Can Trump get a deal on Ukraine?

And will he continue to support Ukraine if he fails to do so?

An ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) of the type that Ukraine will now be able to use to strike targets within Russia.

Since Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election questions have been asked about whether he will push Ukraine into an unjust and unstable peace that will give Vladimir Putin all he wants, or that, even worse, he might just abandon Ukraine and leave it to cope as best it can without any help from the US. These questions matter enormously to Europe. Anxious discussions are already underway about whether and how Ukraine can be supported without the US, as it continues to resist Russian aggression. In the event of it being asked to accept an unsatisfactory deal, one precluding NATO membership, are there ways to give Ukraine confidence in its long-term security while it seeks to rebuild its economy and repair its cities?

We do not know the policies Trump will adopt on the war after 20 January and, in all probability, neither does he. This is not only because of his famed unpredictability, or the uncertainties surrounding the fighting, but also because Ukraine is nothing like as important to him as it is to Europeans. He has not appointed people to senior positions in his government with a Ukraine policy in mind. He has appointed them above all for their loyalty, to repay favours, and to demonstrate as sharp a break as possible with the liberal mainstream and the Biden administration. In the case of the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, and the FBI his aim is to purge them of his actual and perceived enemies to prevent them thwarting his every move, which is what he believes they did during his first term in the White House.

He does have priorities but Ukraine is not high on the list. More or less in order these are: stopping migration into the US and deporting as many as possible of those who have entered illegally; tax cuts and deregulation; tariffs on China and possibly everyone else as an alternative source of revenue; rowing back on the green agenda; gearing up more generally to confront China; backing Israel in whatever it intends to do to conclude its wars; and then, down the list, to somehow end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

His priorities, in practice, may look different. They will be determined by events and the immediate challenges he faces and the speed with which he can get his nominees confirmed. Because neither the deportations nor tariffs require Congressional votes and can be directed from the White House this is where he will start. Soon these will be dominating the headlines. Once the plans begin to be implemented they will cause immediate uproar. On immigration, there is already a fight building up between the maximalists, expecting to deport hundreds of thousands of people as quickly as possible, and minimalists who worry about questions of costs and practicality and also the loss of the agricultural sector’s workforce. The same tension can be expected on tariffs, with the maximalists ready to add to the costs of all imports to encourage domestic producers and the minimalists fearful of the inflationary impact of going too far and the possibilities of all-out trade wars.

His stated policy on Ukraine is to end the war with a deal. The first question is therefore can he get a deal and the second is if he cannot how much does he then support Ukraine. To explore these question I first look at Trump’s appointments and how these will affect decision-making on Ukraine. I then note President Zelensky’s efforts to get close to Trump and President Putin’s determination to carry on as before, offering no hint of concessions or inclination to de-escalate. After considering what the Biden administration can do in its last two months, and assessing the impact of the belated decision to ease the restrictions on the use of long-range systems against targets in Russia, I then identify the steps Europeans can take to influence the new administration’s policy.