Trump, Diplomacy, and the Ukraine Conflict

The BBC World Service Debate considers the rapidly changing international landscape since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The US President says his legacy will be as a peacemaker and unifier. So far he’s brought Putin to the negotiating table and made Europe take its security seriously in a way it hasn’t for decades. But his methods have horrified critics, who say his shock and awe approach to diplomacy is reckless and chaotic. The President’s unpredictability has rocked global alliances. Is Donald Trump making the world safer or more dangerous?

In front of a live audience in the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, is joined by:

KT McFarland, former US Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump in his first term Brian Wong, Assistant Professor and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China, University of Hong Kong Mark Lyall Grant, former National Security Adviser to the UK Azadeh Moaveni, journalist, writer and Associate Professor at New York University

(Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on June 12, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)