Opinion | Surrendering by Dealmaking: How Trump’s Ukraine Policy Threatens Taiwan and Beyond
Joseph Bosco
During his White House meeting last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a brief history lesson that both President Trump and Vice President Vance sorely needed but cavalierly dismissed. Zelensky noted that the present war is just the latest phase of Russian aggression against Ukraine that has spanned administrations from Obama through the current second Trump term. Trump continues to claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine during the Obama and Biden administrations but not Trump’s first term because Putin respects him over his predecessors. However, during Trump’s first term, Putin continued occupying eastern Ukraine and Crimea and committed brutal war crimes against the Ukrainian population there. Nor does Trump suggest any methods to leverage his claimed mutually respectful relationship to reverse Putin’s aggressive attempts to reconstitute the Russian empire — an effort that began against Georgia during the Bush II administration.
Russia’s continued bombardment of Ukrainian cities wreaks the very death and destruction Trump says he wants to end, yet, even his temporary cut-off of intelligence and weapons support Ukraine needs to fend off attacks increased both, while doing nothing to stop Russia from launching them — indeed, defending and normalizing them as something “anybody else would do.”
The Trump-Biden-Trump presidential tag team has had disastrous consequences for U.S. foreign policy, with the United States effectively surrendering in two of three recent national security challenges — Afghanistan and Ukraine — and threatening the same on the third — Taiwan. Both Trump and Biden abhorred America’s “forever wars” and desired to end the 20-year Afghanistan war quickly, ignoring the U.S. national interests that were at stake. Trump negotiated with the Taliban for a prompt U.S. withdrawal through a flawed agreement that was not honored by the Taliban and pulled the rug out from under a demoralized Afghan government that had been entirely excluded from the negotiation — much as Trump excluded Zelensky from his talks with Putin. Biden made the bad situation he inherited worse by ignoring the Taliban’s multiple violations of the agreement and ordering a precipitous withdrawal from all of Afghanistan, including the critically strategic Bagram Air Base that Trump’s deal would have retained.
The Obama-Biden weakness on eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Trump’s acceptance of the new status quo, and Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan all contributed to Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The presidential positions have now been reversed — with Trump presented with an ongoing war and failing to address the underlying cause: Putin’s lust to restore the dissolved Soviet empire, which he called a “genuine tragedy” and the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.
The damage to U.S. and global security under Trump’s rule will be even more calamitous than that following Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump is openly siding with Putin not only against Ukraine but against the entire European collective security order under NATO. By extension, Trump is also encouraging Russia’s strategic allies — China, North Korea, and Iran — to take greater risks in pursuit of their aggressive ambitions. In the case of Iran, however, its imminent nuclear breakout and Israel’s strong stand against it provide little leeway for Trump to finesse decisive action to end Iran’s nuclear program. At some point, Israel will likely permanently address the threat that Iran poses, and Trump will have no choice but to go along with military action to end the nuclear program and possibly the Iranian regime itself.
With China, however, Trump will find ample latitude to evade U.S. responsibility to Taiwan and forge a convenient but transitory deal on trade or other non-security issues. The significant change in U.S. policy and support for Ukraine provides a roadmap for how the United States may change its stance on Taiwan. Posturing as the Nobel Prize-worthy peacemaker determined to end the war, Trump’s secret talks with Putin enabled them to devise a scenario that was designed to force Zelensky’s acceptance of a minerals deal and ceasefire without the security guarantee he was seeking. Trump, the ultimate dealmaker, then conceivably could take whatever mineral rights the United States acquired and share them with Russia, giving it access to areas of Ukraine it has not been able to conquer.
Zelensky was not prepared to accept a mineral deal without a U.S. security guarantee, given Putin’s violations of the Budapest Memorandum 1994 and the two subsequent Minsk Agreements. Trump used the bludgeon of canceling the intelligence and weapons Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian bombs, missiles, and drones. As if by coordination to exploit Ukraine’s new vulnerabilities created by Trump’s actions, Russia has intensified its attacks using those same aerial systems. The Trump-Putin coordination completes the reversal of America’s moral and strategic support for a valiant ally and surpasses the ignominy of Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan. Worse, Trump seems to have concluded that the departure of Zelensky is the best way to get a compliant government in Kyiv, which was one of Putin’s original objectives when he launched his second invasion of Ukraine.
Trump’s cynical manipulation of Ukraine’s predicament ominously highlights Taiwan’s vulnerability to China’s massive power advantages, especially if the United States withholds critical military support from Taiwan as it did under Biden and is doing under Trump. Biden’s periodic declarations that America would defend Taiwan quickly proved fleeting with his staff’s disavowals of any Biden change in U.S. policy. Strategic ambiguity was still the U.S. position. However, Trump historically has had a penchant for upending the status quo, and this is one policy that sorely needs revamping. He should tell Chinese President Xi Jinping that any act of aggression or coercion against Taiwan will bring an immediate and forceful response from the United States. This would leave Xi to bear the responsibility of avoiding escalation. To push toward peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, Trump should give Xi the same warning regarding the U.S. commitment to defend our treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Trump, as dealmaker and “peacemaker,” may instead signal to Xi that he would accept a Chinese seizure of Kinmen (Quemoy) or another offshore island in return for a Beijing concession on some trade issue. China may find that to be a useful transaction and a promising precedent for the duration of Trump’s new term, improving U.S.-China relations by turning on Taiwan. However, if Taiwan is determined to defend its territory even without U.S. intervention, Trump could well employ the same tactic he has used against Ukraine and cut off critical intelligence and arms support until it submitted to U.S. pressure.
Rather than peace through strength, Trump’s strategic approach seems to be peace through commercial transactions. Like other forms of appeasement, however, it will prove evanescent in the face of aggressive adversaries determined to pursue their expansionist ambitions. Regime change in Moscow, presently unthinkable under Trump, is the only long-term solution for peace and stability in Europe and could stay the hand of expansionist powers elsewhere.
Joseph Bosco served as China Country Desk Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005–2006) and Director of Asia-Pacific Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Affairs (2008–2010). He is presently a Fellow at the Institute for Corea-America Studies (ICAS) and serves on the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) and The Vandenberg Coalition (TVC). The views expressed above are his own and do not represent the views of these organizations.
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