By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill

President Trump once bragged in “The Art of the Deal” about the virtues of “truthful hyperbole” — manipulating perceptions, exaggerating momentum and creating leverage through illusion. In foreign policy, however, the same instinct has evolved into something far more dangerous: diplomacy as ambush.

One defining feature of Trump’s second presidency has been his repeated use of diplomatic negotiations not as pathways to peace or settlement but as instruments of tactical deception. Again and again, diplomatic engagement has coincided with — and appears in some cases to have facilitated — sudden military escalation. The pattern is now too consistent to dismiss as coincidence.

The risk is that if negotiations becomes associated with strategic chicanery, it could destroy the very credibility that gives U.S. diplomacy its power.

Iran offers the clearest example. In June 2025, U.S. nuclear talks with Iran in Oman provided cover for Israel’s devastating aerial assaults that caught Tehran completely off-guard, before Trump himself widened the conflict by ordering U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites.

Months later, as renewed Oman-mediated negotiations between Washington and Tehran appeared to be nearing a breakthrough, the Trump administration on February 28 abruptly launched “Operation Epic Fury” alongside Israel. Iranian negotiators reportedly believed they were moving toward a “nuclear freeze for sanctions ease” framework accord. Instead, Trump launched the war while Iranian forces were operating under reduced alert conditions.

Even after the conflict erupted, Trump repeatedly signaled possible de-escalation while widening the bombing campaign to target Iran’s civilian and economic infrastructure.

Then came the latest example. On May 25, shortly after Trump claimed that a deal with Iran to end the conflict was “largely negotiated,” U.S. forces sank two Iranian mine-laying vessels and bombed missile-launch sites in southern Iran, with the president threatening a full-scale resumption of the “shooting.”

The pattern is unmistakable: Diplomacy and military escalation are not operating on separate tracks. They are fused into a single strategy of confusion, misdirection and surprise.

Nor is Iran unique. In Venezuela, negotiations between U.S. officials and President Nicolas Maduro’s close associates continued almost until the moment Washington launched “Operation Absolute Resolve” in January. Venezuelan negotiators believed discussions over a power transition and immunity deal were making progress, even as U.S. intelligence reportedly used the diplomatic channel itself to gather targeting information and breach Maduro’s compound.

Using the negotiation process as a massive intelligence-gathering exercise enabled American agencies to pinpoint Maduro’s location before the strike order was issued, leading to his swift capture.

The same pattern appeared in Yemen. In March 2025, Omani mediators were in Washington discussing a possible maritime and security deal with the Houthis when the U.S. launched “Operation Rough Rider.” Houthi leaders, apparently expecting a diplomatic breakthrough, had not dispersed key missile assets. The opening barrage destroyed a substantial portion of their long-range strike capability, yet the operation failed to defeat the Houthis decisively.

Nigeria offers an even more jarring example, because the country has been a nominal U.S. partner. Throughout fall 2025, Washington held high-level security consultations with Nigerian authorities and negotiated expanded counterterrorism cooperation. Yet on Christmas Day, the U.S. launched strikes inside Nigeria against alleged ISIS-West Africa targets without informing the Nigerian defense ministry beforehand. Intelligence gathered by U.S. surveillance flights and during joint planning sessions reportedly helped facilitate the strikes.

In Syria, the strategy early this year took a different form — a feigned retreat. U.S. officials used deconfliction channels with Russian and Syrian counterparts to signal a “drawdown” of active patrols in the Badia desert. ISIS remnants moved into what appeared to be a security vacuum, only to find themselves drawn into predesignated kill zones targeted by U.S. loitering munitions.

Viewed individually, each case can be defended as clever statecraft or operational necessity. Together, they reveal a negotiate-to-strike doctrine. Under Trump, negotiations increasingly appear designed not merely to resolve disputes or conflicts but to lull adversaries into complacency, lower defenses, gather intelligence and maximize surprise before kinetic action begins. The diplomatic carrot remains visible until the instant the military stick lands its first blow.

