Between the 2024 campaign and the start of his second term, United States President Donald Trump said that the wars between Ukraine and Russia in Eastern Europe and between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip would never have started if he were in the White House in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and proposed to stop them alone.
In the case of the conflict in the Middle East, Trump presented at the beginning of the year a plan that would consist of the Palestinians leaving Gaza, the American administration of the enclave and the transformation of it into a kind of “Middle East Riviera”. However, he abandoned the idea after criticism from Arab countries and the West.
Regarding Ukraine, Trump said he would end the war within the first 24 hours of his second term. It wasn’t quite like that – in March, he agreed to two ceasefire agreements with Ukraine and Russia, to halt attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days and clashes in the Black Sea, only to be humiliated by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s disobedience to the agreement.
Unable to find solutions alone, Trump took another path: seeking support from other leaders.
In August, after meeting Putin in Alaska, he held a meeting at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European and NATO leaders in which future security guarantees for Ukraine were discussed and announced that he would schedule a meeting between the Ukrainian president and the Russian dictator. However, such a meeting has not yet taken place due to resistance from the Kremlin.
In the Gaza conflict, Trump is far more successful for now. On September 23, during the UN General Assembly, the American president held a meeting with senior officials from Arab and Muslim-majority countries and outlined a peace plan for Gaza.
Days later, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump detailed the proposal, the first phase of which (which includes a ceasefire and the exchange of Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners) was accepted by Israel and Hamas.
Following talks in which the US acted as mediator alongside Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, this step is being implemented.
On Monday (13), Trump signed a peace agreement in Egypt to end the war in the Middle East, at a summit attended by leaders from more than 20 countries – in addition to representatives of the mediating countries, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz; Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; the president of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez; Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; the President of France, Emmanuel Macron; between others.
At the time, Trump said he will expand the Peace Council, a group led by him that will oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza, to accommodate the “various countries and entities” that have expressed interest in participating.
What led the American president, a notorious critic of multilateralism, to seek support from other countries to seek peace agreements?
For Ricardo Bruno Boff, professor of international relations at the University of Vale do Itajaí (Univali), this change in stance is something that reflects the “two faces of Trump”.
“Trump always has this loudmouth side first, he plays to the audience, talks loudly, gives a ‘boot’, ends up agitating his audience, goes on social media, but then, when he goes to the negotiating table, he sits down, listens and ends up closing deals or negotiating deals in a much smoother, more conversational and diplomatic way,” said the expert.
“Furthermore, time passes and shows that reality is more difficult than what the subject sometimes expected at the beginning. The United States no longer has the power it had in the 20th century, it is not the United States of the 70s, it is not the United States of Ronald Reagan, of the 80s”, stated Boff.
“He sees that it is often necessary to talk to several parties, things cannot be resolved with a single, unilateral vision, you have to forge agreements by listening to different agents”, he added.
Fernanda Brandão, coordinator of the international relations course at Faculdade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Rio, pointed out that, in the case of the war in Gaza, Trump needed to cooperate with other agents due to the resistance of Netanyahu and members of his government, who were in favor of continuing the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, to a ceasefire agreement.
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“Trump saw that in order to achieve the achievements he intends in terms of foreign policy on some issues, the lack of cooperation with other actors makes it unfeasible,” said the analyst.
“By seeking other partners in the Middle East, Trump wants to force Netanyahu to accept the terms of an agreement that puts an end to the conflict and take credit for the achievement of putting an end to this particular conflict, bringing the US closer to Arab countries in the process,” he argued.
Could Trump’s new stance extend to trade?
The experts consulted by the People’s Gazette differed regarding the possibility of Trump’s spirit of cooperation extending to trade negotiations with other countries.
For Boff, the opening of direct conversations with the Lula government is already a sign in this direction.
“They even reached Trump, saying that there are people losing money on both sides, there are American investors in Brazil, there are Brazilian investors in the United States, there are importers, there are exporters, it would be better for the two governments to talk,” said the analyst.
“Upon understanding that by talking to Brazil, business could prosper, with businesspeople who have access, he [Trump] He stepped back to talk without any problems. You’ve done this several times, and you can do it again, changing positions as needed. I think it’s the same reasoning [das negociações de paz],” Boff said.
Brandão, however, does not believe in a more aggregative and conciliatory stance from the US on trade issues and stated that “Trump has already made it very clear that he is willing to cooperate [somente] with anyone willing to accept American terms.”
“When he postpones the application of tariffs, or creates an exception list of goods not to be taxed, even in his recent opening for dialogue with the Brazilian government, these facts do not reveal a more cooperative stance, but they do reveal that Trump’s preferred strategy has encountered bottlenecks and he needs to get around them, and this depends on some cooperation with other international actors, as long as American interests are realized,” said the professor at Mackenzie.
“Donald Trump’s foreign policy still remains isolationist, protectionist and unilateralist in the sense that his engagement with other countries only takes place under terms and conditions that are understood by his government as beneficial to the United States and its place as the main global power”, he concluded.
