CNN
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Donald Trump’s team has been thrust into the widest and most simultaneously high levels of diplomatic negotiations over the years, including China, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, the Middle East and multiple global trade rivals.
The big question this week is whether this rush attempt will improve America’s strategic position, or whether it will alienate allies and empower the enemy, as the president sets out on his first major foreign trip of his second term.
There is irony about the government’s involvement in so many ways. Trump, after all, was the “America First” president, and was elected to lower prices and secure southern borders rather than adjudicate the frontier conflicts of other countries.
But his speeches across many global issues reflect Trump’s resolve to impose his ideas and authority around the world, and his attempts to demolish the political, diplomatic and economic systems he has endured for decades.
His policies are at considerable risk as they often plan a one-sided, unorthodox plan to revolutionize Trump’s global trade. We will demonstrate our strength in a small country. Addresses Iran’s nuclear program. China is included. And it can stop the killings in Ukraine.
It’s hard to keep up with the manager with so many geopolitical pie-wearing fingers.
This weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent met with trade negotiators in China in Switzerland and reported good progress. In Oman, another set of US officials held a tough, unconventional in-person meeting with Iranian negotiators on Tehran’s efforts to address the nuclear program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance helped build a ceasefire after an astonishing escalation between India and Pakistan. Trump’s pressure forced Ukrainian President Voldimir Zelensky to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey, but to make the sacrifices to improve Moscow’s position.
On Sunday, Trump said Hamas agreed to release Edan Alexander, our last remaining hostage in Gaza. The move appears to be an attempt to put pressure on Israel on ceasefire speeches and humanitarian aid before Trump heads into the region.
All this comes after Trump signed a trade deal with the UK and left on a trip that highlighted his personal affinity for the world’s wealthiest countries and the growing political and economic influence of the Gulf region before he left Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Monday.
This intense activity isn’t necessarily what many foreign policy experts expected when Trump returned to power in January, but it has a promise that the most destructive president in modern history will win a foreign policy victory that will ease global tensions.
Still, the diplomatic bust itself does not imply progress. Many talks, including those over Trump’s tariff war with Iran, aim to mitigate the crisis the president has caused after he destroyed a previous nuclear deal with Tehran in his first term. Others have questioned fairness, like the regime’s pro-Russian stance on the Ukrainian war. And, especially in the fight against HIV/AIDS, Trump’s ruthless foreign aid culling from the US International Development Agency could mean that many people will face death or starvation.
There are some common trends in all foreign policy gambits.
– In most cases, negotiations are led by officials who are not experienced in global diplomacy. Trump’s friend and envoy Steve Witkov, who is deeply involved in diplomacy in the Middle East, Ukraine and Iran, is a real estate investor, just like Trump. His prominence fits the president’s distrust of foreign policymakers and the promotion of outsiders. But sometimes his naivety seems like a responsibility. Witkov often emerges from meetings with Putin, who is pushing Russian disinformation and expansionist propaganda. Similarly, Bessent has no experience in thorough, introduced formal consultations that Chinese officials like in negotiations, particularly on complex trade issues.
– Negotiations can be blown up by Trump’s unorthodox and unstable approach. The trade showdown with China fell into a real crisis when the president intentionally raised tariffs with a premonition that had the effect of shutting down one of the world’s most important trading ties. Prior to his weekend talk, Trump said he was willing to drop to 80%. Presidential worshippers see this unpredictability as a deal maker genius. However, he also plays roulette in the global market. So it’s retirement savings for millions of Americans. Uncertainty makes recession even more possible.
– Trump’s whimsy depends on all negotiations. His enduring role as a bad cop who escapes extreme rhetoric on social media could be a useful negotiation tool for officials who can argue that he might fall off the rails if consultations fail. And Trump’s unconventionality can create openings that have been spurred by other presidents. For example, the summit of his amazing first period with his North Korean tyrant Kim Jong.
But diplomacy was accompanied by cool tensions, but the reality is that the state follows the interests of their own foreign policy. Diplomacy rooted solely in the president’s personality often fails, and this was confirmed when Trump’s strategy failed to end Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programme.
– The hyperpoliticization of the Trump administration makes it difficult to assess his national security strategy. Every time there is a small breakthrough, the president praises it as one of the majority of history. And sycophantic’s men cultivate his desire for praise with exaggerated praise.
