An American secretary of state brokers a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Washington and Beijing agree to ease tensions over trade. The US President voices his exasperation with Vladimir Putin before departing for the Middle East on a peace mission.
These sentences could have been written about almost any of Donald Trump’s recent predecessors; now, suddenly, they are true of him. For the first time since regaining the White House, Trump is taking foreign policy decisions that would not have caused other presidents to recoil in horror. Some even look quite normal.
Faced with a nuclear-tipped confrontation between India and Pakistan, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and JD Vance, the vice-president, dropped everything and spent two days working the phones and hauling both countries back from the brink.
Trump chose to involve America in this distant crisis and allow his emissaries to play the superpower’s traditional role as international troubleshooter. Once harmony was restored – at least for now – Trump refrained from claiming credit, instead lavishing praise on the “unwaveringly powerful” prime ministers of India and Pakistan for their “strength, wisdom and fortitude”.
A day later it was China’s turn to be commended as Trump hailed a “total reset negotiated in a friendly but constructive manner”, allowing both nations to cut tariffs and de-escalate their trade war.
Today Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia, America’s oldest ally in the Middle East, for a visit that will focus on ending one war – Gaza – and avoiding another over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Going to Riyadh to discuss Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict is something that American presidents have been doing for decades. Earlier, Trump even signed a trade agreement with America’s closest ally of all – the United Kingdom – and repeated his demand for Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Do not rejoice just yet. The fact that America has managed a full week of traditional diplomacy will not repair the alliance-wrecking vandalism of Trump’s first months.
So low are expectations that the markets are rejoicing over US tariffs on China of “only” 30 per cent, while Europeans are relieved by even the mildest Trumpian rebuke for Putin.
But the good news is that the era when America gloried in a maximally disruptive foreign policy may just be coming to a close. Unless turning the world upside down was an end in itself, the aim was presumably to shock and awe America’s friends and soften them up for a deal. If so, Trump may have concluded that now is the time to start landing those deals.
But where does this leave his most dangerous tendency, namely his willingness to risk the security of his allies by indulging Putin?
Optimists can point to signs of change. Trump has demanded that Putin accept a full ceasefire in Ukraine. He has released $50 million of American arms for Kyiv.
The minerals deal, signed by America and Ukraine last month, brought the US administration’s official position on the war back into line with its allies: the text referred to “Russia’s full-scale invasion” and Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, promised a “peace process” centred on a “free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine”.
But the Kremlin will have noticed that Trump himself has not used those words. And more than two months have passed since Ukraine accepted America’s proposal of a ceasefire.
In that time, Ukraine has also agreed to peace talks with Russia; in fact Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to meet Putin in Istanbul on Thursday. At every stage, Zelensky has done what America asked and demonstrated that he is not the barrier to peace.
What of Putin? Instead of accepting the ceasefire suggested by the US on March 11, he has defied Trump by striking Ukraine’s cities with ballistic missiles and lethal drones. So far Putin has not agreed to meet Zelensky on Thursday.
In Washington, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, has devised a sanctions bill designed to punish Putin’s intransigence by suffocating Russia’s oil exports.
Graham’s sanctions would impose tariffs of 500 per cent on any country that imports Russian hydrocarbons, a punitive measure that would probably deter even China and India from buying Putin’s oil, thus depriving the Kremlin of its single largest source of revenue.
This bill has gained the public backing of 70 out of 100 Senators. If Trump gives the word, it will pass. But he has not given the word; in fact he has not recently signalled any willingness to turn the screw on Putin.
Last Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer visited Kyiv alongside President Macron of France, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland. They jointly pledged to “ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine” until Putin accepts the ceasefire.
This should have been the week when Trump and his European allies joined hands to impose punitive sanctions on the Kremlin. Instead, once again, Trump has blinked and the US sanctions remain in limbo in the Senate.
The easy response would be for European leaders to live in hope that if maximum US disruption is over, then all they have to do is wait until Trump finally realises how Putin is stringing him along.
But this would be to overlook the central paradox of Trump’s foreign policy: the less you ask of him – and the more you do for yourself – the greater your chance of securing American help.
If they want Trump to escalate US pressure on Putin, then Europe should get on with tightening its own ligature around Russia’s economy.
Britain should lead by imposing the extra sanctions that are in our hands: seizing the £25 billion of frozen Russian assets in the UK – setting a precedent for the EU to confiscate the other £200 billion in their banks – and lowering the price cap for Russian oil exports to $30 per barrel.
If Europe acts, America might too. Then there could be a chance to use the possible end of Trump’s era of maximum disruption to reunite the Atlantic Alliance.
