{"id":16254,"date":"2025-04-23T07:24:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T14:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16254"},"modified":"2025-04-24T07:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:30:13","slug":"trumps-ukraine-ultimatum-the-wall-street-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16254","title":{"rendered":"“Trump\u2019s Ukraine Ultimatum”, The Wall Street Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The President puts pressure only on one side\u2014not on Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By\u00a0The Editorial Board<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 23, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Trump on Wednesday unleashed another broadside against Ukraine, and his dislike for President\u00a0Volodymyr Zelensky\u00a0isn\u2019t news. But what matters to U.S. interests\u2014and Mr. Trump\u2019s Presidency\u2014are the terms of a negotiated settlement. Mr. Trump\u2019s current offer looks more like an ultimatum than grounds for a durable peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"image\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump and Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, Feb. 28.\u00a0PHOTO:\u00a0SAUL LOEB\/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it\u2019s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process,\u201d Vice President\u00a0JD Vance<\/a>\u00a0said from India on Wednesday. Secretary of State\u00a0Marco Rubio\u00a0sounded similar notes last week, and by \u201cwalking away\u201d the Administration seems to mean abandoning Ukraine to\u00a0Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u2019s designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stipulate that even Ukraine\u2019s ardent supporters understand the war will end in a negotiation. Ukraine won\u2019t regain all of its territory, as regrettable as that is for a country of free people who have resisted Mr. Putin with valor. The Biden Administration squandered the chances for a strategic victory for Ukraine and the U.S. with its hesitant, fretful response to the 2022 invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mr. Trump also can\u2019t expect Ukraine to surrender and accept a peace on its knees. The Administration has said Kyiv can\u2019t join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Never mind that the alliance would be stronger with Ukraine\u2019s military, now highly experienced on the battlefield. But even without NATO, Ukraine will need a security guarantee worth more than Mr. Putin\u2019s word. The Russian dictator has refused to accept a Ukraine armed by the West with European troops on its soil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump is angry that Ukraine won\u2019t accept a deal that legitimizes Russia\u2019s occupation of Crimea, as if this is a minor map revision. The U.S. refusal to credit territory seized by invasion is a principle intended to deter future marauders. Letting Russia keep its navy in Crimea is a threat to Europe as much as to Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A peace, or even an armistice, worth the name requires compromise on both sides. But Mr. Trump has applied pressure only on Ukraine. Mr. Trump proposed a 30-day cease-fire and Mr. Zelensky accepted. Mr. Putin simply blew off the proposal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Press reports say<\/a> the Russian dictator is now pretending it\u2019s a concession to freeze the conflict along current lines\u2014instead of demanding entire provinces it hasn\u2019t been able to seize. The lack of pressure on Mr. Putin is particular malpractice as the Russian dictator is struggling to drum up more troops. Why would Mr. Putin compromise if he will pay no price for refusing\u2014not even more U.S. arms for Ukraine after the current supply runs low this summer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump likes to say Ukraine doesn\u2019t have the cards, but it does have one ace: The President won\u2019t be able to abandon Ukraine without paying a heavy political price. As the historian and Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin said in an interview recently<\/a>, Americans hate war but they hate losing a war even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Trump may prefer to focus on a nuclear deal with Iran or his trade war with China, but he won\u2019t leverage failure in Europe into success in Asia or the Middle East. A U.S. flag officer told Congress recently that China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips that have allowed Russia to rebuild its war machine, and that\u2019s a testament to how the world’s problems are now intertwined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump can still salvage a deal in Ukraine, but the current \u201cfinal\u201d settlement offer looks like it would set up Mr. Putin to win the war now or later. The world\u2019s rogues will notice, and Mr. Trump\u2019s headaches will have only begun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President puts pressure only on one side\u2014not on Russia. By\u00a0The Editorial Board April 23, 2025 President Trump on Wednesday unleashed another broadside against Ukraine, and his dislike for President\u00a0Volodymyr Zelensky\u00a0isn\u2019t news. But what matters to U.S. interests\u2014and Mr. Trump\u2019s Presidency\u2014are the terms of a negotiated settlement. Mr. Trump\u2019s current offer looks more like an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16257,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16254\/revisions\/16257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}