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 surprised that the meeting did not bring peace to Ukraine. "He's let me down," Trump said this week of the Russian leader. "He really let me down."

The Middle East has offered no more comfort. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting a new offensive in Gaza City and striking out across the region. After Israel targeted Hamas officials inside Qatar, a U.S. ally that has been hosting diplomatic negotiations, Trump said only that Israel has to be "very, very careful." The tone of that frustration sits awkwardly beside the dominance Trump likes to project abroad, and beside his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. Asked what he hoped to achieve at the coming U.N. General Assembly, he answered "world peace." The two most prominent conflicts, meanwhile, 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 in Washington, called the past nine months of peace efforts "just a merry-go-round." Bold gestures come naturally to Trump, he suggested, citing a stealth bomber strike in Iran and a sweeping tariff announcement. But peace agreements are very hard, Bergmann 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" without the background: "It would be a terrible deal. I would lose a lot of money."

The White House points to praise from European leaders for Trump's peace work, and Trump often says he hires "only the best people." Matt Kroenig, a senior Pentagon policy adviser in Trump's first term, credits the president's brashness with real results, such as his demand that European allies spend more on defense. But Kroenig noted that Trump can also spin his wheels on harder problems and eventually quit, as he did when trying to persuade Kim Jong Un to give up North Korea's nuclear program. On Ukraine and Gaza, Kroenig asked, at what point does Trump say, "This is too hard, let's move on to other issues"?

The structure around him matters too. Foreign policy usually runs as a team effort, coordinated among agencies through the National Security Council. Trump has sharply cut the council's staff, and Marco Rubio serves as 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 Middle East, Trump is caught in an increasingly combustible position. 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 its battlefield success, is striking more widely, including the attack on Hamas officials in Qatar. That put at risk negotiations the U.S. has been trying to advance, and it rattled Arab leaders' confidence in Trump's ability to influence Netanyahu, let alone restrain him.

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

At next week's General Assembly, Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff can expect a chorus of criticism, with Arab nations pushing for a more basic change in U.S. policy. Washington has worked to preserve Israel's military edge over its Arab neighbors, yet 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 whether to demand stronger support for themselves. That would likely be politically untenable for now, given strong backing 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. He insists the Alaska meeting "accomplished a lot," but "it takes two to tango," and he describes Zelenskyy and Putin as two people who hate each other. Fears of spillover have grown after Russian 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 in the United Kingdom during his state visit, Trump said he was dedicated to stopping both wars. Then he added: "You never know in war. Things happen that are very opposite of what you thought." The U.N. gathering next week will test whether anyone else sees a path forward.