Not the sort of phrase that inspires comfort in a new administration, that’s for sure.
Donald Trump took to Truth Social to make a tepid threat to Vladimir Putin, a man who has earned the president’s frequent praise in the past. Trump said that if Putin didn’t halt Russia’s “ridiculous war” in Ukraine, he would have “no other choice” but to sanction Russia with taxes and tariffs – even though the Biden administration already tried that.
“IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE” said Trump of the war that he once bragged he could end in a day. Multiple days after his Inauguration, that war is still raging. In the lead-up to his presidency, Trump quietly walked back his ambitious promise to stop the conflict in 24 hours, and his special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg told Fox News that “100 days” was the next best the Trump administration could do.
Trump’s recent censure of Putin is a part of a rare streak of criticism that the president has aimed the Russian autocrat. Hours after he returned to the Oval Office, Trump said that Putin was “destroying Russia” by waging war in Ukraine, saying it was “no way to run a country.” This personal criticism of Putin was absent from Truth Social post, and the president attempted to butter up the dictator by saying that he wasn’t “looking to hurt Russia” and that he “[loved] the Russian people.”
Trump instead aimed a healthy portion of his foreign policy criticism at a domestic target: Joe Biden. At the conclusion of his post, Trump said that the war “never would have started” if he had been president at the time of Russia’s invasion. Trump compounded on his criticism of the Biden administration at a recent press conference, where he told reporters that a “stolen election” robbed Americans of a “competent president” that could have prevented the war.
But Trump didn’t try to prevent the war in the Ukraine, rather, he praised Putin for starting it. Trump called the Russian president a “genius” and “savvy” for invading the neighbor nation, and praised Putin for being a “peacekeeper.”
Putin has not kept the peace. Since it began three years ago, the war in Ukraine is responsible for at least half a million casualties, according to an estimate by U.S. officials.
In order to end the conflict, Trump proposed a “deal” with Putin. As for the details of that deal, Trump’s Truth Social post didn’t make it clear. While Trump certainly was not able to end the war in the day, Ukrainian officials are surprisingly optimistic about the president’s ability to do so. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Trump “can be decisive” in the war, and that he is “capable of stopping Putin or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin.” Trump has reportedly been in contact with Zelensky in the lead up to his return to the Oval Office, and has fielded calls with the Ukrainian President while at Mar a Lago. Elon Musk was also present for the call between the two world leaders, and the billionaire reportedly spoke with Zelensky himself.
Musk later mocked Zelensky in a post on X, sarcastically writing that the Ukrainian president had an amazing “sense of humor” for insisting that Ukraine was an “independent country” that could not be forced to “sit and listen” in negotiations about the war.
While the president and his administration have offered inconsistent support to Ukraine throughout the years, one aspect of Trump’s behavior towards the nation is predictable: he will use the conflict to make promises that he can’t keep.
Published: Jan 23, 2025 05:36 am