Before taking office, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine. War Breaks Out.

After winning the election and moving into the White House, many presidents break their campaign promises. Donald J. Trump won’t wait that long. He will break an important campaign promise from the moment he is sworn in.

As he bid to return to power in the fall, Mr. Trump repeatedly made a sensational, if implausible, promise with deep geopolitical implications: He would broker a 24-hour end to the war in Ukraine. And not just in 24 hours—he would do it before he was even sworn in as president.

“Before I even got to the Oval Officeshortly after we win the presidency, I will resolve the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine,” Mr. Trump promised at a June rally. “I will solve the issue even before I become president” he said in a televised debate With Vice President Kamala Harris in September. “I will solve the Russia-Ukraine issue before the election of the president” he said during the podcast again in October.

It wasn’t a random comment, it wasn’t one he repeated. This formed the basis of his public argument when it came to the largest land war in Europe since the fall of Nazi Germany. However, not only did he not keep his promise; he has also made no known serious efforts to resolve the war since his election in November, and the fighting will still be going on Monday afternoon, when President-elect Trump becomes President Trump again.

“Wars cannot be solved by bombing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in an interview. “And the missing link in his thinking is that he doesn’t understand that the Ukrainians will achieve a solution only if they take a strong position at the negotiating table. “He actually undermined their position, and that’s one reason why he didn’t come to a decision before the inauguration.”

Mr. Trump is certainly no stranger to hyperbole. The brazen claim that he could easily, quickly and single-handedly end the war with the proverbial snap of his fingers fit the long-standing “I can fix it on my own” image that Mr. Trump likes to project to the public.

But over and over again in nearly a decade of national politics, rhetoric has turned into reality, and grandiose promises have fallen by the wayside. While other presidents have paid the price when they break their promises (ask George HW Bush to read his lips on taxes), Mr. Trump is moving forward with no results.

For example, he did not fully build his much heralded border wallless makes Mexico pay for it. He didn’t delete it federal budget deficit or shrink national trade deficit. He did not create a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which he said would happen “It’s not as difficult as people have thought for years.” It did not repeal or replace Obamacare. It did not stimulate economic growth “4, 5 and even 6 percent.”

Mr. Trump helped during this transition to a second term It forces a temporary cessation of hostilities in Gaza President Biden, who sent an envoy to pressure Israel to agree to a long-standing ceasefire that took effect Sunday, sat down first. While the deal was carried out by Mr. Biden’s team, pressure from Mr. Trump was instrumental in its eventual passage, a major success for the incoming president.

But Ukraine is in many ways a more difficult test for Mr. Trump because he will be starting from scratch. Unlike Gaza, there is no existing peace plan of his predecessor, with all the complex logistics, charts and formulas already worked out for Mr. Trump to simply accept and cross the finish line.

Just this month, the new president’s special envoy for the Ukraine war, Keith Kellogg, postponed plans to visit Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, and other European cities until after the inauguration to investigate the situation. He told Fox News he hoped Solve within 100 dayseven if successful, it would take 100 times longer than Mr. Trump originally promised.

“It was an absurd promise,” said Kathryn Stoner, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “The only person who can end the war in 24 hours is Vladimir Putin, but he could have done it years ago. “Any negotiations will take more than 24 hours, regardless of when Trump turns on the clock.”

Michael Kimmage, author of Clashes, a book about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and newly appointed director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, said Mr. Trump’s campaign promises had always been “very loosely” fulfilled, and perhaps more so on this issue. sending more signals than being accurately interpreted.

“His goals with this language may be: to inform the government that his approach to Russia and the war will be different from Biden’s, that his main goal is not to win Ukraine, but to end the war” and “He will be in charge, not the deep state, which puts the United States in eternal wars.”

Those signals made it unclear how Mr. Trump envisioned a deal, but his long-term closeness to President Vladimir V. Putin Analysts expect that any solution he wants will be favorable to Moscow, given Russia’s hostility to Ukraine and resistance to US military aid to Kiev. Vice President-elect JD Vance has proposed allowing Russia to keep 20 percent of Ukraine it illegally seized through aggression and forcing Ukraine to accept neutrality instead of aligning with the West, a framework that reflects Russia’s priorities.

Asked by email why Mr. Trump had not followed through on his pre-inauguration campaign promise to end the war, Mr. Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, Carolina Leavitt, did not respond directly, but instead reiterated that he would make it a “top priority.” in the second term.”

Since his election in November, Mr. Trump He met with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky after the swearing-in ceremony, he spoke about the meeting with Mr. Putin.

representative Michael WaltzThe Florida Republican, who is set to become Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, on Sunday emphasized that ending the conflict in Ukraine is a top priority for the new president, calling the war a World War I-like “mincer of people.” Trench warfare “with the escalating consequences of World War III.”

But the thought described during Mr. Waltz Appearance on “Face the Nation”. At CBS, it sounded like a formula for a process that could take a while: “The key parts of this are: Number one, how do we get to the table? Number two, how do we get them to the table? And then three, what are the frameworks of the agreement?”

“President Trump is clear: This war must stop,” Mr. Waltz added. “I think everybody should relate to that.”

Even if everyone achieves this goal – and there is room for doubt – the possible conditions remain difficult. Even assuming NATO membership isn’t on the cards, Ukraine wants strong security guarantees from the US and Europe, something Russia would object to, especially if it were forced to cede territory.

Then there are questions about compensation and consequences. Who will pay to rebuild Ukraine’s destroyed cities and villages? What will be the fate of the International Criminal Court? warrants for Mr. Putin’s arrest and other Russian figures for alleged war crimes? Will the United States and Europe ease sanctions after a large-scale invasion in 2022, and if so, under what conditions? Who will police the de-confliction line and what will happen if any ceasefire breaks?

Mr. Trump has not publicly addressed such questions in any depth, leaving many to guess. However, he said he was concerned about the continuing casualties in Ukraine and the importance of finding answers, no matter what.

“Part of the issue – and this may shed some light on the recent course of action of his administration – may be not having a script and therefore talking in the dark rather than showing what the actual script is,” Mr Kimmage said. he said. “The less we know what he’s up to, the more he can improvise.”