Following “two days of whirlwind diplomacy” at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Donald Trump has insisted he is “making progress towards ending two destructive conflicts in eastern Europe and the Middle East”, said John Bowden on The Independent.
The US president met his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday in his Palm Beach “Winter White House” and then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.
The details of Trump’s “supposed gains” in both discussions “remain unclear” beyond his own assertions, and “there is little evidence to support the idea that either the war in Ukraine or the horrific conditions in Gaza will abate any time soon”, said Bowden.
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The president remains “evasive” about how he plans to “force various parties” in Ukraine and the Middle East to “get fully on board with his peacemaking agenda” beyond “vague threats and coercion”.
Zelenskyy said the 20-point peace plan for Ukraine is 90% agreed, while Trump said a security guarantee for the country is “close to 95%” completed. But there are “still a few main sticking points”, said the BBC, including how much territory Kyiv will be asked to hand to Moscow, the future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and plans to turn part of the Donbas region into a demilitarised economic zone.
In reality, talking between Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin “has not even begun”, said Ben Hall in the Financial Times. Both are “locked in another titanic if less murderous struggle: the battle for Donald Trump’s mind”. Neither side wants to be “seen as the obstacle to peace and then punished for being so”.
Netanyahu is a man who “knows how to talk to President Trump”, said Lara Spirit in The Times. After awarding the US president the Israel Prize, the state’s highest cultural honour, and thanking him for his help on behalf of Israelis, he will “probably be walking away from Florida largely happy with what he heard”. Trump “praised” him and “issued statements of support” on the Gaza ceasefire, Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the Israeli leader’s “hopes of securing a presidential pardon”.
He “got what he came for” on Gaza, said Mark Stone on Sky News, although there were some “intriguing divergences” between him and Trump on Syria and the West Bank. After two “December days in Palm Beach” I have “sunburn and whiplash”. While “the sunburn is my fault”, Trump’s “head-spinning” style of diplomacy is “to blame for the whiplash”.
What next?
With US midterm elections due next year, Trump will need to focus on “the economy and the cost of living” rather than “foreign conflicts”, said Stone.
The president “knows that”, and so do “America’s adversaries and its troublesome allies”. The question is what they will “gamble on in 2026”, knowing that Trump “may not care – or may simply go along with it”. The rest of us should “buckle up”.
