On February 18, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, cementing Trump’s strategy of pursuing negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine—without Ukraine itself being present in the talks. President Trump claims to want to “make a deal” to “STOP this ridiculous war,” which has already killed hundreds of thousands, if not over one million people.
Zelenskyy and Trump have already exchanged barbs following the US-Russia talks in Riyadh, which excluded Ukraine and European leaders. Trump labeled Zelenskyy a “dictator” after the Ukrainian president claimed Trump was “living in a disinformation space”, stating that he wanted “more truth” from Trump’s administration.
Zelenskyy has demanded Ukraine’s involvement in the talks, and told reporters during a visit to Turkiye, “We want no one to decide anything behind our backs…No decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine.”
According to Brian Becker, the executive director of the ANSWER Coalition, “Trump’s orientation towards the Ukraine war represents a dramatic shift in US foreign policy.”
What is behind this shift? Becker says that what Trump is attempting to do instead is to “reconfigure US foreign policy in a way that would move Russia away from its strategic partnership with the People’s Republic of China, which was created over the last 15 years in response to a very aggressive war-like foreign policy by the United States against both China and Russia.”
Biden, meanwhile, seemingly did everything he could to prevent a peaceful negotiated end to the war, including stalling peace talks, and had a posture of open and complete hostility towards Russia. In the final stages of his presidency, Biden had even gone as far as to authorize Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles against Russia, which almost resulted in a massive escalation as this had been a Russian “red line” for years.
Europe humiliated but subservient to US demands
Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments mark this shift, as he stated during a trip to NATO headquarters that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective” and that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
While Biden’s administration seemed happy to settle for the mere re-invigoration of the NATO alliance, Hegseth and other Trump officials are returning to the Trump policy of putting pressure on Europe to increase their defense spending. “We must make NATO great again,” Hegseth urged.
“Make no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into ‘Uncle Sucker,'” Hegseth said more bluntly at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels last week.
Remarks like these have shocked and humiliated European leaders. These include comments made by US Vice President JD Vance at last week’s Munich Security Conference, when he said, “If American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
The center-right in Europe seems somewhat stuck between supporting Ukraine and ceding ground to Trump. “Yes, it is about Ukraine—but it is also about us,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X in response to Trump’s shifting policy on Ukraine. “We need an urgency mindset. We need a surge in defense. And we need both of them now.”
Trump’s “anti-war” posturing
Many in the US anti-war movement have opposed US support for the Russia-Ukraine war since its outbreak in 2022. One such group is the ANSWER Coalition, which led a march in Washington, DC in 2022 in opposition to the US’ funding and arming of the war as well as to call for the disbanding of NATO.
Trump’s initiative, as Brian Becker told Peoples Dispatch, “represents a recognition that the war cannot be won against Russia, and that the only way to end the war is a negotiated settlement.”
Trump has spent some time positing himself as an “anti-war” president, especially on the campaign trail, putting forward the idea of a foreign policy strategy that pursues “peace through strength.” He has contrasted his approach to that of his opposition in the Democratic Party, denouncing Liz Cheney, who campaigned heavily for Vice President Kamala Harris, as a “war hawk.”
“During my Administration, we had peace in the Middle East, and we will have peace again very soon! I will fix the problems caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and stop the suffering and destruction in Lebanon,” Trump boasted on X back in October. “I want to see the Middle East return to real peace, a lasting peace, and we will get it done properly so it doesn’t repeat itself every 5 or 10 years!”
According to Becker, however, Trump is not anti-war, pointing to his hawkish actions during his first term in particular, such as the 2017 missile strikes into Syria, and even his recent comments supporting a restarting of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Trump signals policy focus towards China
“Trump does represent a different orientation from the Biden administration and the neoconservative policy establishment that has dominated US foreign policy for the past two decades,” Becker articulates.
“The Trump foreign policy team believes that this policy has failed,” Becker says. Trump believes that the previous political establishment’s staunch anti-Russia stance “has weakened the United States internationally, and that it has cemented a China-Russia strategic relationship, and that relationship has diminished American authority and power around the world.”
Trump administration officials themselves have indicated a desire to shift the country’s focus away from Europe and towards China. “We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific,” said Defense Secretary Hegseth in Brussels. “The US is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific, recognizing the reality of scarcity, and making the resourcing tradeoffs to ensure deterrence does not fail.”
Journalist Amanda Yee claims that Trump’s administration is going beyond ramping up the new Cold War against China, and is more so signalling an “acceleration toward full military confrontation” against China.
By contrast, Biden’s approach to China was a strategy of engaging in new Cold War policies such as “placing restrictions” and “engaging in a tech war,” says Yee, “but at the same time, there were ways that the Biden administration was still willing to work with China in different areas.”
Regarding Hegseth’s comments, Yee says that “what he’s saying is that we should direct all those resources that we’re using to fund NATO and increase the then US militarization of the South China Sea, increase the military containment of China.”
“This shift toward trying to end the Ukraine war, it’s really the Trump administration getting prepared to face off with China,” Yee claims.
