Trump, who once presented claims of victory over Iran and control of the Strait of Hormuz as a solution for managing financial markets, is now turning once again to “selling the future” as he faces a worsening economic crisis in the US and rising prices, particularly in the energy sector. He had previously promised that, if Republicans won the congressional midterm elections, the war with Iran would end, a favorable agreement would be reached, and prices would fall. He has now introduced a new player, Ukraine, into the equation for explaining rising prices.

Trump had previously claimed that the Russia-Ukraine war had no impact on the US economy and had even abandoned his purported peace initiative. He has suddenly revived the peace process as a priority, sending Kushner and Witkoff to Russia and Ukraine in an effort to bring the issue back to center stage. Within this framework, he has now directly brought Ukraine into the price crisis, ordering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacks on Russian diesel fuel facilities.

Trump has claimed that Zelenskyy “has to do one thing,” namely stop attacks on Russian diesel fuel facilities, because, he claims, the attacks have caused diesel shortages. He went on to stress that the situation was not caused by developments in the Middle East, but by what is taking place between Russia and Ukraine. Such claims, however, appear to be more than a description of an economic problem; they point to an effort to find a new narrative to explain crises that Trump's previous promises have failed to contain.

Selling the Future: A Prescription With No Buyers Left

The failure of Trump's strategy of “selling the future” and creating polarization, following the collapse of his claims of victory over Iran, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and even the idea of renaming it the “Trump Strait,” has pushed him toward the Iranian nuclear issue. By claiming that Iran is waiting for the Democrats to win the election so that it can repeat the JCPOA and acquire nuclear weapons, Trump once again resorted to the politics of promises about the future.

At the same time, he claimed that after the congressional midterm elections, if Republicans won, the war with Iran would end, a good agreement would be reached, and prices would fall, a promise that was also echoed by Netanyahu in the Israeli regime. But this prescription quickly lost its effectiveness, as rising energy prices and negative reactions in financial markets provided a clear indication of the gap between promises and reality.

Trump now appears to be turning to Zelenskyy after seeing his previous propaganda options disappear, relying on a player Washington believes it can still manage. The sudden revival of the Ukrainian peace process can, within this framework, be viewed as an attempt to construct a new promise of lower prices, even though the Russia-Ukraine war has continued for more than four years. If that war were the main cause of rising prices, it would be reasonable to expect its effects to have been visible in the same manner throughout this period.

Crisis of Power: Behind the Hollywood Shows

Trump spoke of restoring America's strength at a time when the Ramadan War exposed extensive weaknesses and shortcomings in the US military and weapons capabilities, to the point that even some of Washington's allies have lost their previous confidence in the US security umbrella.

In recent days, figures such as Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, have sought to downplay the significance of declining US weapons stockpiles. Trump, meanwhile, has staged a display of American military power in Ireland by claiming that the US possesses a new laser weapon. At the same time, an interview centered on the courage and bravery of pilots whose fighter jet crashed in Iran was released in a Hollywood-style presentation. These measures appear to have been aimed at deflecting criticism of the critical condition of the US military, from the USS Abraham Lincoln to damaged and unusable US bases in the region.

These displays, however, have failed to push the criticism to the margins. Bringing Ukraine into the price crisis narrative can therefore be seen as an effort to divert public attention from these scandals and construct a new account of the origins of America's economic problems.

An Economy No Longer Moving at Washington's Command

Reviving America's economic dominance and the position of the dollar were also among Trump's principal promises, while he portrayed the sanctions network and economic blockade as effective tools for forcing other countries into submission. But the failure to hold a meeting of the G20 finance ministers, coinciding with the Shanghai and BRICS summits and their broad emphasis on a new global order, resistance to sanctions, and reducing the dominance of the dollar, has effectively challenged a significant part of this “selling the dream.”

Reopening the Ukraine file while Kushner simultaneously makes claims about a military attack by the Israeli regime on Qatar could be an effort to push these economic failures to the margins. But the issue is not only economic. Trump is now caught between two straits. Iran has the Strait of Hormuz under its management, while the Yemenis have altered regional equations through their rapid advance and control of Bab el-Mandeb. Choosing the military option would impose greater costs and carry a higher risk of failure for the US, while silence would mean mounting economic pressure and declining domestic resilience in the US.

At a time when Trump has neither the military capacity needed to impose his demands on Iran and Yemen nor the ability to ignore the costs arising from this situation, reopening a peripheral issue called Ukraine and attributing rising prices to it looks more like an attempt to conceal failure in Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz.

Today, the equations of West Asia demonstrate more clearly than ever that the fate of the region is being shaped by the will of resistance and that temporary American-Zionist gains will not necessarily endure. The Israeli regime, through extensive attacks on Syria and Lebanon, and Trump, through his narrative about Ukraine, are seeking to conceal this reality amid a media uproar. But the equations have become so clear that such narrative-building can no longer conceal the truth or prevent its consequences from reaching the ballot boxes in Israel and the United States.