Can Trump's unpredictable diplomacy lead to lasting peace?

IOL News

6 hours ago

Of all the accusations President Trump may face, he surely deserves credit for effort, at least, to end conflicts, particularly the Ukraine war.
Image: AFP
US President Donald Trump attracts an avalanche of international scrutiny for all the right reasons — he is, after all, the commander-in-chief of the world's most potent army and presides over an economy with significant global influence.
Washington's penchant for a cantankerous foreign policy that is replete with unpredictability is also an added reason to the long list of why the US matters the most in international relations.
However, of all the accusations President Trump may face, he surely deserves credit for effort, at least, to end conflicts, particularly the Ukraine war. His surprise telephone call to his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, this week, reveals the side of the US President that confirms his unpredictable human nature.
The one minute, he is bombing Iran under the guise of thwarting Tehran's nuclear programme. The very next minute, he unilaterally announces the pending resumption of talks between the US and Iran aimed at ending the simmering tensions and military confrontation. Typically, Trump seems to revel in leaving his friends and foes alike wondering what his next move will be. Like a hurricane, he leaves everyone scrambling for cover in his wake.
In East Central Africa, President Trump has recently succeeded, almost out of the blue, to bring about a peace treaty between long-term neighbouring adversaries in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
According to the International Rescue Committee, from 1998-2007, an estimated 5.4 million people died as a result of conflict in the DRC, Africa's foremost producer of minerals and rare earths. Throughout many years until recently, Rwanda stood accused of providing military support to the notorious rebel group, the M23, that seeks to topple the DRC's democratically elected government.
The African Union (AU) has been woefully unable to end the DRC conflict. The regional body, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has attempted to halt the war through military intervention. However, the SADC army has been thoroughly overrun by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, causing a major continental embarrassment as purported peace-keeping soldiers were forced to cut and run with tails between their legs.
It has thus taken great effort from the Trump administration to intervene, and successfully so, in bringing the warring sides to Washington a fortnight ago to put pen to paper, thereby creating a rare sense of normalcy to Africa's territory that has so far known only terror.
Granted, Trump's endorsement and material support for the Israeli genocide against Gaza leave too much to be desired. With naked impunity and US diplomatic cover, Israel continues to extinguish helpless Palestinians on whose plight the world, except South Africa, has deliberately turned a blind eye.
So far, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — aided by the US and EU — has killed nearly 60 000 Gazans since 2023. Nearly 20 000 of the victims are innocent children, including newborn babies in understaffed hospitals that the Western NGO's have elected to ignore. Methinks that if Trump never receives a Nobel Peace Prize, he so desperately aspires, Gaza will be the singular cause for that failure.
But then again, nothing in life is ever 100% good or bad, at least in my book. Despite Trump's glaring litany of shortcomings, his unexpected nearly one-hour telephone call to President Putin, during which the elephant in the room was how to end the war in Ukraine, deserves merit.
It happened during a time when some in Europe and Nato are desperately investing their time and resources in propaganda to peddle Russophobia, creating an atmosphere of foreboding fear about unsubstantiated claims of Moscow's dreaded secret intentions to conquer Europe one territory after the other. The Kremlin has consistently dismissed the war-mongering Western drums, dismissing the claims simply as ludicrous.
During the Trump-Putin call, according to the Russian Presidential Aide, Yuri Ushakov, the discussions were cordial and meaningful and, above all, goal-oriented. Of greater importance, Trump raised 'the issue of an early end to hostilities in Ukraine'. In return, President Putin stressed that 'Russia continues to seek a negotiated solution to the Ukrainian conflict'.
Although other issues were also discussed, the spirit of conviviality that characterised the discussion and their clear convergence of standpoints hint at the renewed path and hope that the road to a peace deal is getting clearer by the day. Finally, thanks to Trump, there is a thaw in bilateral relations between the two nuclear powers.
Furthermore, the jovial discussions took place during a week in which Trump suspended the supply of US arms deliveries to Ukraine. This included a pause in the delivery of several critical munitions to Ukraine, including the patriot interceptors. Reports attributed the decision to Washington's concerns over dwindling US stockpiles.
In my view, it matters less what the real reason could be. The move expedites the push toward the attainment of the much-needed truce in the Ukraine conflict. Too many lives have been lost, and unless there is a halt to the hostilities, and pretty soon, Ukraine could end up as one gigantic heap of rubble.
The Trump administration's moves in global affairs, of course, affect every nation. But the greatest effects are inevitably felt across Europe, where Washington's traditional allies find themselves at the receiving end of devastating imposition of tariffs on various goods by the Trump administration.
Additionally, at the level of Nato, the unity that until recently held the bloc together is rapidly disintegrating. Nato is no longer certain that, under Trump, the US still adheres to Article 5, which refers to 'an attack on one is an attack on all'. Instead, Trump has implored Europe to pull itself by the bootstraps and increase military expenditure to 5% of each country's GDP. This is a tall order. At the moment, many EU economies are reeling, and any expenditure on arms ahead of welfare, healthcare and social services is highly likely to trigger upheavals. This eventuality, the EU politicians are not prepared to face.
Washington's push for peace in Ukraine has also forced Europe to rethink its aggressive propaganda against Russia, and instead, restart ways to seek a negotiated settlement. This week's out-of-the-blue call by the French President Emmanuel Macron to President Putin — the first in a long time — signalled Europe's acceptance that, without the US backing, the EU can no longer continue to threaten Russia with military force.
Macron's call to his Russian counterpart follows the EU's years of demanding Russia's defeat, sending Scalp missiles, and spewing anti-Putin rhetoric. These latest moves, and a rare posture that cries out for peace talks, are a drastic change in the EU's foreign policy toward Moscow. The unprecedented barrage of economic sanctions that the EU had imposed on Moscow at the behest of the Biden administration has had a boomerang effect on Europe. It has caused EU economies to contract, such as Germany, and at the same time, the Russian economy flourished in spite of the sanctions.
Europe's talk of going it alone if President Trump pushes for peace has dissipated very quickly. So has the talk of the so-called Coalition of the Willing led by the UK and France's Macron, aka 'Little Napoleon'. War talk, seemingly, has short legs. And now, as peace looms ever so large on the horizon, Moscow is insisting that the West address the fundamental causes of the Ukraine conflict, which is NATO's expansion eastward, especially to Russia's doorstep.