President Donald Trump already failed in his promise to end Russia’s war on Ukraine on Day One — and now he’s not even committing to it ending in the next year.
At the World Economic Forum on Thursday, a panelist asked him whether there would “be a peace agreement with Ukraine and Russia by” next year’s conference.
Trump was noncommittal.
“Well, you’re going to have to ask Russia. Ukraine is ready to make a deal,” he said in Davos. “Just so you understand, this is a war that should have never started. If I were president, it would never have started. This is a war that should have never, ever been started.”
Trump first proclaimed that he would “have that war settled in one day” during the early days of his presidential campaign in 2023. He repeated this claim at least 33 times on the campaign trail.
Fierce Republican critics of the war, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, were effusive of Trump’s assertions and even touted them in their work in Washington. But as Trump’s first day in office approached, she and other allies started to play down his commitment.
“I don’t think the media pressing Day One is specifically ‘Day One,’” Greene told NOTUS earlier this month when asked if she thought Trump could still settle the war on his first day.
Trump is expected to speak with Vladimir Putin in the coming days. He threatened on Wednesday that he will impose tariffs to pressure Russia to end the war.
“Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with!”
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Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.