Donald Trump sold himself to the American people as the ultimate dealmaker during his first run for President. He argued that Obama’s poor negotiating skills had impoverished the American people, and he would Make America Great Again by getting tough with both allies and adversaries.
The American people bought the narrative and elected him over Hillary Clinton in 2016. In the President’s five years in office, he had been unable to cement any agreement that benefited Americans.
During his first administration, he engaged in talks with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The two leaders met three times, including a final face-to-face at the DMZ. However, Washington and Pyongyang were never able to ink a deal.
The talks failed for the same reasons all of Trump’s diplomatic initiatives fail; after Pyongyang was willing to make meaningful concessions that would put the US and North Korea on a path to peace, Trump demanded more.
During the second summit in Hanoi, North Korea committed to rolling back its missile program. Rather than accepting Pyongyang’s concessions as a meaningful step towards peace, Trump demanded more. His then-National Security Adviser, John Bolton, told Kim that North Korea must accept complete denuclearization, following the Libyan model.
The North Koreans understood the demands as a threat and set the stage for regime change in Pyongyang. While those negotiations reduced tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the short term, the long-term result was convincing Pyongyang that improving relations with the US is a pointless endeavor, and it turned to Moscow.
North Korea has supplied Russia with weapons to use against Ukraine, and even deployed its own soldiers to push Ukrainian forces out of Russian territory.
The same scenario played out in Venezuela. Late last year, Trump admitted that Caracas had offered to give him everything he wanted. Still, he ordered an attack on Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump’s record on diplomacy is abysmal. Running for election in 2016 and 2024, he pledged to reduce tensions with Russia and work out a peace deal in Ukraine. During his first administration, Washington and Moscow relations plunged to a post-Cold War low after Trump ramped up sanctions on Russia and expelled Russian diplomats. He created the conditions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by sending weapons to Kiev.
Rather than ending the war after returning to the White House in 2025, the President has continued to fuel the conflict by providing support and selling weapons to Ukraine.
Additionally, Trump scrapped two crucial arms control agreements, INF and Open Skies. He also refused to negotiate an extension of the New Start Treaty, which was terminated during his second administration.
Perhaps the President’s most devastating diplomatic failure has been in Iran. President Obama handed Trump a major gift with the Iran Nuclear Deal. While Tehran was never seeking to build a nuclear weapon, the deal allows for unprecedented inspections and restrictions of Iran’s nuclear program.
The deal ensured that Tehran was not seeking a nuclear weapon. The threat of Iranian nuclear weapons was maybe the most important piece of propaganda keeping the US military in the Middle East.
Obama’s deal would have given Trump cover to pull US troops out of the Middle East and cite the IAEA’s reports as proof that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.
However, Trump, ever his own worst enemy, was convinced by Benjamin Netanyahu, Sheldon Addleson, and the rest of the American zionist class to scrap the deal.
And while Trump exited the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran did not attempt to build a nuclear weapon.
Tehran was even willing to return to the negotiation table with the US in the Spring of 2025. Those talks resulted in significant progress. But Israel, with Trump’s backing, attacked Iran during negotiations last June.
Still, Tehran was willing to return to the table this year. During those negotiations, Omani mediators made it clear that Iran had offered significant concessions, and a deal was possible. Rather than take the deal, which Trump could have touted as better than Obama’s Iran deal, the President chose to restart the war with Iran.
The war with Iran has been catastrophic. It allowed Tehran to turn the Strait of Hormuz from an international waterway into Iranian territory. Additionally, the weakness of the US military has been exposed. The Navy has been unable to reopen the strait, hundreds of billions of dollars of aircraft have been destroyed, a dozen advanced radars destroyed, America’s largest aircraft carrier is in port after a laundry fire that burned for over a day, and at least 13 Americans are dead.
It should come as no surprise that Saturday’s talks in Pakistan to end the conflict failed. Trump has proven he is unable to take a good deal when it is gifted to him. To end the war against Iran, the US will have to make major concessions.
Trump seems unable to make that decision.
Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and host of The Kyle Anzalone Show.
