Who Is the President Here?

A xios’s Barak Ravid made a point of noting that Vice President JD Vance’s abrupt decision to postpone a trip to Israel “isn’t about publicly pressuring” Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Rather, the deferral was “logistical.” And yet, “his decision sheds light on how the U.S. feels about the current Israeli policy in Gaza.” At least, that seems to be what Ravid is hearing from his sources.

Reportedly, the Israelis were informed of Vance’s intention to make the trip to the Jewish State after attending the pope’s inauguration, and preparations were intensifying when administration officials suddenly called it off. Ravid provides some background context: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to sign any agreement that would end the war,” he wrote, “and has [shown] little flexibility in negotiations despite the urgent efforts of U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to make a deal and stave off the Israeli operation.”

Ravid’s sources might have been speculating, but theirs is the informed sort. Recently, the Trump administration has been letting in a noticeable amount of what Barack Obama might have called “daylight” separating the Trump administration from their counterparts in Jerusalem. Direct negotiations with Hamas over the hostages, a side deal with the Houthi rebels, and Trump’s decision to bypass Israel during a recent swing through the Middle East have left many Israelis wondering if the Netanyahu government has a reliable friend in the White House. But the notion that Israel’s renewed operations in the Gaza Strip would represent a breaking point is a new wrinkle.

In the press, the resumption of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza ahead of what some reports indicate will be new ground operations inside the territory has been discussed as though it represents a dramatic shift in Jerusalem’s strategic goals. It doesn’t. Rather, it suggests Israel’s objective in this conflict hasn’t changed since the 10/7 massacre: neutralize Hamas as a political and military force on the Strip and bring the hostages home. Israelis say this objective fits within the framework pursued by Trump’s negotiator, Steve Witkoff, which Netanyahu’s office describes as “a framework of ending the war, which would include releasing all the hostages, exiling Hamas terrorists, and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.”

If the administration’s view on the fundamental righteousness and necessity of destroying Hamas’s ability to wage genocidal war against Israel has changed, that would be big news. But it doesn’t seem to have. We cannot know if Vance’s maneuver was designed to telegraph his policy preferences or if it was truly the result of a “logistical” conflict. But when it comes to the administration’s negotiations with Russia over its expansionist ambitions, the vice president does seem to be setting policy on the fly.

A report in Bloomberg published Monday, citing sources close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, indicates that the Kremlin will not propose any meaningful concessions in its talks over the future of its war of conquest. He is “confident that his forces can break through Ukraine’s defenses by the end of the year,” the dispatch added.

Moscow’s belief that it can still achieve its objectives on the battlefield has been obvious for some time. Moreover, the Kremlin clearly believes that the peace talks Trump inaugurated are a means by which Russia can indirectly weaken its adversary. And yet, the Trump administration is preparing a fallback position if negotiations collapse. In that event, a new suite of sanctions against Russia, including restrictions on its state-owned energy sector, is set to come online. That, along with the Trump White House’s decision to lift its hold on U.S. arms exports to Kyiv earlier this month, suggests that this presidency is not ready to wash its hands of the Ukrainian cause just yet.

But that’s not the vice president’s position. “I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war that’s been going on for a few years now,” Vance told reporters on Monday. Oddly, that observation led the vice president to indict Trump and the peace process he inaugurated:

There’s fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It’s one of the things the President thinks is frankly stupid, and we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past, but that takes two to tango. I know the President’s willing to do that, but if Russia’s not willing to do that, then we’re eventually just going to have to say, ‘This is not our war.’

That’s surely the position Vance wishes the president had adopted, but that assessment does not reflect the administration’s approach to this conflict. Even before he took the oath of office again, Trump talked about Russia’s war as though it was America’s responsibility to resolve it peacefully — a consequence, perhaps, of his claim that the whole mess was Joe Biden’s fault in the first place. Regardless, the president has taken ownership of the war, and abandoning his own commitments would contribute to America’s dubious reputation as an inconstant and unreliable partner.

Once again, Vance’s conduct doesn’t seem to reflect the president’s policy. It would not bolster America’s standing with its allies if it decided to reward Russia’s recalcitrance by abandoning the target of Putin’s aggression merely because Putin will not stop aggressing against it. All that would be gained from that exercise is additional confirmation of the sneaking suspicion that America is more or less a spent force.

We cannot say for sure that Vance is substituting his own foreign policy vision for the president’s. Perhaps he is only a leading indicator of where Trump himself is headed. From our current vantage, however, the vice president does seem to be signaling policy preferences that do not comport with those of the administration he serves. That raises the question: Who is the president here?