Name: Trump's Ukraine Peace Plan Explained
Uploaded: 2024-11-14T16:42:49.000Z
Duration: 8 min 59 s
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Earlier this week Donald Trump was declared winner of the US presidential election.

Future perfect

Trump has repeatedly vowed that one of his first tasks as president will be to end the war in Ukraine, insisting that the war would have never started had he won in 2020, and promising that he would end the war in quote 24 hours.

So in this video we're going to explain why Trump wants to end the war in Ukraine, his plan to do so, and how he would manage to coax Zelensky and Putin to the war.

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So before we get into his peace plan, let's quickly explain why Trump is so keen to end the war.

Now this is in part because Trump is a self-declared isolationist, and ending the war, or winding down support for Ukraine, plays well to his base, because as of December last year 48% of Republicans believed that the US was providing too much support to Ukraine, and this figure has almost definitely grown since then.

But Trump, or at least his allies, also have a deeper geostrategic motivation.

A research paper written for the America First Policy Institute by two of Trump's former national security chiefs gives us some idea of how Trump and co might be thinking about it.

According to the paper, there are essentially three reasons they want to end the war.

Secondly, a prolonged conflict risks strengthening the alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as indicated by NATO's recent report of over 10,000 North Korean troops being stationed in Russia following a defence deal.

And thirdly, the US just has low ammunition stockpiles, and needs to conserve resources for a potential conflict with China.

This is something that former Trump advisor Elbridge Colby often talks about, as a result of sending military aid to support both Israel and Ukraine, America's ammunition and weapons stockpiles are running alarmingly low, and the Rand Corporation recently estimated that in the event of a war over Taiwan, the US could exhaust its ammunition stockpiles within just three to four weeks.

Not only will replenishing Washington's ammunition infantry take years, but the supply chain has become overly dependent on China and Russia for its key components, putting the US base in a precarious position.

Anyway, that's why Trump wants to end the war.

Now let's take a look at how he actually wants to do it.

So far, Trump has declined to give too many specific details about his plan, but fortunately for us, his advisors and allies haven't been so tight-lipped.

In an interview with the Sean Ryan Show in September, Trump's Vice President J.D.

Vance laid out Trump's plans pretty clearly.

Broadly speaking, there were two elements to Vance's plan in Ukraine.

First, a complete ceasefire along the current front line, which stretches about 1,300 kilometres.

According to Vance, the first bit, a freeze along the current front lines, would pave the way for the creation of a demilitarised zone, presumably akin to the one between North and South Korea, which is about four kilometres wide and heavily fortified.

This implies Ukraine giving up about a fifth of its land, which is currently controlled by Russia.

This includes Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, about 80% of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, and about 70% of the Southern Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts.

This actually brings us to the second point of Trump's possible peace plan, as outlined by Vance, Ukraine's neutrality.

In other words, Trump, Vance, and Trump ally Elon Musk, who suggested something similar in late 2022, think that Ukraine shouldn't join NATO, both to avoid dragging the West into World War 3, and to avoid upsetting Putin, who's long been opposed to Ukraine joining NATO, and leaving Russia's so-called sphere of influence.

Speaking on the All In podcast this June, Trump said that Biden's hostile attitude towards Russia, and America's decision to dangle NATO membership in front of Ukraine, was quote, a mistake, and really why the war started.

According to a report by the Wall Ukraine's accession to NATO entirely, but would suggest delaying it by at least 20 years.

Now this peace plan will likely include some kind of enforcement mechanisms, like deploying peacekeeping troops on the ground.

However, Trump has long argued that Europe doesn't pull its weight in defence spending, which means that Europe would most likely have to pick up the bill, or use its troops.

So that's the plan, but how would Trump actually get Ukraine and Russia to agree to it, given that neither side is currently keen on negotiating?

Well, Trump would probably force Ukraine to the negotiating table, by threatening to end or significantly reduce its military aid.

For context, since the start of the war, the US has spent more than $70 billion in military aid, and unless Europe really stepped up, it's hard to see Ukraine's war effort continuing without American support.

However, it's less clear how he convinced Russia to agree to it.

While you might assume that Russia would be pretty happy with the plan, after all, it gives them 20% of Ukraine, and guarantees Ukrainian neutrality, it still falls short of their maximalist war aims, which include the total annexation of the four oblasts claimed by Russia in 2022, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia.

Russian forces currently don't control all of Donetsk, Kherson, or Zaporizhia, so a freeze along the current front lines would fall short of Putin's stated aims, especially if there's a sizeable buffer zone.

If Putin does refuse Trump's peace plan, it'll be interesting how Trump responds.

While many Europeans and Ukrainian leaders worry that he'll just make more concessions to Putin, it's worth noting that in his first term, despite some occasionally friendly rhetoric, Trump wasn't afraid to put Putin in his place, and was actually the first US president to authorise sending lethal military aid to Ukraine.

Trump also imposed sanctions against Russian firms building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Germany, ordered airstrikes on the Russian mercenary groups in Syria, and withdrew from multiple nuclear treaties.

Trump also said in an interview with Fox News last year that he'd actually step up support for Ukraine in order to force Russia to acquiesce, saying quote, I'd tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give them a lot more than they ever got.

All in all, neither Ukraine or Russia would be immediately keen on the deal, and it's an open question as to whether Trump would be able to leverage them into it, but he's certainly pretty intent on trying to do so.

This is also something that's been discussed in Europe for a long time too.

Hungary's Viktor Orban actually warned before the election that were Trump to win, the EU would need to fundamentally change their approach to Russia, with 48 different news outlets reporting on this story alone. 36% of that reporting came from the left, while 43% came from the right.

And if you compare the headlines, you start to see some interesting framing emerge.

On the left, you have the Kyiv Independent saying that if Trump wins the US presidential election, Europe cannot remain pro-war.

While on the right, you have Origo simply saying, Viktor Orban, come on Donald Trump.

These stories are similar, the framing, but that's very different.

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