President Donald Trump never stays still for very long. He makes decisions, only to delay their implementation. He listens to pretty much everybody before he settles on a course of action, only to change his mind at the last minute. Whether it’s withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria during his first term or settling on a tariff regime in his second, Trump is an unpredictable chief executive who seems to relish his power to keep everyone on edge.
It was therefore only a matter of time before U.S. policy on Ukraine followed a similar trajectory. Many believed Trump wasn’t as malleable on the war in Ukraine as he was on other issues. Trump, after all, spent his entire presidential campaign lambasting Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy as ineffective, dangerously escalatory and a waste of American taxpayer money. He blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for milking Uncle Sam for tens of billions of dollars, all in service of a war the Ukrainians couldn’t win. Russian President Vladimir Putin was described as somebody who was not only smart but also interested in ending a war he started. And who could forget Trump’s bold proclamation, uttered on countless occasions, that he would be able to settle the war in a day?
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