Trump in check over Kiev: the useless “24-hour” promise… but it is Putin who dictates the agenda

The US president had guaranteed an end to the war in a day, but after months in the White House he has failed to deliver. The US administration appears powerless, while Moscow keeps up the pressure on Ukraine and makes a mockery of Washington

In November 2024, Donald Trump returned to the White House with a bombastic promise: if elected, he would end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”. A statement as dramatic as it was, in hindsight, deeply irresponsible. Months into his second term, the conflict continues in all its brutality and the American diplomatic strategy seems paralysed, if not totally evaporated.

Trump, who had built part of his campaign on the narrative of the strong man capable of bending Putin with the sole force of his negotiating charisma, now finds himself a bewildered spectator. Not only has the Russian president shown no openness to a ceasefire, but he has intensified operations on the eastern axis, maintaining pressure on Kiev and exploiting every diplomatic opening to strengthen his positions.

US attempts at mediation appeared weak, uncoordinated and lacking strategic vision. Beyond a few ambiguous statements and meetings without concreteness, Trump has given the impression of wanting to distance himself from a war he does not control, as if his own promise had backfired. He is not leading the negotiations: it is Putin who dictates the timing and conditions.

Added to this is the Trump administration’s ambiguity vis-à-vis its European allies and NATO. After having reiterated in the election campaign his aversion to “endless wars”, the president has opted for a line that, rather than being interventionist, simply appears renunciatory. Aid to Kiev has slowed down, the commitment on the eastern front is uncertain, and America seems to have lost that role of guarantor of the international order which, like it or not, it had exercised for decades.

What emerges is an indecisive, elusive president, unable to face the reality of a conflict that does not bend to slogans. The idea that it was enough to “negotiate man-to-man” with Putin has proved to be a pious illusion, useful perhaps to garner domestic consensus, but totally ineffective in geopolitical practice.

Trump is collecting a long series of bad figures internationally. After the gaffes at bilateral summits and the tensions with historical allies, he is now adding the most serious failure: the inability to influence the conflict that is redrawing the balance of the European continent. The United States appears increasingly marginal, Kiev increasingly alone, and Moscow increasingly aggressive.

Trump’s “24 hours” have long since expired. And with it also the illusion that supposed decisionism is enough to resolve crises of historic proportions. The result? A retreating America, an advancing Russia and a president, the American one, who, beyond the rhetoric, no longer knows which way to turn.

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