Trump keeps world guessing on Iran plans, Ukraine negotiations

Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday fell on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s all-out assault on Ukraine, the bloodiest conflict since World War II. The American president ignored the coincidence and dedicated just 45 words to Ukraine.

Given that his State of the Union address was the longest ever, at one hour and 47 minutes, the omission was startling, coming from a politician whose campaign for re-election in 2024 routinely claimed he would solve the war within 24 hours, thanks to his good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the war, he said that he and his team were “working hard to end the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month.”

There have been numerous meetings between his main negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. But there is no sign that Putin is prepared to compromise on his demand that Ukraine give up territory in exchange for peace.

The State of the Union is a key event in the often theatrical politics that have become the norm in this deeply polarised country. Foreign policy usually plays a minor role because elections tend to be decided by the state of the economy.

Consequently, Trump’s marathon speech was largely devoted to the achievements of his first year in office and a portrayal of the economy which differed sharply from the way the majority of citizens see it, according to a series of polls. According to the president, the United States is in a Golden Age and has gone through a “turnaround for the ages.”

But five recent polls show that around 56 per cent of voters disapprove of his performance on a number of key issues, including inflation, the high cost of living and the rough tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deporting undocumented immigrants.

More than two-thirds of those who responded to polls said Trump is exceeding his presidential authority – an assessment which has prompted a series of demonstrations by citizens waving “No Kings” placards.

They are unlikely to be swayed by the first line of Trump’s address: “My fellow Americans, our nation is back. Bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.”

Aware of his flagging approval numbers, he singled out the price of gasoline, a huge item in household budgets across the country. “Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states…is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places $1.99 a gallon.”

Fact checkers quickly went to work on this claim and found that the national average price of regular gasoline is just under $3.00 a gallon. GasBuddy, a website monitoring prices, found that four to eight stations, out of 150,000 in the country, were selling gasoline below $2.00.

Using inflated or plain wrong figures have been standard operating procedure for Trump ever since he entered politics. In his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, the Washington Post newspaper documented what they called “false or misleading claims” popularly known as lies. The total: 30,573.

The Post did not pursue that kind of monitoring in Trump’s second term, but the first-term tally should be kept in mind when Trump and his aides boast about the benefits of the tariffs he imposed on “Liberation Day” on April 2 last year. That resulted, the government says, in $257 billion in tax revenue.

Just four days before the State of the Union ceremony, the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 majority, struck down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs in a decision that translates to a clear message: your executive powers have limits. Imposing the levies required approval from Congress, the judges ruled.

The most serious defeat for Trump in his second term, the tariff decision requires the government to refund more than $175 billion to importers.

Trump, who never takes no for an answer, promptly responded to the Court’s decision by declaring a 10 per cent global tariff, increased to 15 per cent a day later, under legislation that differs from the “economic emergency” act he used last year. The law he now cites allows for levies to expire after 150 days.

Having given Russia-Ukraine short shrift in his speech, Trump kept his country – and the world –on edge waiting to find out his plans for Iran after assembling a huge armada off Iran and threatening military action unless the theocratic rulers in Tehran accept American demands, one of which is agreement never to build a nuclear weapon.

"We haven't heard from them those secret words: 'We do not want nuclear weapons ever'", he said in his speech. This was a rather baffling statement, given that Iran’s top nuclear negotiator used almost the exact phrase in a message on X: “Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon."

The State of the Union would have been the perfect occasion for the president to explain why military action might be necessary and how it would benefit citizens struggling to pay their bills.

He let it pass.