President Donald Trump, in January’s inaugural handle, predicted his “proudest legacy shall 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, and solely escalating with Trump asserting Saturday evening that he had ordered a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear amenities.
“NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!,” he stated in asserting the army transfer.
However it comes amid Iran and Israel already buying and selling strikes and fears of an all-out battle.
And Russia carried out one among its deadliest assaults on Ukraine’s capital in months in a single day earlier this week. In Gaza, individuals are struggling to seek out meals and dozens have been killed in latest incidents close to assist places.
“He is clearly not a peacemaker, however he is not 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 — informed ABC Information earlier this week.
President Donald Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Garden on the White Home, June 15, 2025 in Washington.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Photographs
Trump vowed speedy ends to the Israel-Hamas battle 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 in opposition to “limitless wars” and “endlessly wars” and mused that he may resolve the Russia-Ukraine battle 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 might be accomplished shortly or simply and that there are answers to those three issues,” Miller stated. “And but, he has not been profitable in even figuring out what I might think about to be a doubtlessly 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 loss of life” the conflicts have wrought.
“He has adopted by means of on his guarantees to attempt,” stated Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Center Jap 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 ceaselessly makes, and says he can replicate by pushing commerce offers, is how he says he stopped the latest preventing between India and Pakistan. Trump’s claimed he hasn’t obtained sufficient credit score: “I bought it stopped. I do not suppose I had one story.”
Trump makes selection 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 State of affairs Room upon his return to Washington. He is obtained a variety 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’ll do it. I’ll not do it. I imply, no one is aware of what I will do.”
The president’s messaging on the battle was blended.
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.
At one level, he 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 stated 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 stated of Trump. “And the notion that he is unpredictable and that helps him definitely hasn’t confirmed to be the case to this point 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 scenario on the bottom in Tehran.
“One factor he is making an attempt to clarify to the Ayatollah is that if he assaults American ships from bases he is accomplished, that is the top of the regime. That’s one thing any president ought to do,” Abrams stated.
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 stated. “It is a depraved downside. [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 geared toward ending the battle in Gaza, which was brokered by members of each the Biden and Trump administrations, collapsed in March. Since then, proposals for a short lived ceasefire have fallen by means of.
Folks carrying sacks of flour stroll alongside al-Rashid avenue in western Jabalia, June 17, 2025, after humanitarian assist vans reportedly entered the northern Gaza Strip by means of the Israeli-controlled Zikim border crossing, amid the continued battle between Israel and Hamas.
Basher Taleb/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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 by way of Getty Photographs
In Jap Europe, Trump took a unique strategy than his predecessor in participating 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 because the invasion started again in mid-Could. However talks have since stalled, with the Trump administration taking a step again whereas Ukraine and Russia have been intensifying assaults in latest weeks.
“The president did numerous huffing and puffing on the necessity for peace, however he hasn’t been ready to essentially push Putin in that route,” stated 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 throughout the Obama administration at the moment serving as a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, stated Putin shouldn’t be going to be swayed diplomatically.
“Putin goes to be swayed by a mixture of army and financial stress,” Taylor stated. “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 are actually reviews that the Trump administration disbanded a gaggle targeted on pressuring Russia.
“For somebody who claims to have mastered the artwork of the deal, this can be a fairly spectacular failure,” Sestanovich stated of Trump’s strategy to the Russia-Ukraine battle to this point.
Anna Kelly, White Home Deputy press secretary, responded to the criticism, saying in an announcement, “President Trump is main the world in ending this brutal battle, which he inherited from his incompetent predecessor Joe Biden. Nobody cares concerning the opinions of armchair quarterback ‘specialists’ who’ve accomplished nothing to make the world safer.”