Trump’s defenders argue that such tactics save American lives and that diplomacy is simply another instrument of war. But this logic ignores the long-term strategic cost. Diplomacy ultimately depends less on power than on credibility.

Military power can destroy infrastructure, topple governments and intimidate adversaries. It cannot by itself create legitimacy or durable political settlements. Those require credible diplomacy — diplomacy understood not as theater, bait or manipulation, but as a genuine effort to end conflicts or resolve disputes.

Tactical surprise can produce short-term military gains. But great powers require something deeper to sustain influence: durable trust in their intentions and commitments. Once that trust erodes, coalition-building becomes harder, crisis management becomes more dangerous, and deterrence becomes less stable.

During the Cold War, Washington and Moscow engaged in arms-control talks despite profound mistrust because both sides understood that the negotiating table was not itself a targeting mechanism. Once diplomacy is linked to deception, the incentive to negotiate collapses.

Russian officials now increasingly view U.S. diplomacy on Ukraine through a lens of dual-track manipulation — public engagement coupled with covert escalation.

Even allies are uneasy, with Trump’s Iran adventure deepening perceptions of American unpredictability.

Once adversaries conclude that American negotiations are merely preludes to coercion, they will adapt accordingly. They will become less willing to engage and more inclined to escalate preemptively.

That is the paradox at the heart of Trump’s “diplomacy as ambush” strategy: tactics designed to maximize short-term leverage may ultimately weaken America’s long-term global influence.

A superpower can survive military setbacks. It is far harder to recover once its word loses value.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“

By Brahma Chellaney, The Hill

For decades, Washington treated the Gulf monarchies as the immovable pillars of American power in the Middle East. The U.S. military presence there evolved into a vast, interconnected web of bases and infrastructure stretching across Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

These states hosted U.S. troops, bought American weapons and aligned themselves with Washington’s regional priorities. In return, they expected the ultimate prize: protection under the American security umbrella.

That bargain is now fraying — and perhaps breaking.

The most important geopolitical shift in the Middle East today is not happening in Tehran, Tel Aviv or Ankara. It is happening quietly inside the royal courts of the Gulf sheikhdoms, which are reassessing whether the U.S. is still a reliable security guarantor or merely a power that uses their territory while leaving them exposed to retaliation.

President Trump’s Iran war has accelerated this reassessment dramatically.

When the U.S., in concert with Israel, launched war on Iran earlier this year, Gulf Arab states cooperated. American warplanes operated from bases on their soil. Trump singled out Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE as “excellent” partners while deriding NATO allies and Indo-Pacific partners for refusing to participate.

But the praise concealed a deeper problem: The Gulf states discovered that supporting American military operations carried potentially catastrophic costs for them, as their energy facilities and desalination plants became targets of Iranian reprisals. Gulf rulers watched as the U.S. deployed enormous military resources (including Aegis-equipped destroyers and advanced interceptors) to shield Israel from Iranian retaliation while Gulf states absorbed the payback for enabling American strikes.

That experience appears to have fundamentally altered their calculations.

Another turning point came recently when Trump announced “Project Freedom,” a U.S. naval initiative to escort commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran disrupted maritime traffic. Washington viewed the mission as a demonstration of resolve. Tehran viewed it as an escalation. The Gulf monarchies viewed it as a potential disaster.

Saudi Arabia refused to grant the U.S. access to its airspace and bases to support the operation. Kuwait followed suit. Qatar, seeking de-escalation, imposed restrictions on activity from Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East. Without Gulf cooperation, the mission quickly became logistically and politically unsustainable. Trump abruptly suspended it after just two escorted U.S.-flagged vessels passed through the strait.

In effect, Gulf states vetoed a major American military initiative — something that would have been almost unthinkable only a year ago. Only after Trump paused the operation did Gulf governments restore U.S. access to basing and overflight rights, underscoring that such cooperation is no longer automatic but conditional.

