A ‘peace through strength' Iran-Russia bank shot for Trump
Nobody expects any surprises out of this week's NATO summit, but President Donald Trump could offer a pleasant one by applying the 'peace through strength' approach that just worked so well on Iran and Israel to Russia and Ukraine.
No, we're absolutely not suggesting anything cookie-cutter: Neither US airstrikes nor any new US military initiative makes sense in this conflict.
But the prez could put Vladimir Putin on notice that his blowing off US peace efforts is a losing strategy.
Step 1: Announce he's throwing Joe Biden's silly hesitancy to the winds and allowing Kyiv access to more and better US weapons, and without the micromanaging restrictions on their use that the last administration insisted upon.
Step 2: Give the go-ahead for passage of Sen. Lindsey Graham's bipartisan sanctions bill — which hits the enablers of Moscow's war machine by slamming a 500% tariff on imported goods from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, etc.
Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here!
Yes, the NATO gathering will already be a big win for the president, finally setting an expectation that every alliance member will devote 5% of GNP to defense spending — as he was pushing back in his first term.
But on the heels of his Mideast tour de force, the momentum is now clearly with Trump on the global stage, and it makes plenty of sense to leverage that toward winding down the other major war that broke out on President Autopen's watch.
We won't be surprised if the prez chooses his own path to pulling off this bank shot, but we feel safe in betting he's got some creative moves in mind.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Dutch royals and NATO leaders pose for group photo at alliance's summit in The Hague
The Dutch royals and NATO leaders posed for group photo at alliance's summit in The Hague on Tuesday.
Bloomberg
27 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump Enters Fraught Two-Week Run as Tax, Trade Deadlines Loom
Donald Trump's frenzied second term enters a crucial stretch in the coming weeks as the president juggles a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, a discordant party that he needs to pass his top legislative priority and a global economy on tenterhooks awaiting his next move on tariffs. Trump is up against a self-imposed July 4 target to pass his tax and spending bill, and he's two weeks out from the July 9 expiration of the global tariff pause that concussed the economy in April when he first introduced a raft of levies.
Boston Globe
28 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
In his sole full day at the NATO summit, Trump faces an alliance further shaped to his liking
Advertisement 'NATO was broke, and I said, 'You're going to have to pay,'' Trump said Tuesday. 'And we did a whole thing, and now they're paying a lot. Then I said, 'You're going to have to lift it to 4% or 5%, and 5% is better.'' Spending 5% of a country's gross domestic product on defense is 'good,' Trump pronounced, adding, 'It gives them much more power.' The boost in spending follows years of Trump complaints that other countries weren't paying their fair share for membership in an alliance created as a bulwark against threats from the former Soviet Union. Most NATO countries, with the key exception of Spain, are preparing to endorse the 5% pledge, motivated to bolster their own defenses not just by Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine but also, perhaps, to placate Trump. Advertisement As a candidate in 2016, Trump suggested that he as president would not necessarily heed the alliance's mutual defense guarantees outlined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty. In March of this year, he expressed uncertainty that NATO would come to the United States' defense if needed, though the alliance did just that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On Tuesday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to The Hague for the summit that whether he is committed to Article 5 'depends on your definition.' 'There's numerous definitions of Article 5. You know that, right?' Trump said. 'But I'm committed to being their friends.' He signaled that he would give a more precise definition of what Article 5 means to him once he is at the summit. Trump also vented to reporters before leaving Washington about the actions by Israel and Iran after his announced ceasefire. He said, in his view, both sides had violated the nascent agreement. After Trump arrived in the Netherlands, news outlets, including The Associated Press, published stories revealing that a U.S. intelligence report suggested in an early assessment that Iran's nuclear program had been set back only a few months by weekend strikes and was not 'completely and fully obliterated,' as Trump had said. The White House called the report 'flat-out wrong,' and Trump posted in all-caps on social media early Wednesday that any reporting that the strikes weren't 'completely destroyed' was an attempt to 'demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.' The White House has not said what other world leaders Trump would meet with one-on-one while in The Hague, but he said he was likely to cross paths with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Advertisement
