Trump Is Getting Fooled by Putin Again

What a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, Ukraine’s supporters were watching on optimistically, as all signs pointed toward Donald Trump allowing Ukraine to acquire long-range Tomahawk missiles at a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. Giving the green light for Ukraine to buy and use such powerful weapons would have dramatically increased the country’s firepower and ability to strike military infrastructure inside Russia. But Trump, whose tone towards Russia had hardened since his Alaska Summit with Putin in August failed to produce any meaningful results, made a U-turn that few saw coming. Zelensky’s most recent trip to Washington had a lot more in common with the notorious shouting match that took place in the Oval Office in February. On top of Trump’s withholding of weapons Ukraine needs, he returned to some of his old talking points. Most alarmingly, he insisted that any halt to fighting would mean Ukraine give up the Donbas region to Putin—an area Russia has failed to take total control of, despite 11 years of fighting. According to a report in the FT, Trump told the Ukrainian leader that if he did not bow to Putin’s will, Ukraine would be “destroyed.” The meeting reportedly descended into a bad-tempered shouting match, with Trump throwing away maps of the frontline, repeatedly swearing, and echoing a Kremlin talking point that the invasion is a “special operation, not even a war.” Trump held a surprise two-and-a-half-hour phone call with the Russian President Vladimir Putin while Zelensky was on his way to America. During that call, Trump reportedly agreed to a second face-to-face summit with Putin, this time in Budapest. Hungary is one of Putin’s few allies in the West, and its Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly dug his heels in on Western efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. To say it will be an embarrassment not just for Ukraine but many of its European allies is an understatement. Read More: Why Trump’s Alaska Summit With Putin Failed The meeting will allow Putin onto E.U. and NATO soil, where in theory he should be arrested given an ICC arrest warrant. The sight of Putin standing alongside the most powerful man in the world in a NATO country will instead likely be used as Kremlin propaganda—and another sign that Trump has once again been played for a fool by Putin. For all the positive noises that have come each time Trump has made commitments to Ukraine, or encouraged NATO allies to spend more on defense, or apparently started to see Putin for who he really is, the facts speak for themselves. A BBC Verify report in August found that the number of Russian attacks on Ukraine has doubled since Trump’s inauguration. In recent weeks, mounting drone incursions have even brazenly entered NATO skies. Trump’s desire for the war to end seems sincere. He has also made no secret of his wish to win a Nobel Peace Prize. But if the war in Ukraine ends with the nation’s future largely in the hands of its invader, the very idea that Trump is deserving of the prize would be a dishonor. Read More: Why Trump Didn’t Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize The Russian President is a man who lives by the axiom: give an inch, take a mile. When the Obama Administration let down Syria, Putin was more than happy to intervene there to prop up his ally Bashar al-Assad. The West’s decision to turn the other cheek after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 may have also emboldened him to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin scoring another summit with Trump is a diplomatic coup. So is Trump’s decision to renege on Tomahawks for Ukraine and swing back to Putin’s way of thinking. A version of Occam’s razor—that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is probably correct—applies here. If Trump continues to reward Putin and punish Kyiv, Putin will most likely further escalate in Ukraine and test the West. There is still hope that Trump may swing back to Ukraine, and heeding Zelensky’s call for an additional 25 U.S. Patriot anti-missile batteries is a good start. Those closest to the U.S. President should urge Trump to do more for Ukraine, and stress that his current strategy is making Putin look smarter and stronger than Trump’s America. For a man who cares about optics, that may be Ukraine’s best hope.