Trump's Peace Push Stalls as Ukraine and Gaza Conflicts Escalate Despite Diplomatic Bids

A month after he sat down with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, President Donald Trump is still visibly puzzled that the meeting did not bring peace to Ukraine. "He's let me down," Trump said this week. "He really let me down."

The Middle East offers no relief. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is beginning a new offensive in Gaza City and striking well beyond Gaza. After Israel targeted Hamas inside Qatar, a U.S. ally that has been hosting diplomatic negotiations, Trump warned that Israel has to be "very, very careful." The tone of that frustration sits oddly beside the image of command he usually projects, and beside his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked what he hoped to achieve at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, he answered "world peace." The two conflicts he has most publicly tried to settle are escalating rather than winding down.

Max Bergmann, who served in the State Department under President Barack Obama and now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, called the last nine months of peace efforts "a merry-go-round." His argument is that peace agreements are simply hard, and that Trump has not surrounded himself with experienced diplomats and foreign policy specialists. He compared it to being told to go do a hotel deal: it would be a terrible deal, and he would lose a lot of money. The White House points instead to European leaders who have praised Trump's peacemaking, and Trump often says he hires "only the best people."

Matt Kroenig, a senior Pentagon policy adviser in Trump's first term, offered a more mixed assessment. Brashness can work, he said, as when Trump demanded higher defense spending from European allies. But on harder problems Trump can spin his wheels and eventually give up, as he did in trying to persuade Kim Jong Un to end North Korea's nuclear program. Kroenig wondered when Trump might decide Ukraine and Gaza are too hard and move on. He also noted a structural issue: foreign policy normally runs through extensive coordination among agencies via the National Security Council, but Trump has sharply cut the council's staff, and Marco Rubio is both secretary of state and national security adviser. "It's one person setting the strategy and everyone else is waiting to see," Kroenig said.

In the Gulf, Trump has been squeezed. He visited Arab nations this year, including Qatar, to deepen ties, and he has backed Israel's military operations in Gaza and Iran. But an Israel emboldened by battlefield success is now hitting targets across the region. The strike on Hamas officials in Qatar jeopardized negotiations Washington had been trying to advance, and it shook Arab leaders' confidence that Trump can influence Netanyahu, let alone restrain him.

According to three Arab diplomats familiar with discussions at the last Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha, some leaders now see Israel, not Iran, as their main security threat. The diplomats spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. The shift is notable given how much closer Israel and Arab states grew during Trump's first term, when he championed the Abraham Accords. U.S. officials try to calm the doubts by citing Trump's displeasure with Netanyahu's recent moves, recent meetings with Qatar's prime minister, and talks about enhanced security arrangements.

Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff can expect a chorus of criticism at next week's General Assembly, where Arab nations want a more fundamental change in U.S. policy. Washington has long worked to preserve Israel's military edge over its neighbors. Now Israel has struck Qatar with U.S.-supplied weapons, and Qatar's own U.S.-supplied defenses could not counter the attack. Arab diplomats are weighing whether to demand stronger U.S. support. That would likely be politically untenable for now, since support for Israel remains strong among the Republicans who control Congress.

In Europe, Trump has frustrated critics with an equivocal posture toward Putin, at times suggesting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is just as responsible for a war Moscow began with its 2022 invasion. Trump insisted the Alaska meeting "accomplished a lot," but added that "it takes two to tango," describing Zelenskyy and Putin as two people who "hate each other." Fears of spillover have grown after Russian military incursions into the airspace of NATO members Poland and Estonia. When three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace on Friday, Trump said it could mean "big trouble."

At a news conference during his state visit to the United Kingdom, Trump said he was dedicated to ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Then he added: "You never know in war." Things happen, he said, that are very opposite of what you thought. What to watch next is the General Assembly, and whether Trump keeps pressing talks that so far have not moved.