“What I witnessed was like watching a chess grandmaster perform,” Top White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News last week after a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump, after the president of Canada claimed that the president should be the 51st state. With more exaggeration, Trump declared, “The US and the UK have worked to make a deal for years, but it never got there at all.”
That’s true, but the agreement he signed was far short of his previous desires. Also, most UK products have a 10% tariff, meaning higher prices for US consumers. Often for Trump, it’s all about trading, whether it’s good or not.
– More than three months after Trump’s second term, there is growing evidence that his trading foreign policy is more motivated by actively pursuing his own personal interests than traditional US values. Trump has called for the United States to participate in a deal that shares mineral wealth revenues as an effective condition for Ukraine’s continued support of American support, which reminds them of colonialism’s plunder.
And CNN reported on Sunday that Trump hopes to serve as a new Air Force by accepting gifts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The plane appears to be a massive ethical violation when he takes office when he returns to Trump’s library and his personal use, and could violate the constitution. Following reports on the jet, Trump said Sunday night that the Pentagon plans to accept the Boeing 747-8 jet and replace it as “free gifts, free.”
– Rubio argues that the test of all US policies overseas is whether to make Americans safer and more prosperous. But Trump’s attacks on allies and genuine attacks on dictators can shatter trust in the US and look for security arrangements that will weaken their friends’ power overseas.
China’s advances in lectures. Questions looming about Iran and Ukraine initiatives
The administration claimed success on multiple fronts over the weekend.
Zelensky agreed to join Putin for consultations in Turkey, hoping to represent the turning point of the war. Following his move, European leaders visited Kiev, where they demanded a 30-day ceasefire before meetings took place. However, Russia blinks, and Zelensky blinks, after Trump wrote about his true social networks, “it’s beginning to doubt Ukraine will sign a deal with Putin.” Ukrainian leaders may feel that they have no option to go to talks to avoid alienating Trump. However, the president’s responsibilities were just the latest opportunity for him to promote Russia’s position and spur US allies in Ukraine Europe. His constant concessions to Putin mean that the US is not considered an honest broker and that Russia may be rewarded for its illegal invasion.
In Switzerland on Sunday, both the US and China reported breakthroughs in trade talks. Bescent said there was “significant progress,” and US trade representative Jamieson Greer said he is confident that “trading” will help Trump resolve the national emergency over trade that was declared. Both the Chinese deputy prime minister and his Lifeng were positive. The bright atmosphere will boost stock markets that have been traumatized by Trump’s chaotic second term.
Still, matter is important. If both parties agree to launch a long process, the damage caused by Trump’s trade war on Beijing, which promises consumer shortages and rising prices, could last. And Trump’s lockdown on tariffs and his belief that other countries constantly tear the US apart means that consumers are likely to get higher prices despite Commerce’s secretary’s comments on CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday’s “coalition status” that amounted to a “silly argument.”
Trump also argued that his administration was helping to end the Indo-Pakistan clash with Kashmir, which appears to be about to erupt into a full-scale war. The Islamabad government praised the US intervention as decisive, although India was more protected. Still, US involvement may be a sign that Trump is willing to throw himself into international diplomacy without the US reward, which is more obvious than he first appeared. Hours before Washington was more involved, Vance, part of the wing of the Maga isolationist, described the conflict as “none of our business.”
The longest-running foreign policy initiative of Trump is in the Middle East and began before he took office. It’s a poor ad for his strategy. Witkov’s involvement failed to stop the war in Gaza as the fatal humanitarian crisis worsened. In fact, Trump may have made things worse. His plan to move the Palestinians and build the “Middle Eastern Riviera” was not only equivalent to ethnic cleansing, but also encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call by far-right politicians for a debate over the sovereignty of Gaza.
And Trump’s hostility towards his allies was destructive. With the growing transatlantic ripple, there is a government that supports Washington constantly distantly and ponders his security arrangements. This may meet Trump’s goal of allies doing more in their own defense. But it could break the alliance system that has grown in power for generations. And Canadian Kearney warns that between Ottawa and Washington, one of the closest geopolitical friendships in history, is not the same in accordance with Trump’s threat to absorb his country.