President Donald Trump, in January’s inaugural deal with, predicted his “proudest legacy will likely be that of a peacemaker and a unifier.”
Six months into his second time period, conflicts are raging on three fronts all over the world.
Iran and Israel are buying and selling strikes amid fears of an all-out warfare wherein the U.S. may turn into concerned. Russia carried out certainly one of its deadliest assaults on Ukraine’s capital in months in a single day earlier this week. In Gaza, persons are struggling to search out meals and dozens have been killed in current incidents close to support areas.
“He is clearly not a peacemaker, however he isn’t a warmaker, both,” Aaron David Miller, a State Division diplomat within the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations — now on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace — advised ABC Information.
President Donald Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Garden on the White Home, June 15, 2025 in Washington.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Pictures
Trump vowed speedy ends to the Israel-Hamas warfare and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two conflicts that broke out within the earlier administration that Trump has labeled “Biden’s wars.” On the marketing campaign path, he usually railed towards “limitless wars” and mused that he may resolve the Russia-Ukraine warfare in 24 hours — a remark that when in workplace he walked again as an “exaggeration.”
“He has made feedback on all of them that this may very well be completed shortly or simply and that there are answers to those three issues,” Miller mentioned. “And but, he has not been profitable in even figuring out what I might take into account to be a probably efficient technique for managing or not to mention resolving them. And therein lies the problem.”
Whereas Trump has made new diplomatic efforts a precedence amid his flurry of initiatives throughout his first months, he is expressed growing frustration with the overseas leaders concerned and frequently condemns what he calls “the dying” the conflicts have wrought.
“He has adopted via on his guarantees to strive,” mentioned Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Center Japanese research on the Council on Overseas Relations who labored as particular consultant for Iran and Venezuela in Trump’s first administration. “He has tried in Ukraine and he has tried in Gaza and he is tried in Iran, and none of them has labored out.”
One declare of success on the overseas coverage entrance that Trump continuously makes, and says he can replicate by pushing commerce offers, is how he says he stopped the current combating between India and Pakistan. Trump’s claimed he hasn’t obtained sufficient credit score: “I acquired it stopped. I do not assume I had one story.”
Trump now faces tough alternative on Iran and Israel
Trump departed a Group of Seven summit early, citing tensions within the Center East and ordering his nationwide safety staff to huddle within the Scenario Room upon his return to Washington. He is obtained a spread of choices, together with utilizing U.S. army belongings to strike Iranian nuclear amenities.
Trump did not rule out the likelihood, telling reporters on Wednesday: “I could do it. I could not do it. I imply, no one is aware of what I will do.”
The president’s messaging on the battle has been combined.
Trump had publicly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any strikes may derail talks between the U.S. and Iran on a nuclear deal. However after Israel’s assaults final Friday on Tehran, Trump appeared to vary his tune, telling ABC Information they have been “wonderful” and saying they might drive Tehran to the negotiating desk.
In the previous couple of days, he is floated sending Vice President JD Vance and Particular Envoy Steve Witkoff to talk with the Iranians whereas additionally demanding Iran’s “unconditional give up.” Officers have mentioned the U.S. has not been concerned in Israel’s offensive, whereas Trump claimed “we now have full and complete management of the skies over Iran.”
Israeli first responders work in a residential space hit by a missile fired from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025.
Ariel Schalit/AP
“His phrases and deeds are chaotic and inconsistent,” Miller mentioned of Trump. “And the notion that he is unpredictable and that helps him definitely hasn’t confirmed to be the case up to now in these three conflicts.”
The White Home and Vice President Vance have defended Trump’s place on Iran, saying he is lengthy been clear and constant that the nation cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Abrams concedes Trump’s messaging is perhaps “complicated” however is consultant of a quickly altering state of affairs on the bottom in Tehran.
“One factor he is attempting to clarify to the Ayatollah is that if he assaults American ships from bases he is completed, that is the top of the regime. That’s one thing any president ought to do,” Abrams mentioned.
Peace in Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars stays out of attain
Because the administration ramps up its concentrate on Israel and Iran, different areas are at a standstill.
“On Gaza, nobody has give you a workable plan,” Abrams mentioned. “It is a depraved drawback. [Joe] Biden didn’t give you a plan in his 15 months after October 7 and Trump hasn’t give you a workable one.”
An preliminary three-phrase peace deal aimed toward ending the warfare in Gaza, which was brokered by members of each the Biden and Trump administrations, collapsed in March. Since then, proposals for a brief ceasefire have fallen via.
Individuals carrying sacks of flour stroll alongside al-Rashid avenue in western Jabalia, June 17, 2025, after humanitarian support vehicles reportedly entered the northern Gaza Strip via the Israeli-controlled Zikim border crossing, amid the continuing warfare between Israel and Hamas.
Basher Taleb/AFP through Getty Pictures
Ukrainian rescuers conduct a search and rescue work in a closely broken residential constructing following the Russian missile strike in Kyiv on June 17, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Genya Savilov/AFP through Getty Pictures
In Japanese Europe, Trump took a distinct strategy than his predecessor in partaking with each the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, usually saying his private relationship with Vladimir Putin would produce outcomes.
Some progress seemed to be made when Russian and Ukrainian officers held their first face-to-face assembly for the reason that invasion started again in mid-Might. However talks have since stalled, with the Trump administration taking a step again whereas Ukraine and Russia have been intensifying assaults in current weeks.
“The president did a number of huffing and puffing on the necessity for peace, however he hasn’t been ready to essentially push Putin in that path,” mentioned Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow on the Council on Overseas Relations who served because the State Division’s ambassador-at-large for the previous Soviet Union.
William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine through the Obama administration at the moment serving as a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, mentioned Putin will not be going to be swayed diplomatically.
“Putin goes to be swayed by a mix of army and financial stress,” Taylor mentioned. “So President Trump ought to do this.”
No new commitments have been made for U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine and no new sanctions have been positioned on Russia, nonetheless, and there at the moment are studies that the Trump administration disbanded a gaggle targeted on pressuring Russia.
“For somebody who claims to have mastered the artwork of the deal, it is a fairly spectacular failure,” Sestanovich mentioned of Trump’s strategy to the Russia-Ukraine warfare up to now.
