It was a sentence spoken with the carelessness of a man who has never been forced to wait out the end of a bombing raid in a basement. “Maybe it's better to let them fight for a while.” The reference: Russia and Ukraine. The context: a war that has lasted over three years, cost thousands of lives, reduced cities to rubble, and kept Europe on constant alert.
Of all people, Donald Trump – the man who promised during the campaign to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours – “easily,” as he said – now chooses the opposite: to watch. To endure. To prolong. Not out of strategy. Not out of necessity. But seemingly from a deeply ingrained reflex that sees strength only in violence and diplomacy as a sign of weakness.
Someone who once claimed the mantle of peacemaker now talks about the brutality of war as if it were a pedagogical measure. As if this were a playground fight between two pubescent children. It is this staggering moral trivialization of real violence that makes Trump's foreign policy so dangerous – and so predictable. In the Oval Office, in the presence of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, these words were spoken. And the world listened. That an American president does not want to end a war but consciously wishes to prolong it – out of calculation, symbolism, or sheer disinterest – is not just a political misstep. It is a slap in the face to all those who hope for peace. It is a cold message to Ukraine, to Europe, and to the United Nations: The era of principles is over. All that matters now is who can hold out longer.
The tragedy is this: Trump still sees himself as a maker of peace. As someone who could end the war with a single phone call. But what remains of that promise if he doesn't even try? If the impulse to escalate outweighs the responsibility to mediate? Trump's words reveal what has long been evident: the 45th and 47th president of the United States has never believed in peace. He believes in spectacle, in power, in winners. And in his view, there must always be losers. Ukraine, it seems, is not a partner to him but a pawn. Russia is not an aggressor, but a player. And Europe? A mere extra in a self-centered script, written in an office with golden drapes.
Trump’s statement on June 5 is no trivial matter. It is the litmus test of his geopolitical worldview. Anyone who wants others to keep fighting is not seeking a solution. Anyone who prolongs a war has no right to speak of peace. And anyone who turns human lives into tactical pawns disqualifies himself – morally, politically, historically.
The only question left is: When will the world do the same?
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