Trump Obeyed in Advance to Putin
By making concessions ahead of a possible negotiation, Trump has given up the game on Ukraine
For all of his vaunted deal-making skills, Donald Trump has been repeatedly proven to be a poor negotiator. His willingness to concede may be a disaster for Ukraine, where the U.S. president announced on February 12 that he had spoken with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to start talks to end the Ukraine war. Ahead of possible talks, Trump has given up U.S. leverage; to borrow a concept from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, he has obeyed in advance to the Russian leader.
On February 12, Trump announced that it was no longer practical for Ukraine to join NATO and get back all of the land it has lost to Russia since 2014. It's true that the Biden Administration did not think that these things were particularly likely either, but it did not say so publicly. By conceding these things out loud, the Trump Administration gave up much of the leverage it had to get a more favorable settlement for Ukraine.
Trump has signaled that he is in a hurry—and indicated no willingness to walk away from talks. In the campaign, he repeatedly promised that he would bring an end to the war in "24 hours." That did not happen. Still, in his statement on Truth Social announcing the Putin call, he said that negotiations would begin "immediately" and that he believed that "this effort will lead to a successful conclusion, hopefully soon!" While the Biden policy of supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes" was highly problematic because it signaled that the West was supporting Ukraine enough so it would not lose but not enough to win, announcing that these talks would end soon—and successfully—is far worse.
Putin, however, is willing to wait it out—and walk away. France-based Russia analyst Tatiana Stanovaya wrote: "Make no mistake—Putin is fully prepared for these talks to fail." The Russian leader's strategic goal is an Ukraine that is under Moscow's control. He is in no mood to compromise; in recent days, Russian officials have ruled out exchanging territory with Kyiv. Trump, meanwhile, seems to lack coherent goals other than getting the war to stop under his watch, which is not entirely the same as Putin's goal of a subservient Ukraine.
For this reason, I have been skeptical about the prospects of potential talks. Russia has a maximalist goal, and shows no signs of budging. It's possible that Trump will agree to that goal and call it a victory, which would be a major defeat for him personally. However, Ukraine, whose role in these talks is not clear, is not obligated to accept a settlement over its head—its troops and in many cases, its weapons, are doing the fighting.
More broadly, Trump's announcement was a moral collapse for U.S. leadership. Putin is an international pariah wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court connected to launching the first war of aggression in the 21st century. Trump thinks that the two men should visit each other’s countries.