Trump struggles with vow to end Ukraine, Gaza wars

Ahead of his second go-around in the White House, President Donald Trump spoke with certainty about ending Russia’s war in Ukraine in the first 24 hours of his new administration and finding lasting peace from the devastating 18-month conflict in Gaza.

But as the Republican nears the 100th day of his second term, he’s struggling to make good on two of his biggest foreign policy promises.

And after criticising President Biden during last year’s campaign for preventing Israel from carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Trump now finds himself giving diplomacy a chance as he tries to curb Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.

“The war has been raging for three years. I just got here, and you say, ‘What’s taken so long?’” Trump bristled, when asked about the Ukraine war in a Time magazine interview about his first 100 days.

Brokering peace deals between intractable warring parties is typically the work of years, not weeks.

All sides have scrambled to acclimate as Trump launched a global tariff war and slashed US foreign aid all while talking up the ideas of taking Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and making Canada the 51st state.

The president and his team have gone hot and cold about prospects for peace in Ukraine since Trump’s Oval Office blowup with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in February.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned that the US is ready to walk away if Ukraine and Russia don’t make substantial progress toward a peace deal promptly.

On the eve of his return to office, Trump took full credit for what he called an “epic” agreement that would lead to a “lasting peace” in West Asia.

But the truce collapsed in March, and fighting resumed, with the two sides unable to come to an agreement for the return of 59 remaining hostages. Trump, on Friday, told reporters that he’s pressing Israeli PM “very hard” to get food and medicine into Gaza but dismissed questions about how the Israeli leader is responding. “Well, he knows all about it, OK?” Trump told reporters.

World