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 saying out loud what the summit did not deliver. "He's let me down," Trump said this week. "He really let me down." The meeting was meant to move Ukraine toward peace. It has not.

The Middle East offers no more comfort. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting a new offensive in Gaza City and striking across the region. That includes an Israeli attack on Hamas targets inside Qatar, a U.S. ally that has been hosting diplomatic negotiations. Trump's response was brief: "They have to be very, very careful."

The tone is a long way from the dominance Trump usually projects abroad. He promotes his diplomatic record and campaigns for the Nobel Peace Prize, and asked about his goals for the coming U.N. General Assembly, he answered "world peace." Yet the two most prominent conflicts are escalating. Max Bergmann, a State Department official under President Barack Obama who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the last nine months of peace efforts "just a merry-go-round."

Bergmann argues that Trump likes bold gestures, such as the stealth bomber strike in Iran and the sweeping tariff announcement, but that peace agreements are a different kind of problem. They are very hard, he said, and Trump has not surrounded himself with experienced diplomats and foreign policy experts. His comparison: asking him to do a hotel deal would be a terrible deal, and he would lose a lot of money. The White House points to European leaders who have praised 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, says the president's brashness can produce results, as when he pressed European allies to spend more on defense. But on harder issues Trump can spin his wheels and give up, as he did in trying to persuade Kim Jong Un to end North Korea's nuclear program. Kroenig wonders at what point Trump says Ukraine and Gaza are too hard and moves on. He also notes a structural issue: foreign policy normally runs through the National Security Council, but Trump has sharply cut its 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 Middle East, Trump has visited Arab nations, Qatar among them, to strengthen ties, while backing Israel's military operations in Gaza and Iran. Israel, emboldened by battlefield success, is now striking more widely. The Qatar attack jeopardized U.S.-backed negotiations and shook Arab leaders' faith in Trump's ability to influence Netanyahu, let alone restrain him. According to three Arab diplomats who described conversations at the last Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha, some leaders now see Israel, not Iran, as their main security threat. They spoke anonymously because the talks were private. It is a notable shift after the closeness of Trump's first term and the Abraham Accords.

U.S. officials point to Trump's displeasure with Netanyahu, recent meetings with Qatar's prime minister and talk of enhanced security arrangements. Next week at the General Assembly, Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff can expect heavy criticism. Because Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons against Qatar, and Qatar's own U.S.-supplied defenses could not counter the strike, Arab diplomats are weighing a demand for stronger U.S. support. That would likely be politically untenable for now, given strong Republican support for Israel in Congress.

In Europe, critics are frustrated by Trump's equivocal stance on Putin. He has sometimes suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is as responsible as Moscow for a war Russia began with its 2022 invasion. Trump said the Alaska meeting "accomplished a lot" but that "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. When three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace on Friday, Trump said it could signal "big trouble."

At a news conference in the United Kingdom during his state visit, Trump said he was dedicated to ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Then he added: "You never know in war." Next week's U.N. gathering will show how much patience allies still have.