Trump's Peace Push Stalls as Ukraine and Gaza Conflicts Escalate Despite Summit Diplomacy

A month after he sat down with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, President Donald Trump is still visibly stung that the meeting produced no peace in Ukraine. "He's let me down," he said this week. "He really let me down."

The Middle East offers no relief. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting a new offensive in Gaza City and striking out across the region, including a strike on Hamas inside Qatar, a U.S. ally that has been hosting diplomatic negotiations. Trump's response was a warning: "They have to be very, very careful."

The tone clashes with the dominance Trump likes to project abroad, particularly as he promotes his diplomacy and campaigns for the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked what he wanted from the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, he answered "world peace." Yet the two most prominent conflicts appear to be intensifying. Max Bergmann, a State Department official under President Barack Obama who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the past nine months of peace efforts "just a merry-go-round."

Bergmann's argument is that bold gestures, such as a stealth bomber strike in Iran or a sweeping tariff announcement, are a different thing from negotiating settlements. Peace agreements are very hard, he said, and Trump has not surrounded himself with experienced diplomats and foreign policy experts. 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 peace efforts, and Trump often says he hires "only the best people."

Matt Kroenig, a senior Pentagon policy adviser in Trump's first term, sees some upside in the president's brashness, noting that it worked 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. On Ukraine and Gaza, Kroenig asked, at what point does Trump say it is too hard and move on? He also pointed to the machinery of policy. Trump has sharply cut the National Security Council's staff, and Marco Rubio serves as both secretary of state and national security adviser. In Kroenig's words, it is one person setting strategy while everyone else waits to see.

In the Middle East, Trump is caught in an increasingly combustible situation. He visited Arab nations, Qatar among them, this year to strengthen ties, and he has backed Israel's military operations in Gaza and Iran. Now Israel, emboldened by battlefield success, is hitting targets more widely. The Qatar strike jeopardized negotiations Washington has been trying to advance and shook Arab leaders' faith in Trump's ability to influence Netanyahu, let alone restrain him.

According to three Arab diplomats familiar with conversations at the last Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha, some leaders now see Israel rather than Iran as their main security threat. The diplomats spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss private talks. It marks a shift from Trump's first term, when Israel and Arab states drew closer and he championed the Abraham Accords. U.S. officials try to reassure partners by citing Trump's displeasure with Netanyahu's latest moves, recent meetings with Qatar's prime minister, and talks on enhanced security arrangements.

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

In Europe, Trump has frustrated critics with an equivocal stance toward Putin, at times suggesting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shares responsibility for a war Moscow began with its 2022 invasion. Trump insists the Alaska meeting "accomplished a lot," but "it takes two to tango," adding that Zelenskyy and Putin "hate each other." Fears of spillover have grown after Russian incursions into the airspace of NATO members Poland and Estonia. After 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 stopping the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, then turned reflective: "You never know in war," he said, adding that things happen that are the opposite of what you expected. The General Assembly is the next test.