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OPINION

Trump Breaks Protocols for Peace

donald trump sits at the resolute desk with his hands clasped on the desk
President Donald Trump sits at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty)

Christopher Ruddy By Saturday, 15 February 2025 03:36 PM EST Current | Bio | Archive

President Donald Trump has infuriated the establishment with his 90-minute phone call this week with Vladmir Putin.

Once again, the 47th President seems to have broken all protocols.

In the 70s, the left use to say, "Give peace a chance."

I say today, "Give Trump a chance."

Yes, it's unorthodox what the president did — directly engaging with Russian President Putin, a fellow world leader, in seeking to solve a complex and brutal war that now likely has over a million casualties in just three years.

I have no illusion that Trump realizes that Putin and Russians are the villains here — having launched a completely unprovoked attack on the sovereign state of Ukraine in February of 2021.

But Trump is not big on recriminations; he is focused on ending the conflict, and quickly.

With the Russian telephone call, he is not creating a new paradigm in foreign policy.

We saw this same type of direct-engagement approach with North Korea during his first term.

Trump's approach to North Korea marked a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy toward the country, characterized by a willingness to engage directly with North Korean leadership.

You have to remember that everybody in the policy world told Trump not to engage with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

But Trump broke with decades of U.S. policy by engaging directly with Kim.

This included a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018, where the two leaders met face-to-face.

This meeting was unprecedented and signaled a willingness to discuss issues directly rather than through intermediaries.

Before that meeting, the Korean leader was a tinderbox, ready to ignite into a regional nuclear conflict.

In his dealings with North Korea, Trump used a mix of tough rhetoric and personal diplomacy, referring to Kim as "rocket man" at times, while also expressing admiration for him and stating that they had developed a strong personal relationship.

Such gestures cost Trump and the U.S. nothing, but yielded tremendous results.

Kim dramatically lowered the rhetoric while abandoning his frequent nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Trump's denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula didn't happen — but the 2020 election and the ascendancy of Joe Biden returned the U.S. to the old, failed policies of engagement with North Korea.

We once again saw Donald Trump the dealmaker with his monumental achievement of the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020.

The Accords represented the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East in modern times.

Trump played the key role in normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab nations, notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

Again, Trump facilitated this agreement with direct engagement.

The administration's approach included high-level meetings and discussions with leaders from Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and other nations in the region.

Trump also offered various incentives to Arab countries to encourage them to normalize relations with Israel. This included economic partnerships, military cooperation, and the promise of arms sales, particularly with the UAE.

And the Trump administration emphasized the common interests of Israel and certain Arab states, particularly regarding security concerns about Iran.

Trump's success, which should have won him a Nobel Peace Prize, has withstood the test of time, including the Israel-Hamas war.

This agreement, in which Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner played a critical role, could soon include the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a signatory.

The Abraham Accords represented a significant shift in Middle Eastern diplomacy, breaking a long-standing pattern of hostility between Israel and many Arab states.

The Trump administration's combination of direct diplomacy, strategic incentives, and messaging contributed to making these agreements possible.

There are real lessons we can take from Trump's handling of North Korea and the Arab world.

These include using direct engagement with the very top leadership and not letting the career diplomats muck it up, using positive and conciliatory rhetoric. deploying economic incentives to the parties, and not giving away America's military cards.

Trump knows his problem will not be Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants a just peace and he is a reasonable man.

President Putin is far more complicated and comes to the table as a clear adversary of the U.S. [Please re-read Putin's opening speech at the onset of the Ukraine war to understand his goals.]

Rather than respond to President Trump in a conciliatory way, the Russians have outlined demands that are not livable for the Ukrainians, for Europe, or for the U.S.

This week, news servce RIA Novosti once again outlined Russian demands, which included:

  • "Ukraine will officially abandon its plans to join NATO;
  • The Ukrainian Armed Forces will leave new Russian regions;
  • The Kyiv authorities will carry out demilitarization and denazification;
  • The country will adopt a neutral, non-aligned and non-nuclear status."

Also, the Russians want all sanctions lifted and all their monies in the West unfrozen.

Putin doesn't just want to keep the land he took by force, he also wants to dictate how a future Ukraine will look.

At the same time, we need to realize Putin has put the entire Russian economy and military on a wartime footing. It is doubtful that even a ceasefire or peace agreement will change that or his long-held plans to dominate all of Eastern Europe.

The bottom line here is President Trump is trying an outside-the-box approach.

He has had tremendous success with it before.

So let's give President Trump a chance.

Christopher Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax Media, Inc., a leading news company that operates Newsmax TV and Newsmax.com. Read more Christopher Ruddy Insider articles — Click Here Now.

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Ruddy
President Donald Trump has infuriated the establishment with his 90-minute phone call this week with Vladmir Putin. Once again, the 47th President seems to have broken all protocols. In the 70s, the left use to say, "Give peace a chance." I say today, "Give Trump a chance."
donald trump, russia, vladimir putin, ukraine, volodymyr zelenskyy
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2025-36-15
Saturday, 15 February 2025 03:36 PM
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