Donald Trump has issued what might be his biggest – and most startling – shift in foreign policy to date.
On Tuesday, after meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, he agreed with the notion that Nato countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace.
Later, on his Truth Social platform, Trump suddenly declared that Ukraine could not only defeat Russia but “WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form” and even, he concluded, “go further than that!”
What this means in practical terms is unclear and likely not worth the ink to unpack. (Is Donald Trump endorsing more Kursk-style incursions into Russian territory? Who knows.)
But after months of repeated disappointment in his former buddy-in-chief, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump went as far as to label the Russian leader’s army a “paper tiger”.
So what has changed, and why?
Firstly, this is a far cry from the public bust-up in the Oval Office back in February, when Trump mocked Zelensky’s military fatigues, berated him for not being thankful enough for US military aid, and shut him down because he had “done a lot of talking”.
In that painful-to-watch meeting, during which the Ukrainian ambassador held her head in her hands as the world looked on in horror, Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, tried to bully the Ukrainian president into accepting a ceasefire deal that would see Ukraine cede swathes of territory captured by Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion.
“You have to be thankful. You don’t have the cards. You’re running low on soldiers,” Trump warned.
Going back to the policy reversal, of course, Trump leaning into bombastic, controversial statements on his preferred social media platforms, that seemingly blow up everything that came before, is entirely in character.
I recently spoke to several diplomats from the Middle East, who are currently grappling with another major war: Gaza.
They told me it was a “nightmare” trying to navigate the actions of such a powerful world leader who can change his position depending on who spoke to him last or on what he believes might best serve his interests at that particular moment. (See: Trump sharing an AI-generated video of a glittering Trump tower in his vision of a disturbingly dystopian “post-war” Gaza.)
They went so far as to say there isn’t really a US administration in the traditional sense at all.
Instead, they described a single man, deeply invested in notions of deals and real estate, quick to tire, who is surrounded by individuals: some of whom hold strong ideological views, but all of whom are not informed by the usual cast of genuine experts, scrambling to make sense of ideas.