Washington had long operated under the assumption that Gulf bases were essentially available on demand during crises in return for American military protection. Now, however, Gulf states are increasingly asking a different question: Protection for whom?

From their perspective, the current arrangements look dangerously asymmetric. The U.S. can launch operations, rotate forces and eventually withdraw. But the six Gulf states remain geographically trapped beside Iran permanently. In any confrontation between Washington and Tehran, the Gulf monarchies become the frontline targets.

The lesson these states appear to have learned from recent hostilities is stark: They are platforms for American power, not equal partners in American protection. That realization is driving a profound strategic shift.

The Gulf states no longer appear willing to practice automatic alignment with Washington. Instead, they are moving toward what might be called “transactional neutrality.” In effect, they are applying Trump’s own worldview back onto the U.S. itself.

“America First” is increasingly being answered with “the Gulf First.”

That means Gulf monarchs are becoming far more selective about which American operations they support. The shift extends beyond military access. Major Gulf states are diversifying their defense partnerships, purchasing non-American technologies and exploring alternative security arrangements. Some Gulf governments are also intensifying diplomatic outreach to regional rivals, including Iran itself.

For them, de-escalation is no longer simply diplomacy; it is strategic self-preservation.

This should deeply concern Washington. The entire architecture of American regional dominance — air operations, naval deployments, intelligence coordination and energy security — has depended on nearly unconditional Gulf cooperation. That era may be ending.

Ironically, Trump himself has helped accelerate the process. His transactional approach to alliances convinced Gulf rulers that relationships with Washington are no longer rooted in enduring strategic commitments but in fluctuating cost-benefit calculations.

Once alliances become transactional, partners naturally begin asking whether the transaction remains worthwhile. The Gulf monarchies increasingly seem to believe it is not.

The implications extend far beyond the current Iran crisis. If Gulf states become reluctant hosts for American military operations, Washington’s ability to project power across the Middle East will shrink dramatically. The U.S. may still possess unmatched military hardware, but hardware alone is insufficient without reliable access, basing and political support.

This is the strategic paradox now confronting Washington. In alienating NATO and Indo-Pacific allies while simultaneously alarming Gulf partners, Washington risks discovering that even a superpower cannot operate effectively in isolation.

The Gulf monarchies are not abandoning the U.S., but they are redefining the relationship on narrower terms. The age of blank-check cooperation is over. Gulf allies are no longer willing to be the lightning rods for U.S. military campaigns while relying on uncertain protection when retaliation arrives.

And once allies learn they can say “no” to Washington, they rarely return to automatic obedience.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.“

Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington treats China that way.

Brahma Chellaney, USA Today

For years, Washington comforted itself with a reassuring phrase: China was a “near-peer competitor.” Near-peer implied China was close but not equal. It was a challenger still climbing the ladder while America remained securely at the top.

President Donald Trump’s just-concluded summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing shattered that illusion.

The visit showed that the world’s largest autocratic state is no longer America’s near-peer. It is America’s peer.

The symbolism alone was striking. Trump arrived in Beijing not as the triumphant leader of an unchallenged superpower, but as the head of a country increasingly constrained abroad, economically vulnerable at home, and struggling to impose its will even on far weaker adversaries.

When Trump postponed the Beijing trip from March to May, he likely expected to arrive after forcing Iran into submission. Instead, he landed in Beijing with the Iran war still unresolved, America’s military stockpiles depleted, and U.S. credibility bruised.

Xi understood the moment perfectly. The carefully choreographed summit was designed to project parity: two leaders, two superpowers, two equals managing global stability together. Beijing no longer behaves like a rising power seeking acceptance into an American-led order. It behaves like a co-owner of the international system. And increasingly, Washington is treating China that way.

Trump’s tone during the visit reflected the altered realities. The same president who routinely berates allies as freeloaders adopted a strikingly deferential posture toward America’s principal geopolitical rival. He praised Xi lavishly, calling it “an honor” to be his friend.

