- The author is an American scholar.

ISTANBUL 

"The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a deal! Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts … Let both claim Victory, let History decide! … Thousands of people being slaughtered each and every week — no more, go home to your families in peace."[1]

Certainly, US President Donald Trump's call for an end to the war in Ukraine is commendable, but is finding a solution to drawn-out conflicts just a matter of everyone "going home to their families in peace?" From listening to or reading Trump's words concerning his efforts to achieve peace in the globe's various war zones, one receives the impression that reconciling such conflicts is no more complicated than wagging a finger at misbehaving children.

For the past nine months, making peace in Ukraine (or in other places) has proved far more challenging than President Trump originally envisioned. The obvious reason is that Trump either has no detailed knowledge of the conflict's various causes, or he brushes off all those details as trifles that everyone should ignore in order "to stop the killing." Even Trump's own statements about what triggered the war have ranged from extremely vague to completely erroneous.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin sees NATO's encroachment on Russia’s western hinterland as an existential threat because Russia has been invaded from Eastern Europe four times in the past 200 years [2]. For their part, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries see Moscow’s pressure on Eastern Europe as a new episode of Russian imperialist aggression, which stretches back to the 1700s.

Without a doubt, this is a highly intractable, complex conflict – composed of historical and contemporary factors – that Trump wants to deal with in the same manner as Alexander the Great dealt with the Gordion Knot.

MAGA dealmaker

Some of Trump's efforts to present himself as a peacemaker seem connected to his self-proclaimed "dealmaker" identity. Whether in business, diplomacy, or war, making deals is a talent that he flaunts.

Unfortunately, his record as a dealmaker is spotty, so perhaps that’s a reason he doggedly pursues peacemaking, to prove his mettle. And Trump, once the Ukraine conflict predictably proved more difficult to solve than he foresaw, has since frequently resorted to blaming former President Joe Biden for the war. That’s what Americans call "passing the buck."

This entire scene elicits a larger question which many have been struggling to answer for the past nine months: Why is Trump getting involved in these global quandaries at all?

MAGA isolationist peacemaker

What strikes many observers as odd is why a president who campaigned on extracting the US from world conflicts spends so much time trying to twist the arms of various global leaders in order to force them to make peace with each other. His approach does not feature careful, balanced negotiations carried out with a profound understanding of the issues at stake. Instead, Trump prefers gruff threats tempered by peacenik-style pleading, as his approach to both the Ukraine and Gaza wars has amply illustrated.

One dimension of Trump's behavior is meant to present the tough, dominant, masculine leader persona that he has cultivated since 2016. Clearly, Trump and his advisors believe that such an image appeals to a significant portion of his voter base, and brandishing US military power is a vital element of that image.

Thus, Trump’s portrayal as a commanding and effective leader, not only domestically in the US but to the whole globe, is reinforced by his stature as a peacemaker. In other words, Trump and his advisors see saber rattling and peacemaking as two sides of the same coin: he can blow up boats in the Caribbean [3] and threaten to "go in and kill Hamas" [4] while simultaneously urging Russia and Ukraine to "make a deal" and convincing the Israeli government and Hamas to stop shooting. The message in sum is that Trump is in control everywhere. The contradiction between the belligerence and the dovishness is then explained away on social media by his administration’s officials [5] and in the traditional media by his allies.

Political calculation?

In the end, Trump appears to genuinely believe both in his ability to broker international peace deals and that this image increases his stature in the US public. Otherwise, why would both Trump and his advisors expend so much effort on the topic?

For example, the Gaza ceasefire deal that Trump (along with Türkiye, Qatar, and Egypt) helped broker is actually a politically dangerous issue for him in the US. Many of his voters are devoutly pro-Israel Christian Zionists who have not encountered any news concerning the Israeli government's horrific actions in Gaza over the past two years and so may be confused about exactly why Trump forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into the ceasefire agreement. Critics of Trump’s actions have surfaced from his base, both pro- and anti-Israel figures [6]. And one assumes that Trump cannot be so obsessed by the Nobel Peace Prize that he would sacrifice an important bloc of voters, especially when his approval ratings have been hovering just over 40% for months [7].

Or maybe Trump’s worldview is so narrowly focused on himself that he truly believes he can, as the old American saying goes, "have his cake and eat it too"?

[1] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115391463725537040

[2] Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812; the Central Powers invaded Russia during World War I; the Entente Powers sent forces to participate in the Russian Civil War after 1917; and Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Many Russians would probably add the Crimean War (1853-1856) as another example.

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/americas/trump-colombia-petro-aid.html

[4] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/16/politics/trump-hamas-warning-gaza

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/style/trump-officials-social-media.html?searchResultPosition=1

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/oct/19/marjorie-taylor-greene-breaks-republican-rank; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/laura-loomer-trump-maga-b2839670.html

[7] https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.