Trump's new strategy: Focus on your own country, not diplomacy!

US President Donald Trump is increasingly taking a “passenger seat” in the complex situations in Ukraine and Gaza. Instead of directly intervening in world wars or resolving diplomatic tensions, he is focusing on domestic problems.

According to recent reports, Pentagon officials warned in a meeting with European diplomats in late August that the United States could cut security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Officials warned that such a move could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Those concerns were partly justified on Friday. A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet violated Estonian airspace for about 10 minutes, even though Russia claimed it was flying over international waters. On the same day, a Russian plane flew over an oil platform in Poland.

Trump is distancing himself from the pressure of the wider diplomacy over Ukraine and Gaza. He has given allies the opportunity to take the lead in resolving the problems and has promised assistance from afar. But his focus is now more on domestic issues like crime, violent left-wing extremism and visa reform.

Last summer, Trump hosted Putin in Alaska, signaled he would send new defense equipment to Ukraine and threatened sanctions against Russia. But now, analysts say, he is back on his feet, as the world’s complex conflicts are far more complex than he imagined.

“Trump has realized that the effort and political capital spent on these conflicts is not worth it,” said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That’s why he’s not interested anymore.”

In short, Trump is moving away from the center of global diplomacy and focusing on domestic and peripheral issues. That could be a concern for the Ukraine-Gaza situation and international relations.