Trump’s social media posts have sounded hopeful at times that he would be able to broker a deal — one likely to favor Russia — but there was a hint of a shift after his latest exchange with his Russian counterpart.
Instead of becoming infuriated with the obdurate Putin — something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been hoping would happen — Trump seems ready to give up and even walked back his persistent boasting that he can bring the war to a resolution.
While Trump last week accepted Putin’s decision not to show up in Turkey and admitted that there’d be no end to the war until the two men could “get together” and sort it out in person, on Monday he suggested that, in fact, a peace deal could only be negotiated between Russia and Ukraine “because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” Trump wrote.
Talking to reporters in the White House, Trump suggested that he could abandon the whole enterprise to broker a peace deal, complaining “this was a European situation. And it should have remained so. But the previous administration firmly convinced us that we had to get involved.”
He said that unless there’s progress “I’m just going to back away,” an ominous, now-persistent threat.
Earlier, U.S. Vice President JD Vance struck a similar tone, saying: “We’re going to try to end it, but if we can’t end it, we’re eventually going to say, ‘You know what? That was worth a try, but we’re not doing it anymore.’”