Equally striking was what Trump did not say. There was no mention of China’s human rights abuses – not of the mass incarceration and surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, not of the crushing of freedoms in Hong Kong, not of tightening repression in Tibet or Inner Mongolia. A decade ago, such silence from an American president visiting Beijing would have been politically unthinkable.

Today, it reflects a deeper reality: Washington increasingly treats China less as a wayward authoritarian state to be lectured and more as a peer superpower whose cooperation it needs and whose sensitivities it must manage.

In Trump’s first term, Washington still believed it could fundamentally reshape China’s behavior through tariffs, sanctions and technological pressure. The assumption was that America possessed overwhelming leverage. That confidence has eroded.

China today is not the China of 2017. It has built the world’s largest navy. It has dramatically expanded its nuclear arsenal. It has narrowed the technological gap in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, robotics and quantum computing. In several strategic industries – batteries, drones, rare earth processing and green technologies – China now dominates outright.

Most importantly, Beijing has demonstrated that interdependence cuts both ways.

When Trump last year escalated tariffs, China retaliated by tightening rare-earth exports, exposing America’s deep dependence on Chinese supply chains. Suddenly, the world’s strongest economy looked vulnerable to industrial choke points controlled by Beijing.

That vulnerability hovered over the summit.

The most telling aspect of Trump’s Beijing visit was that both sides emphasized “stability” in their relationship. This is no longer a relationship defined by American primacy. It is one increasingly defined by mutual constraint.

The U.S. still possesses enormous advantages. The dollar remains dominant. America retains unmatched alliance networks, global military reach and world-leading innovation ecosystems. China also faces severe internal problems, including mounting debt, demographic decline and slowing growth.

But peer competition does not require symmetry. The Soviet Union was America’s peer despite being economically weaker. Britain was once Germany’s peer despite Germany’s larger industrial base. The defining characteristic is the ability to resist coercion and shape global outcomes independently.

China can now clearly do both.

Indeed, the summit underscored how much Washington’s ambitions have narrowed. Trump once talked about decoupling from China. Now the goal appears far more modest: managed coexistence, stabilized trade and guardrails against open conflict.

That is what peer rivalry looks like.

The danger for the U.S. lies in refusing to adapt to the new reality. Much of Washington still oscillates between complacency and denial, either dismissing China as fundamentally fragile or assuming America can easily restore uncontested dominance.

Yet China’s message during the summit was unmistakable: It no longer seeks admission into an American-led order. It seeks acknowledgment as an equal center of power.

And despite all the pageantry, Trump’s visit ultimately conveyed something Xi desperately wanted the world to see: The U.S. may still be the world’s strongest country but it no longer stands alone at the apex of global power.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”

Effective diplomacy depends on credibility, consistency, and a clear alignment with national interests. The US administration’s personalized, opaque, and venal shadow diplomacy delivers none of that, and it will leave the US less respected, less trusted, and less effective on the world stage.

By Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate

In most democracies, a leader outsourcing high-stakes diplomacy to family members and business associates would provoke outrage. But US President Donald Trump has faced little pushback for doing so, with many downplaying his crony diplomacy as mere “heterodoxy.” The long-term consequences will be severe.

Instead of relying on the secretary of state and the professional diplomatic corps, Trump has placed pivotal diplomacy largely in the hands of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his business partner, the Manhattan real-estate mogul Steve Witkoff. Kushner was a senior adviser in Trump’s first administration, responsible for helping to broker the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab states, and is now, like Witkoff, a Special Envoy for Peace.

Together, Kushner and Witkoff have spearheaded negotiations on Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran. Yet neither had any diplomatic experience before Trump tasked them with resolving some of the thorniest and highest-stakes foreign-policy challenges of our time, and both have glaring conflicts of interest.

Start with Witkoff. Last year, Pakistan signed a controversial investment deal with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm whose CEO is Witkoff’s son, Zach, and in which the Trump and Witkoff families hold a dominant ownership stake. This past January, a WLF affiliate reached another deal with Pakistan—this time, to introduce the company’s stablecoin for use in cross-border transactions.

