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Predicting 2025: Trump the Peacemaker

Kit Knightly
Traditionally, OffG’s New Year predictions are a special edition of This Week, but 2025 looks to have such a full dance card, we thought a series more appropriate.

How is the world going to change now that The Donald is back in the Oval Office?

Is he going to “Drain the swamp” for real this time? Is he going to team up with Elon Musk and save the Western world?

No, he’s not.

But we could dedicate tens of thousands of words to all the great things Trump won’t do. Instead how about some realistic predictions about what he will do? In fact I took part in an IMA panel on that topic last month.

Whether concerning RFK jr being given fluoride-related busy work or a performative pardon for Julian Assange, my thoughts were generally that a good portion of the first year of Trump’s second term would be dedicated to winning back his alienated base, re-establishing some anti-establishment bona fides and “proving his doubters wrong”.

Here’s one prediction I don’t think came up:

Trump will oversee a peace deal in Ukraine.

The hints are there. Keith Kellog, Trump’s picked Ukraine Envoy recently told the press he believes “the War will be resolved in next few months”

Putin is reportedly “ready to compromise”, Zelenskyy says Trump’s “unpredictability and strength” could resolve the war. Even Emanual Macron is weighing in, suggesting Ukraine needs to be “realistic about territory”.

The outrage is being primed too, with the HuffPo already labelling the Trump plan “a form of appeasement” while the Times warns that “Trump’s push for peace in Ukraine could spell the end of Nato” (talk about damning with faint praise).

One argument against the “peace deal” evolution of the narrative is that it’s being reported that Russia has “rejected” Trump’s floated peace plan, but that could just as easily be interpreted as negotiation tactics or building tension into the story.

An initial “rejection” before being talked around to Trump’s terms only makes him look stronger, and the entire process more genuine.

What form any deal eventually takes – and indeed how real it is – we can’t know yet, but the positioning seems clear. Either a ceasefire or a “drawdown” or something equivalent. We know how this gambit works, Ukraine would be to Trump as the Iran hostages were to Reagan.

Just as Covid fatigue had set in after two years – hence Ukraine – so Ukraine fatigue has more than set in now. And a “breakthrough in negotiations” will mix up the stale narrative. It would also provide a lot of ammunition for pointless debate in the media and on social networks.

The hot takes write themselves.

“Ukraine is betrayed! Trump has folded and given Putin exactly what he wants!”

“Russia is betrayed! Putin has folded and given Trump exactly what he wants!”

“Trump got it done in two months when Biden couldn’t do it in two years!”

“Biden got it done Trump is stealing the credit!”

“Putin held out to win Trump the election! Conspiracy!”

“Russia triumphant! Putin is a genius!”

“Russia humiliated! Two years for a stalemate! Putin is finished!”

…and so on and so on.

WILDCARD PREDICTION: Donald Trump will win, or at least be nominated for, the Nobel Peace Prize. Or maybe even three of them.

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