Donald Trump has claimed on several occasions that he could negotiate a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow in 24 hours of taking office. When asked for details, the former president has kept his own counsel and not revealed any plans.
He told former aid Sebastion Gorka on his podcast last March, “I will say certain things to each one of them that I wouldn’t say to the rest of the world, and that’s why I can’t tell you much more than that."
Now, the Washington Post claims it has an outline of how Trump plans to end the Ukraine war. In truth, if you're going to end the war in 24 hours, this is the only scenario that could possibly work. And much of what the Post is reporting has been floating around Washington for months.
In essence, Trump is proposing a "land for peace" deal where Ukraine gives up any claim to Crimea and the eastern region known as the Donbas. Russia would reduce its reliance on China while Ukraine would be prevented from joining NATO.
Filling in the blanks, Trump would almost certainly force this settlement on Ukraine by refusing to supply any more military aid and hold out the carrot to Putin of lifting some sanctions on Moscow.
But the EU, which genuinely fears Russian revanchism, has just jump-started their arms industry and hopes to take up some of the slack from the U.S. And lifting sanctions on Russia won't work unless the EU goes along with it.
Trump wants to re-align U.S. foreign policy priorities toward China and the Pacific region, where U.S. interests are threatened. A good start would be to wean Russia off its dependence on China for arms and economic assistance. The goal is to prevent Russia from becoming a Chinese vassal.
But a U.S. abandonment of Ukraine and proposing that Kyiv give up a quarter of its territory carries heavy costs. It would reward Vladimir Putin for his blatant violation of the world order in attacking Ukraine and receiving the benefit of world recognition of his banditry.
“I’ve been spending 100 percent of my time talking to Trump about Ukraine,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), “He [Putin] has to pay a price. He can’t win at the end of this."
“The way you end this war to me is you make sure Ukraine gets into NATO and the E.U.,” he said. “He doesn’t say much about that. I don’t know if he’s thought too much about it.”
Without a tranche of arms from the U.S., Ukraine will slowly bleed to death as Russia's war of attrition keeps slogging forward. There's nothing flashy about it. The corpses from both sides are piling up with no end in sight.
President Zelensky is a long way from accepting Trump's proposal for peace. He has promised continually that he will win back every inch of Ukrainian territory taken by Russia. It's a foolish promise that will make it that much harder for anyone, Trump or Biden, to make peace.
In the end, it's the China-Russia problem that has perplexed the brain trust of both Trump and Biiden.
"Trump people feel as if one of the great sins of the Ukrainian war and the Russia policy, generally speaking, is to push Russia toward China and to make it all the more dependent on China,” said Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. How to uncouple the two countries will occupy a good deal of time and effort over the next few years, no matter who is president.
Meanwhile Ukraine won't surrender and Russia does not have the offensive firepower to win a military victory. Some kind of peace deal will have to be reached.
My own guess is that the deal will look more like Trump's proposal than Biden's wishful thinking.
