Donald Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania, attends a New Year's Eve event at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., December 31, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello
As his much-touted peace deals begin to look more and more "fragile," Donald Trump is set to host major world leaders at two "desperate" high-stakes meetings at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a report from The Daily Beast.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit the president at his Florida resort on Sunday to discuss the proposed peace plan blueprint for the ongoing war with Russia, which invaded neighboring Ukraine nearly four years ago. Trump boasted on the 2024 campaign trail that he would be able to end the conflict on "day one" if reelected, but an actual peace deal has proved elusive and complicated during his first year back.
Ukraine has largely balked at recent deals that would have required it to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia. The terms of one proposed deal were so favorable to Russia, in fact, that some GOP lawmakers wondered if the plan had been entirely written by the Kremlin. Despite those issues, allies close to Zelensky believe that negotiations for a peace deal "have entered a critical phase," as Trump previously said he would not meet with the Ukrainian president until a deal was close.
The following day, on Monday, Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the "sprawling" proposed peace plan for ending Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Among its 20 points, the Daily Beast explained, the plan will include introducing "a new Palestinian technocratic government, and an international stabilization force on the ground." Trump is reportedly looking to "lock in Netanyahu’s support for the proposed "Board of Peace," which the administration hopes to unveil at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.
Netanyahu has reportedly taken issue with various aspects of the proposal, largely brokered by Trump official Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. This includes issues with "demilitarization ideas, the structure of the technocratic cabinet, the makeup of the stabilization force, and the prominent roles proposed for Qatar and Turkey." One source close to the prime minister believes this meeting will see him attempt to convince Trump to pull away from Kushner and Witkoff's ideas. A White House source stated that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Kushner, Witkoff, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles have all recently begun to sour on Netanyahu, making an appeal to Trump one of the last hands he has left to play.
“It’s JD, Marco, Jared, Steve, Susie. He has lost them," the White House source said. "The only one he has left is the president."