This idea has been shared by strategic thinkers such as Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer, but it's also endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. and Elbridge Colby, Trump's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy. But things are different now than they were in the Cold War era. A “reverse Nixon” might just be an armchair strategy. The current China-Russia relationship is no longer like the hostility between China and the Soviet Union but is much closer than are U.S.-Russia ties. How much benefit can Washington give Moscow to make it confront Beijing? The world is more multipolar, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself has admitted. At a time when countries are pursuing more independent diplomacy, they won't easily follow the U.S. attempt to contain China.
If the U.S. really agrees to give up its massive benefit in Europe, it may abandon Ukraine in the end. For now, it simply wants to reap the benefits of hegemony without bearing the cost of being a hegemon. Nonetheless, there aren't many occasions where you can have your cake and eat it too. At the moment, it seems the U.S. has to continue investing efforts in Ukraine. American voters, dissatisfied with their status quo, elected Trump to shake things up and give it a try. Whether his actions will benefit or harm U.S. interests remains to be seen. It will be the American voters again who will deliver the verdict on him.
