Three Reasons Trump Changed his Tune on Ukraine -- for Now
How psychology and geopolitics intersected
Note: This is a joint post with my World Politics Review column. Subscribers to INSIGHT by Frida Ghitis have a special offer to receive WPR.
Trump’s Change of Tune on Ukraine Is Real—For Now

Few politicians can create cinematic drama and anticipation like U.S. President Donald Trump. And ahead of Monday’s White House meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump made good use of that talent. “You’ll be seeing things happening,” he cryptically told reporters on Friday. A “major statement” was on the way, he later teased.
The denouement unfolded Monday in the Oval Office, with announcements that were both genuinely significant and positive, and somewhat underwhelming.
The bottom line, though, was a genuine shift in Trump’s position toward Ukraine. At last, it appears, he has decided to help an embattled Kyiv defend itself against Russia’s imperial efforts to conquer it. At least for now.
This isn’t the first time since he returned to the presidency that Trump has offered Ukraine some cause for optimism. After Kyiv signed onto Trump’s “mineral deal” earlier this year, there was some talk about it representing a turning point, only for Trump to once again push for a one-sided ceasefire and peace deal favoring Moscow after the ink was dry.
This time, however, something did seem to change.
What happened? Why did Trump finally decide to support Ukraine after months of absurdly blaming Kyiv for Russia’s invasion?
Three reasons come to mind. First, and most important, Trump realized that Russian President Vladmir Putin was playing him for a fool, humilitating him before the entire world. Second, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powers of persuasion at last broke through, because he had a chance to speak face-to-face with Trump outside of the presence of Vice President JD Vance, who famously declared, “I really don’t care what happens to Ukraine.” Third, Rutte has cemented his position as Europe’s “Trump Whisperer” for the U.S. president’s second term, unctuously able to make the case for Ukraine in terms that align with Trump’s worldview.
Though Trump’s disappointment with Putin was striking, his admiration for the Russian strongman was still palpable even after announcing his change of heart. “I don’t want to say he’s an assassin,” Trump said, in what for him amounts to a compliment, “but he’s a tough guy.”
Trump clearly felt humiliated, and rightly so.
Recalling their phone calls and Putin’s subsequent betrayal, however, Trump sounded like a jilted lover, reluctantly recognizing that the object of his affection had been deceiving him all along. “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ And she said, ‘Oh, really? Another city was just hit.’”
No matter how wonderful, Trump acknowledged ruefully, a conversation with Putin “doesn’t mean anything.”
Trump clearly felt humiliated, and rightly so.
As a candidate before the November presidential election, he had vowed to end the war in a day. Since his inauguration in January, he has pushed for a peace deal, pressuring Ukraine to make concessions, while sending his emissaries to Moscow, Riyadh and Istanbul to meet with their Russian counterparts. But Putin, he discovered, was “tapping” him along, as Trump put it.
Still, looking like a fool is unbearable for Trump, so he immediately tried to play it off as if he had seen through Putin all along. Putin “fooled a lot of people,” Trump maintained. “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden,” he claimed, before adding defensively, “He didn’t fool me.”
In reality, no U.S. president in living memory has seemed so gullible in believing the Kremlin’s claims or has lavished as much praise on a Russian leader.
Trump may have surmised that if Russia emerges from the conflict victorious, history will record that it was he who lost Ukraine.
Nevertheless, on Monday, with Rutte by his side in the newly gilded Oval Office, Trump announced a new plan to supply U.S. weapons to Ukraine. Unlike previous efforts, Washington won’t directly give the weaponry to Kyiv. Instead, the U.S. is selling arms to its NATO allies, who will then transfer them to Ukraine. In some cases, in order to accelerate the urgent process amid Russian advances, NATO allies will hand Ukraine arms they already possess, which will then be replaced by new ones purchased from the U.S.
Rutte assented vigorously when Trump explained that the U.S. will not be taken for a ride by NATO. Europe will pay for it, the former Dutch prime minister reaffirmed, to Trump’s visible delight.
Among the NATO members that will participate in the plan, according to Rutte, are Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada. The weaponry will include defensive and offensive weapons, such as Patriot anti-missile systems, ammunition and missiles.
But in what amounts to the underwhelming part of his shift, Trump remains reluctant to punish the longtime object of his admiration. He delayed imposing secondary sanctions against countries that continue to trade with Russia for another 50 days. Putin won’t necessarily be trembling with fear, though, given that Trump has threatened—and then ignored—multiple “two-week” deadlines for Russia to get serious about negotiations to end the war in the past several months.
The new arrangement—no U.S. dollars, no immediate sanctions—represents an internal compromise and balancing act within Trump’s administration, which is riven by diametrically opposing views on Ukraine.
Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby all oppose more aid to Ukraine. Recently, Colby and Hegseth even stopped weapons shipments to Kyiv without Trump’s knowledge. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others, including most of the Senate and three-quarters of Trump voters, want to step up sanctions against Russia.
It was Vance who stoked the infamous Oval Office humiliation of Zelenskyy in February, chastising him for not showing more gratitude. Picking up Vance’s tone, Trump demeaned the Ukrainian president, telling him he had “no cards” to play and essentially throwing him out of the White House.
But Trump reversed the decision taken by Colby and Hegseth. Now he speaks glowingly of Ukrainians’ courageous defense of their country. After a July 4 phone call between the two countries’ leaders, Zelenskyy declared that Trump is “very well informed” and Trump announced that “we’ll continue helping them.”
The shift began in April, after their first private meeting following the Oval Office debacle, when Trump and Zelenskyy both attended the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican. The two sat alone, knee-to-knee. No Vance. No Hegseth. When it was over, Zelenskyy declared that the conversation was their “best” ever.
If Zelenskyy deserves credit for the shift, so does Rutte. The new NATO secretary-general has shown a prodigious talent for dealing with Trump. He persuaded him of the benefits to the U.S. of a safe Europe. In a startling reversal from his well-known disdain for Washington’s NATO allies, Trump recently declared, “Having a strong Europe is a very good thing.”
Last month, Rutte crafted a successful NATO Summit in The Hague, where the European allies agreed to a sharp boost in defense spending. In doing so, they made sure to give all the credit to Trump, although as I wrote in my column two weeks ago, a more powerful reason for the spending hike was concern about Putin’s aggressive expansionism.
Whatever the reason, Rutte has helped turn Trump into a NATO believer and a Ukraine supporter—at least for now.
This week, Trump made sure to blame his predecessor for the war, declaring “It was Biden’s war. It’s not my war.” But he may have surmised that if Russia emerges from the conflict victorious, history will record that it was Trump who lost Ukraine. That realization also may have played a part in his change of heart.
The fall of Afghanistan turned into a catastrophic disaster for former President Joe Biden. Similarly, the drama that would accompany the fall of Ukraine would become a permanent stain on Trump’s legacy, which for such an image-conscious president as Trump would be intolerable. That just may be Ukraine’s best hope.
At least for now…. Let it be so!