Trump is naive, delusional – and being played by Putin

Editorial: The two leaders may say that they trust each other – but nobody else with any sense trusts either of them

There are those who would have you believe that Donald Trump’s recent childish diplomatic blunderings are the product of a brilliant mind playing the kind of five-dimensional chess that lesser mortals cannot hope to comprehend. Perhaps. But the track record and present realities suggest otherwise. They suggest that Donald Trump is being played.

The fundamental fact to emerge from his lengthy telephone call with Vladimir Putin is that Mr Trump did not get what he wanted. There is no ceasefire; the fighting continues. Famously, during the election campaign, he boasted that his unique negotiating skills, honed in the cut-throat world of New York real estate, would secure an end to the fighting in Ukraine within 24 hours. Well, whatever else, Mr Trump has not secured the deal he wanted. Far from it.

His “ask” of his Russian counterpart was an unconditional ceasefire for a month. In return for that, Mr Trump had bullied Volodymyr Zelensky into agreeing to such a pause in the fighting with no future guarantees on Ukrainian security, ie the future of his nation. All Mr Trump gave to Mr Zelensky after the public punishment beating in the Oval Office was his word (no further comment on that), and a vague US-Ukraine “minerals deal”, which will materialise only in the long run, if ever. Putin, ever so politely, declined all that, save for a “partial” and conditional ceasefire on energy plants and “infrastructure” and some maximalist counterproposals.

Yet even this paltry undertaking of a limited ceasefire was dishonoured. Within hours the Russians had launched devastating attacks on a Ukrainian electricity sub-station powering the railway, and two hospitals. The humiliation of Mr Trump was complete, and Mr Zelensky vindicated.

Putin went into these talks more than ready for Mr Trump, and, like the good KGB officer he once was, was as well-briefed and charmingly deferential as in their various previous encounters in Mr Trump’s first term. Conscious that a very trivial personality was on the other end of the line in Washington, the entertaining but irrelevant notion of an ice hockey match between the US and Russia was floated (though presumably not with the idea that the winner gets the Donbas region). Expert groups are to be set up. There will be more talks – and a historic (for all the wrong reasons) face-to-face meeting between the leaders is likely, according to Mr Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff. That will be another propaganda coup for Putin, and a further trolling of Mr Zelensky and European leaders – all still excluded from a direct role in the process. A four-way peace conference would surely mean business.

No one, not even those in his closest circle, believes that Donald Trump believes in facts, is interested in strategy, or even understands the world around him: witness his delusions about Canada and the 6 January insurrection.

What is plain to all is that Mr Trump is driven and intrigued by personalities, almost entirely divorced from policy or power. Like a kid in a playground, Mr Trump wants to be like the other bullies he sees. He wants to emulate the other “strong men”, and mostly despises the softy liberals around him (with the curious exception, so far, of Sir Keir Starmer). Hence the name-calling of “Governor Trudeau”, “crooked Joe Biden” and “dictator without elections”, Mr Zelensky. In an interview after their phone call Mr Trump declared: “Putin actually said to me, ‘If you don’t mind, friend, I hate to see you as my enemy.’ He said it very strongly. I had a very good relationship with Putin. I had a very good relationship with President Xi. A very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.”

President Trump thinks that getting a great geopolitical deal means becoming their trusted friend, rather than using America’s great power to secure concessions. This partly explains why he punishes and threatens allies, but rewards people who are the rivals and enemies of America (with the notable exception of Iran and its proxies). It may also account for why his peace treaty with the Taliban was so flawed and rapidly dishonoured by them, and why his dramatic initiative on North Korea produced nothing.

With an extraordinary naivety, in contrast to his snarling tough guy self-image, President Trump has long since given many of his strongest cards away in these nascent peace talks over Ukraine, and the net result is that it is now more rather than less likely that, so far from ending the bloodshed, it will simply drag on.

Indeed, the outcome could be the extinction of Ukraine as an independent state. That should be regarded as a setback for American prestige and power on a par with the defeat in Vietnam half a century ago. But the terrible truth is that it would in fact be shrugged off with equanimity by Mr Trump, who shows every sign of sharing Putin’s war aims, up to and including a Nato retreat from eastern Europe and even the withdrawal of US forces from Europe.

To stretch the diplomatic cliche that is being bandied about, the likely failure of the Trump peace plan for Ukraine places the ball now very much in Europe’s court. Whether Mr Trump once again pulls US intelligence and defence support to Kyiv, Europe has to step into that breach and save Ukraine, and its own security.

That is why the prime minister and Emmanuel Macron have been so energetic in recruiting allies to the “coalition of the willing”, including Canada, Australia and Japan. Mr Trump and Putin may say that they trust each other – but nobody else with any sense trusts either of them.