Trump’s ambush diplomacy comes with long-term costs

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........

© The Hill