But Pakistan has also been the site and, to an extent, the broker of talks between the United States and Iran. When actors are negotiating geopolitical outcomes and pursuing business opportunities in the same arena, diplomacy begins to resemble a marketplace: access, influence, and profit are tightly interwoven.

As for Kushner, after leaving Trump’s first administration, he set up a private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, and took billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies, including about $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. In other words, Kushner is dependent on Saudi capital. Yet he is now expected to negotiate a détente with Iran, even as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly urges Trump to continue the war.

And it is not just Iran. Kushner’s “New Gaza” proposal, unveiled at Davos this past January, has been widely criticized as “real-estate diplomacy,” as it effectively recasts reconstruction as a business venture while ignoring questions of sovereignty and rights.

Kushner and Witkoff’s conflicts of interest, together with their lack of foreign-policy credentials, explain why Trump has not sought to appoint them to official diplomatic positions. Special envoys avoid Senate confirmation hearings, as well as the disclosure requirements, ethics rules, and congressional oversight that bind professional diplomats. Kushner and Witkoff are thus able to exercise influence without transparency, and to negotiate on behalf of the US without accountability.

Of course, Kushner and Witkoff are hardly the only figures capitalizing on their proximity to Trump. Prominent allies and donors, such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison, have won big from their investment in the majority American-owned TikTok venture that Trump effectively forced the Chinese parent company to create, supposedly over national-security concerns.

Moreover, Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald, Jr., recently joined a drone company Powerus, and are attempting to sell drone interceptors to the Gulf states to ward off attacks from Iran as it retaliates for their father’s war. Foundation Future Industries, a robotics startup where Eric is chief strategy adviser, was recently awarded a $24 million Pentagon contract.

Now, reports are emerging of possible insider trading around the Iran war, with large bets being made right before market-moving public statements from Trump. Yet the American public, whether desensitized to Trump’s breaking of norms or simply unable to keep up with the pace and scale of the violations, hardly reacts to such news. Scandals that would have brought any past US administration down—or at least prompted urgent investigation—have become routine under Trump.

With a Republican Party that bows to Trump’s every whim and justifies his every crime—while controlling both houses of Congress—a kind of resignation has taken hold. But as outrage fades, so does the restraining power of political norms. As a result, abuses become increasingly blatant and egregious, and trust is eroded. Even if Trump’s cronies did manage to reach a peace deal, it would warrant suspicion, with every concession raising questions about who really benefits—and who is compromised.

This undercuts not only specific agreements, but also US global leadership more broadly. With US foreign policy now guided by personal loyalty, informal networks, and private gain, whatever credibility the US had as a reliable partner, good-faith negotiator, and champion of the rule of law has been decimated. None of this will be easily restored.

In the meantime, if foreign governments want to influence US policy or secure the country’s geopolitical cooperation, they must make it worth Trump’s while. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Trump’s so-called Board of Peace—a putative alternative to the United Nations where a permanent seat carries a billion-dollar price tag. This is less a multilateral institution than a pay-to-play geopolitical franchise, but some countries appear willing to cough up the cash to stay in the US president’s good graces.

Others seeking to shape US policy head to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which he increasingly uses for official diplomatic engagements. And, of course, there are those who go there to get in on the self-dealing, making business deals with Trump’s inner circle. Meanwhile, wars continue to rage, with far-reaching human and economic consequences.

Trump’s defenders argue that unconventional actors can produce breakthroughs where conventional processes have failed. But diplomacy is not merely deal-making; it depends on credibility, consistency, and a clear alignment with national interests. The personalized, opaque, and venal shadow diplomacy being pursued by Kushner and Witkoff can deliver none of that. What it can and will do is ensure that the US is less respected, less trusted, and less effective on the world stage.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press, 2011), for which he won the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

© Project Syndicate, 2026.