Why Doesn’t the ‘Deal-Maker’ Close the Deal?

Alastair Crooke, 2 May 2025

The story, both on Ukraine and Iran, is that President Trump wants a ‘deal’ -- and both deals are available -- yet he seems nonetheless to have boxed himself in. Trump presents his Administration as being something rougher, meaner, and far less sentimental. It aspires to emerge, apparently, as also something more centralised, coercive, and radical.

In domestic policy, there may be some truth to this categorisation of the Trumpian ethos. In foreign policy, however, Trump tergiversates. The reason is not clear, but the fact of it clouds his prospects in the three areas vital to his ‘peace-maker’ aspiration – Ukraine, Iran and Gaza.

Whilst it is true that Trump’s true mandate derived from rampant economic and social discontent, rather than from his claims to be a peacemaker -- yet the two key foreign policy ends remain important to maintaining momentum forward.

One possible answer is that in foreign negotiations, the President needs a grounded and experienced team to support him. And he does not have that.