Trump’s Dangerous Game: How the President Lost Credibility After Alaska

It was a picture for the history books: President Zelenskyy in a black suit instead of his usual military attire, surrounded by European heads of state and government who had rushed to Washington at lightning speed. Yet what was staged in the Oval Office on Monday was less a diplomatic triumph than a desperate attempt to mend the shards of Donald Trump’s failed Alaska mission.

The body language spoke volumes. Trump, usually the self-assured dealmaker, appeared tense, his rhetoric unusually restrained. The bombastic promises to end the war “within 24 hours” had fallen silent. Instead, he spoke cautiously of a “reasonable chance” - words that tasted bitter after the humiliating encounter with Putin in Alaska. Exactly what happened in Alaska will have to be clarified by history.

What is certain is this: Trump went into the meeting with the threat of “severe consequences” if Putin rejected a ceasefire. He returned as an advocate of Putin’s strategy to bypass ceasefire talks and negotiate directly over territorial concessions from Ukraine. Diplomats speak in hushed tones of a “visibly shaken” president who apparently underestimated whom he was dealing with.

The panicked reaction of the Europeans was not long in coming. When Macron, Starmer, Merz and others clear their schedules and simultaneously rush to Washington, it is not a sign of coordinated diplomacy but damage control in its purest form. Macron’s words about the “defense of European interests” were barely veiled criticism of Trump’s course. German Chancellor Merz was even clearer, openly contradicting Trump in front of the cameras: “I cannot imagine that another meeting can take place without a ceasefire.” German chancellors do not contradict American presidents lightly - and certainly not publicly.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, navigated skillfully through the minefield. The switch from military green to diplomatic black was more than symbolism - it was the desperate effort of a man who knows he must balance between American support and Ukrainian sovereignty. His repeated attempts to show Trump photos of tortured Ukrainian prisoners of war revealed the gulf between humanitarian realities and Trump’s increasingly transactional view of the conflict.

Particularly perfidious is the farce about the supposed “security guarantees” that Trump offered Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Rutte hailed a “breakthrough” - but what do guarantees mean from a president who cancels international agreements at will and whose party is fundamentally skeptical of foreign deployments? The Europeans are aware of this fragility, which is why they insist on being part of any security architecture. They cannot rely on American promises that could evaporate with the next election cycle.

Putin, however, has long since won the decisive battle - the one over Trump’s negotiating approach. While the Russian president demonstratively acts from a position of strength and simultaneously bombards Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia during the Washington summit, Ukraine is expected to trade territory for vague promises about the future. This is precisely the scenario that Putin has been striving for since 2022.

The institutional dimension of this crisis is being completely underestimated. Trump’s tendency to personalize foreign policy, his bypassing of established diplomatic channels, creates dangerous precedents. Complex geopolitical arrangements cannot be stabilized through personal chemistry - especially not when that chemistry is subject to Trump’s legendary unpredictability. What happens when his dealmaker enthusiasm collides with the reality of political implementation?

The fundamental question of credibility remains unanswered. Can a president who treats international treaties like business deals and openly flaunts his admiration for autocrats seriously act as an honest broker? Zelenskyy’s cautiously optimistic rhetoric cannot hide the fact that he deeply doubts Trump’s ability to extract concessions from Russia.

The timing of the Russian attacks on Monday was no coincidence - it was Putin’s cynical demonstration that he negotiates from a position of continued aggression. While Trump dreams of trilateral summits, the Kremlin leader creates bloody facts. Ten dead in Ukrainian cities, including a child, are Putin’s response to Western hopes for peace.

What took place at the White House on Monday was ultimately political theater par excellence - much staging, little substance. Trump, who wanted to quickly end the war in Ukraine, is now pressuring through a process that could legitimize Russian territorial gains while offering Ukraine security guarantees of dubious value. The European allies who rushed to Washington have long understood what Trump apparently does not grasp: sustainable peace requires more than handshake diplomacy and businessman pragmatism.

The irony is bitter. A president who made his dealmaking skills his trademark could in the end go down in history as the one who gave Putin his greatest diplomatic victory in decades. The early signs indicate that Trump’s overconfidence could become not only his own Achilles’ heel but also that of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump has now interrupted the ongoing meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European heads of state and government at the White House to speak directly with Vladimir Putin. Right-wing Trump ally Jack Posobiec said on Steve Bannon’s show “War Room,” “He interrupted the meeting to make a phone call with Putin in front of all the heads of state who were present,” Posobiec reported live from the White House.

The meeting between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European heads of state and government at the White House has now concluded. Afterwards, Trump declared that he had already made arrangements for a direct conversation between Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian president. However, no independent confirmation of this has so far been provided - neither Kyiv nor Moscow initially issued a reaction, and the European participants also made no such statements. Whether Trump’s announcement is more than a political performance therefore remains unclear; we are currently seeking further confirmation.

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