President Donald Trump may be losing control of the Strait of Hormuz again, but he is nonetheless signaling a greater commitment to Ukraine’s defense.

It seems like only yesterday that President Donald Trump was praising Iran’s leadership. “We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people,” he said in mid-June. Now Trump is back on the warpath. “They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people,” he said on Wednesday at the NATO summit meeting in Ankara, Turkey. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them.”  

Is it? Trump is vexed by Iran’s refusal to cede control over the Strait of Hormuz. But his expressions of wrath are a confession of weakness. Trump is desperate to exit a conflict he should never have entered. But he does not know how to handle an adversary that isn’t cowed by his chest-thumping braggadocio. Unable to declare a win, he cannot accept the fact that he has lost.  

Since the Iranians don’t view Trump as a straight shooter, they’ve resumed firing on ships seeking passage through the strait. Trump responded by bombing a variety of targets in Iran, including what his administration says were 60 fishing boats. Iran retaliated by launching missiles at US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait. Now Trump is threatening a fresh wave of strikes against Iran and declaring that the much-ballyhooed Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, which envisioned a 60-day ceasefire, is “over.”  

The problem is that the MOU, as it’s known, never really began. Vice President JD Vance touted it as a “good foundation” for peace in the Middle East. It was anything but. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for one, viewed it with anathema. So did the hardliners in Tehran who appear to have the upper hand when it comes to dealing with Trump. Whether Vance truly believed that the MOU could solve the Middle East’s woes is likely a moot question. Instead, Vance probably viewed it as a convenient pretext to return to the America First credo of disentangling America from the Middle East.  

The opposite is occurring. Trump may believe that his military strikes on Iran will strengthen his hand in foreign affairs, but they appear to be inefficacious. So far, he has stirred up Iranian nationalism and hardened the regime’s stance. 

Trump’s blasts at American allies during the NATO summit are hardly calculated to bolster his power and influence, either. On the contrary, his lashing out at Europe for not aiding his war in Iran is counterproductive. More than ever, he appears to base his foreign policy on whim, caprice, and insults. He announced that he intends to cut off all trade with Spain and reiterated his demand that Denmark surrender Greenland to him.  

The real winner of the summit is, of all people. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who persuaded Trump to vouchsafe Ukraine the licensing rights to manufacture Patriot missile systems. “Let’s say, ‘make them yourself,’” Trump said. “We haven’t informed the company of that yet, but that’ll work out all right.” 

Melinda Haring, a senior advisor at Razom for Ukraine, commented in an interview with the author, “What a great day! Ukraine is going to win the war; that’s what this means if Trump follows through. But there’s still an urgent need for air defense to protect civilians. Trump should tell Lockheed Martin to step off the production of PAC-3s in its Camden, Arkansas plant under the Defense Production Act.” 

For all Trump’s verbal blasts at Europe, his support for Ukraine will do more to promote its future than any other measure he could take. The greatest threat to its welfare isn’t immigration or any of the other boogeymen that Trump and Vance like to conjure up. It’s Russia.

About the Author: Jacob Heilbrunn

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He is the author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, which The New York Times included on its 100 notable books of the year in 2008, and America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel.

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