AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump says he has already ended several conflicts around the globe and that he is working to conclude several more. He's doing that by applying his love of cutting deals to global relationships. Like, take the war between Russia and Ukraine. Just this week, he threw his support behind a deal for new weapons for Ukrainian defense. But this is what he said when he was asked if the decision meant he had picked a side in the war.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, I'm on nobody's side. I'm the - no.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Why?
TRUMP: I want to - you know the side I'm on? Humanity's side.
CHANG: He started by saying, nobody's side. So what does this tell us about Trump's approach to foreign policy? Well, to help us break all of this down, we're joined now by NPR's senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith and national security correspondent Greg Myre. Hello to both of you.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: All right. Tam, let's start with you. We're six months now into Trump's second term. How would you summarize his approach to foreign policy this time around?
KEITH: Well, as you said, he is very focused on deals - peace deals, trade deals, deals for American businesses - though many of those deals are proving elusive so far. And he has a personal approach. That is, it is often about personal relationships - how he feels about the other world leaders he's dealing with. And then there are his two defining slogans - peace through strength, and America first. But slogans don't make a doctrine or guiding principle, and often it seems like aides and supporters are trying to mold those slogans around his decisions rather than the other way around.
So as I was trying to make sense of this, I called several foreign policy experts from across the spectrum, and John Bolton put it most bluntly. He served as national security adviser in Trump's first term and says there is no national security grand strategy.
JOHN BOLTON: He made thousands of decisions in his first term - many of which I agreed with - but they're out there like a big archipelago of dots. You can try and connect the dots if you want, but he can't connect the dots. That's just not the way he makes foreign policy decisions.
MYRE: And you know, Ailsa, Trump clearly prefers the art of the deal to the art of diplomacy. You know, as some people have put it, you do deals with friends or business partners, and you do diplomacy with adversaries. But that's often a very hard process. You often have to make tough compromises in what's a long, drawn-out process.
CHANG: Absolutely. Well, what about specific examples when it comes to wars? Like, where can Trump claim credit for actually ending a conflict?
MYRE: Probably the Israel-Iran war is the best example. Israel launched a surprise air campaign last month, and it set off 12 days of intense fighting. And the U.S. wasn't just some disinterested party here. Trump's team closely coordinated with Israel, and the U.S. carried out one night of major airstrikes. But after that, Trump really declared a unilateral ceasefire, and that's what happened, and it is holding. His role in ending this conflict was crucial.
Now, we should stress that in this conflict and others, the fighting stopped but there was no real resolution of the larger conflict. We still don't know the exact status of Iran's nuclear program, whether Iran will try to rebuild it quickly. And that's really the core issue here.
CHANG: Right. OK, well, what about a place where Trump has not had success but definitely wants success, like the Russia-Ukraine war?
MYRE: Ailsa, this is a really good example of Trump wanting a quick deal even though it doesn't appear a realistic option. He thought he could work very swiftly with Russian leader Vladimir Putin based on years of a friendly relationship. He was very dismissive of Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy - effectively kicked him out of the White House back in January.
But this week, we saw Trump formally adopt a very different stance. He now seems frustrated with Putin. He plans to sell weapons to NATO, which will then send them onto Ukraine, and he's also threatening punitive measures against Russia if it doesn't agree to Trump's proposed ceasefire.
KEITH: And I just want to point out here that for Trump, this NATO weapons deal checks a lot of boxes. The U.S. doesn't have to spend anything. American manufacturers get to sell weapons. And in the end, Ukraine gets the defensive weapons they were asking for.
MYRE: And I just want to mention one other conflict, and that's the Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza. Trump actually inherited a ceasefire in Gaza when he took office in January, but that ended with an Israeli offensive in March. That conflict just keeps grinding on, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worse than it's ever been.
CHANG: Well, what about other conflicts that Trump has taken some interest in? Do we know where they stand?
MYRE: Yeah, when Trump was talking about global conflicts this week, he sort of offered this global tour. Here's part of what he said.
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TRUMP: We've been very successful in settling wars. You have India-Pakistan. You have Rwanda and the Congo. That was going on for 30 years. India, by the way - Pakistan would have been a nuclear war within another week, the way that was going. That was going very badly.
MYRE: So just a quick fact-check here. With India-Pakistan, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did jump in and mediate a truce. The administration certainly deserves credit here. But there's no indication this conflict was on the verge of a nuclear war, and the ceasefire doesn't resolve the larger feud between these countries, which dates back generations. And the Trump administration did help broker this peace agreement between Congo and Rwanda signed in Washington three weeks ago. If it holds, it's a significant achievement, but many deals in this conflict in the past have collapsed.
CHANG: I want to take, like, a wide lens here, Tam, because U.S. foreign policy often is built around creating stable, long-term relationships. And I'm curious, do you think Trump's approach could be upending expectations among U.S. allies right now?
KEITH: Well, he has certainly added uncertainty to U.S. relationships with literally dozens of trading partners with his aggressive tariff agenda. But Trump's view is that the rest of the world has been ripping America off, and he's been saying that for decades about trade deficits. He argues that America's allies have been free riders on U.S. military might, and he makes a lot of threats. He walks a lot of them back, but he keeps everyone walking on eggshells. I spoke to Mike Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
MIKE FROMAN: It's a feature, not a bug. I think he views uncertainty as creating additional leverage, creating some suspense, you know, as to how things are likely to come out.
KEITH: And with all of this, Trump has made himself the center of attention globally. All eyes are on him.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tamara Keith and Greg Myre. Thank you to both of you.
KEITH: You're welcome.
MYRE: Sure thing, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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