An American secretary of state brokers a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Washington and Beijing agree to ease tensions over trade. The US President voices his exasperation with Vladimir Putin before departing for the Middle East on a peace mission.
These sentences could have been written about almost any of Donald Trump’s recent predecessors; now, suddenly, they are true of him. For the first time since regaining the White House, Trump is taking foreign policy decisions that would not have caused other presidents to recoil in horror. Some even look quite normal.
Faced with a nuclear-tipped confrontation between India and Pakistan, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and JD Vance, the vice-president, dropped everything and spent two days working the phones and hauling both countries back from the brink.
Trump chose to involve America in this distant crisis and allow his emissaries to play the superpower’s traditional role as international troubleshooter. Once harmony was restored – at least for now – Trump refrained from claiming credit, instead lavishing praise on the “unwaveringly powerful” prime ministers of India and Pakistan for their “strength, wisdom and fortitude”.
A day later it was China’s turn to be commended as Trump hailed a “total reset negotiated in a friendly but constructive manner”, allowing both nations to cut tariffs and de-escalate their trade war.
Today Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia, America’s oldest ally in the Middle East, for a visit that will focus on ending one war – Gaza – and avoiding another over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Going to Riyadh to discuss Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict is something that American presidents have been doing for decades. Earlier, Trump even signed a trade agreement with America’s closest ally of all – the United Kingdom – and repeated his demand for Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Do not rejoice just yet. The fact that America has managed a full week of traditional diplomacy will not repair the alliance-wrecking vandalism of Trump’s first months.
So low are expectations that the markets are rejoicing over US tariffs on China of “only” 30 per cent, while Europeans are relieved by even the mildest Trumpian rebuke for Putin.
But the good news is that the era when America gloried in a maximally disruptive foreign policy may just be coming to a close. Unless turning the world upside down was an end in itself, the aim was presumably to shock and awe America’s friends and soften them up for a deal. If so, Trump may have concluded that now is the time to start landing those deals.
But where does this leave his most dangerous tendency, namely his willingness to risk the security of his allies by indulging Putin?
Optimists can point to signs of change. Trump has demanded that Putin accept a full ceasefire in Ukraine. He has released $50 million of American arms for Kyiv.
The minerals deal, signed by America and Ukraine last month, brought the US administration’s official position on the war back into line with its allies: the text referred to “Russia’s full-scale invasion” and Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, promised a “peace process” centred on a “free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine”.
But the Kremlin will have noticed that Trump himself has not used those words. And more than two months have passed since Ukraine accepted America’s proposal of a ceasefire.
In that time, Ukraine has also agreed to peace talks with Russia; in fact Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to meet Putin in Istanbul on Thursday. At every stage, Zelensky has done what America asked and demonstrated that he is not the barrier to peace.
What of Putin? Instead of accepting the ceasefire suggested by the US on March 11, he has defied Trump by striking Ukraine’s cities with ballistic missiles and lethal drones. So far Putin has not agreed to meet Zelensky on Thursday.
In Washington, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, has devised a sanctions bill designed to punish Putin’s intransigence by suffocating Russia’s oil exports.
Graham’s sanctions would impose tariffs of 500 per cent on any country that imports Russian hydrocarbons, a punitive measure that would probably deter even China and India from buying Putin’s oil, thus depriving the Kremlin of its single largest source of revenue.
This bill has gained the public backing of 70 out of 100 Senators. If Trump gives the word, it will pass. But he has not given the word; in fact he has not recently signalled any willingness to turn the screw on Putin.
Last Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer visited Kyiv alongside President Macron of France, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany and Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland. They jointly pledged to “ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine” until Putin accepts the ceasefire.
This should have been the week when Trump and his European allies joined hands to impose punitive sanctions on the Kremlin. Instead, once again, Trump has blinked and the US sanctions remain in limbo in the Senate.
The easy response would be for European leaders to live in hope that if maximum US disruption is over, then all they have to do is wait until Trump finally realises how Putin is stringing him along.
But this would be to overlook the central paradox of Trump’s foreign policy: the less you ask of him – and the more you do for yourself – the greater your chance of securing American help.
If they want Trump to escalate US pressure on Putin, then Europe should get on with tightening its own ligature around Russia’s economy.
Britain should lead by imposing the extra sanctions that are in our hands: seizing the £25 billion of frozen Russian assets in the UK – setting a precedent for the EU to confiscate the other £200 billion in their banks – and lowering the price cap for Russian oil exports to $30 per barrel.
If Europe acts, America might too. Then there could be a chance to use the possible end of Trump’s era of maximum disruption to reunite the Atlantic Alliance.