Can Trump end the war in Ukraine? He hesitates on his promise

Trump loves to make promises, then worry later if he can actually keep them. So far, the vow to stop the war in Ukraine seems to be another false prophecy.

President-elect Donald Trump made many promises during his election campaign this year. One of them stood out as his boldest wish: he would quickly end the war between Ukraine and Russia, even before his inauguration.

Trump, five weeks away from being sworn in again, was asked about it on Monday. And it was immediately apparent that the former and future president had moved from boldness to a mixture of ambiguity and ambivalence.

Consider Trump’s response at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, when a reporter pointed out that he had promised to end the war. Before he took office and asked if he could still make it.

“I’ll try,” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly turned to other topics, including his now-far-fetched claim that the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden was rigged. This is the predictable path for Trump: ignoring an urgent challenge by hijacking the conversation with erratic rhetoric.

But while he continues to talk about ending the war — and that’s all talk is — the death and destruction has actually intensified since he won the election last month .

Trump does not seem determined or able to keep his promise

See if you get an “I might…I’ll try” vibe from these promises Trump made this year.

Let’s start with that June 22 campaign rally in Philadelphia, where ending the war between Ukraine and Russia was written into his stump speech.

“Before we even got to the Oval Office, shortly after we won the presidency,” Trump said. “I will ensure that the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine is resolved.”

Russia was clearly listening. Tass, a Russian state news agency, reported Trump’s promise the next day. But the Russian government was not convinced. That country’s ambassador to the United Nations expressed serious doubts about Trump’s ability to end the war in comments made ten days after the promise.

Trump didn’t care. He reiterated that pledge during a Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, during which he boasted about having the “respect” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“This is a war that’s dying to be resolved,” Trump said at the time. “I will fix this problem even before I become president.”

It’s no surprise that Trump repeated his false promise

Trump made the vow a third time on October 17 during a speech at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York. Trump, lamenting the war dead, said “religious people” had asked him to intervene.

“It’s so sad that so many people have been killed in Ukraine and we’re going to fix this if we win,” Trump said. “As president-elect, I will achieve this.”

So here we are. Trump is president-elect. It’s time to close the deal. But on Monday, Trump didn’t even seem to have “an idea of a plan” for how to end the fighting that has raged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump claimed to have made “a little progress” without providing any details to support his claims.

“It’s a tough question. It’s a nasty question,” Trump said when asked about the war. “It’s horrible. People are being killed at levels no one has ever seen.”

Trump was asked whether Zelensky should abandon Ukrainian territory seized by Putin.

“He should be ready to make a deal. That’s all. There has to be a deal,” Trump said before walking back his unsubstantiated claim that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine in 2022 if he had still been president.

What is of course not said is that Russia’s first, smaller invasion of Ukraine took place in 2014 and that Trump did nothing in his first term to fix these damage.

What if the plan to end the war was to stop aiding Ukraine?

Now you may understand that Trump thinks he can end the war by talking about ending the war. He posted on his social media site Truth Social on December 8 that Ukraine and Russia should engage in “an immediate ceasefire” and focus on peace negotiations.

Countries continue to fire missiles at each other. I suppose a social media post is not a foolproof solution to a complicated diplomatic endeavor.

Trump was also asked about his claim to be able to end the war during a Dec. 8 interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press.” He was only able to muddy the waters by asserting what would or would not have happened if he had been president, while once again suggesting that he had won an election that we all saw him lose in 2020.

Trump’s approach to ending this war will likely be to slowly strip Ukraine of the support America has provided it with offensive and defensive weapons systems and other military supplies.

This could end the war, while forcing Ukraine to make concessions to Russia. And that would please Putin, which still seems to be a priority for Trump. But it seems unlikely that all of this will be resolved before Trump is sworn in on January 20.

So keep that in mind every time you hear Trump make what seems like an unbreakable promise. Remember, the uncertainty of “I’ll try” is really the message when he’s trying to sound so certain.

Follow USA TODAY election columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan