Donald Trump aims dealmaking ambitions at world trouble spots
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Ned Temko Columnist
| London
Donald Trump prides himself on being a dealmaker, and he has set himself some ambitious goals in the international arena.
He has backed off his boast that he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine in a single day. But he takes office next week with some peacemaking momentum. Mr. Trump’s Mideast envoy, golf buddy Steve Witkoff, helped push the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement over the line.
Why We Wrote This
Donald Trump has ambitious diplomatic goals for hot spots around the world, and he prides himself on his skill at making deals. But agreements with China, Russia, and Iran would be a tall order.
Translating that into Middle East peace, however, is a tall order. So is crafting a deal with Vladimir Putin that will satisfy the Russian president’s desires while protecting Ukraine from further Russian aggression.
Perhaps the most enticing deal would be with China. Could Beijing be persuaded to reduce superpower tensions, especially over Taiwan, and to address long-standing U.S. trade concerns? Perhaps a reduction in the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed in his first term, and a pledge not to hike them further, might help?
Whether any of these breakthroughs might happen is unclear. The world has changed since Mr. Trump was last in office. Russia, China, and Iran are increasingly aligned in trying to minimize America’s global influence, which makes them less susceptible to a deal with Washington.
But Mr. Trump seems to have his eyes set on a Nobel Peace Prize. He has always aimed high.
The words are nowhere to be found on the presidential seal of office that Donald Trump will reclaim next Monday afternoon.
But they capture his view of his greatest political asset, helping explain his highly personal approach to wielding power and influence on the world stage.
Donald J. Trump: dealmaker in chief.
Why We Wrote This
Donald Trump has ambitious diplomatic goals for hot spots around the world, and he prides himself on his skill at making deals. But agreements with China, Russia, and Iran would be a tall order.
And although his return to the White House is already unsettling U.S. allies, Mr. Trump’s top dealmaking priorities may lie elsewhere.
He is drawn by the allure of orchestrating diplomatic breakthroughs with key rivals like China, Russia, and Iran, as well as resolving the deadly conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
That will be a very tall order. Success seems elusive and, in the end, unlikely.
But not necessarily impossible.
Mr. Trump’s dealmaking playbook, honed during his years as a property developer, is clear: begin from a position of strength; deploy a mixture of carrot and stick, bluster and charm; wear down negotiators on the other side; and ultimately seal the arrangement you’d hoped for.
He will feel he’s starting with a strong hand. He has an unchallenged hold on the Republican Party, control of Congress, and no need to worry about running for reelection.
And it looks as though he will reenter the Oval Office with some momentum. Mr. Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, helped ease this week’s Israel-Hamas deal over the line.
The broad outlines of other potential deals exist, though they are beset by major obstacles.
When it comes to the conflict that he has boasted he’d end in a single day, the Ukraine war, even Kyiv and its staunchest allies recognize that there is no early prospect of expelling Russia’s army by force. A possible tradeoff: some form of continued Russian control of eastern Ukraine, but an end to the fighting and a credible political, financial, and security partnership with the West for Kyiv.
Mr. Trump’s own Ukraine representative has suggested that the new U.S. administration might offer both carrot and stick to Russian President Vladimir Putin: either peace talks, along with sanctions relief for his strained economy, or reinvigorated U.S. military support for Kyiv.
In the Mideast, there is also a blueprint for breakthrough.
Mr. Trump could build on his main first-term accomplishment, the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states. The goal now would be to expand the accords to include the most influential Arab and Muslim nation, Saudi Arabia.
That would be a juicy carrot for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The price? Riyadh’s condition for such a deal would be Israel’s readiness to keep the prospect of a two-state peace with Palestinians alive.
And Iran? Tehran has been weakened by international sanctions and Israeli military strikes. Iran’s ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, has been toppled. Its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, is reeling. The trade-off could involve a relaxation of the “maximum-pressure” sanctions that Mr. Trump imposed last time around, and an end to any idea of regime change in Tehran. In return, Iran would abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Perhaps the most enticing deal for Mr. Trump would involve America’s chief rival, China.
Could Beijing could be persuaded to reduce superpower tensions, especially over Taiwan, and to address long-standing U.S. trade concerns, in return for a reduction in the tariffs imposed during Mr. Trump’s first term and the sheathing of his threat to hike them further?
Whether any of these breakthroughs will happen, however, is less clear.
Mr. Trump’s desire to deliver them as dealmaker in chief is not in doubt. Ex-colleagues, notably former national security adviser John Bolton, have described how even when tensions with China and Iran were at their worst during his first term, Mr. Trump would come back to the idea of holding face-to-face talks with their leaders and achieving a dramatic rapprochement.
There may also be a further, personal motivation, to judge by his own frequent remarks on the subject: to equal the achievement of past U.S. presidents such as Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter by securing a Nobel Peace Prize.
Yet he returns to office at a time when the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have transformed the geopolitical landscape. The prospects of breakthroughs with China, Russia, and Iran are doubly complicated by the fact that all three countries are increasingly aligned in trying to minimize America’s influence in the world.
And there’s another hurdle Mr. Trump will have to clear.
In Mr. Bolton’s memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” he describes the frustration of trying to get Mr. Trump to appreciate the details and complexity of the trade-offs required to secure diplomatic deals, especially when his former boss was not prepared to entertain the notion that he might fail.
A salutary lesson from Mr. Trump’s first term involved his dramatic opening to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, offering to remove U.S. economic sanctions in return for an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear arms program.
The two men held a pair of high-profile summits, but Mr. Kim would agree to only partial denuclearization. The talks failed.
Mr. Kim is now providing arms – and troops – for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
