How Trump's shifting feelings and friendships affect world's wars

analysis What Trump's shifting feelings and friendships mean for world's big wars Sun 2 Aug 2026 at 4:56am Volodymyr Zelenskyy must still feel at least a little triggered when he walks into the Oval Office. The Ukrainian president has seen and experienced all kinds of horrors since Vladimir Putin unleashed his full-scale invasion in early 2022. But last year's public castigation by Donald Trump and JD Vance was a unique kind of nightmare that threatened devastating consequences for his country. Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, generally looks comfortable at the White House. Over several decades, the Israeli prime minister has honed his skills in getting what he wants from American presidents. His meetings with Trump have historically featured exchanges of gifts and praise. But Trump's relationship with both leaders has changed. Zelenskyy has mended fences and appears to have won Trump's respect. Trump's public grumblings are now more often directed at Netanyahu, who has annoyed the US president by — among other things — undermining efforts for an Iran ceasefire with frequent attacks in Lebanon. Their goals in Iran have diverged, and Trump keeps making his impatience obvious. The shifting nature of these hugely consequential relationships fuelled interest in the White House meetings that Trump held with both men this week. But unlike so many of Trump's Oval Office sit-downs, the TV cameras were not allowed inside. There were no joint press conferences, and the White House's press office simply summarised the meetings as "positive and productive". Online, Trump said he had had a "very good" meeting with Netanyahu, and the meeting with Zelenskyy went "very well". Not just Trump's views that are shifting Netanyahu's visits to the US are no longer warmly welcomed across the political spectrum. Now, they take place against a backdrop of steeply falling public support and growing disgust at Israel's flattening of Gaza, deemed a genocide by a UN inquiry, aid groups and many independent experts. Before this week's visit, prominent Democrats like Zohran Mamdani were discussing whether Netanyahu could be arrested, given the outstanding International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for alleged war crimes in his name. Netanyahu has been losing friends on the MAGA side of the aisle, too. Vance has been proactively putting daylight between himself and his party's full-throated support for Israel. Elected Republicans — many of whom have benefited from big money pumped into US politics by pro-Israel lobby groups — mostly still back Netanyahu. But prominent conservatives outside Congress, ranging from Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly to Marjorie Taylor Greene, have shown no fear in becoming fierce critics. Changing fortunes Meanwhile, Zelenskyy had a significant win in the MAGA-verse just before his visit. Laura Loomer, a right-wing internet personality who has pushed anti-Ukraine conspiracies for years, conceded she had been "bamboozled by Russian propaganda" and completely flipped her views. In an interview with Zelenskyy in Kyiv, she told him: "I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis." It is a significant win because Loomer is known to influence Trump. He shared a clip of her interview online and captioned it: "Very good!!!" LoadingIn Congress, too, there is growing support to give Ukraine more help. Before his sudden death, Lindsey Graham — the late senator whose funeral brought both Zelenskyy and Netanyahu to Washington — was pushing for expanded sanctions on Russia. He had been trying to get a bill through Congress since April. After his funeral, Zelenskyy addressed senators on Capitol Hill. They then voted 86-12 to push the bill through the Senate, sending it to the House for a final vote. The favoured ally Despite these shifting dynamics, Israel still gets much more from the US than Ukraine does. Billions of dollars' worth of funds and weapons continue to flow to Israel without impediment or conditions, despite the efforts of growing numbers of Democrats, led by Bernie Sanders. The US strongly backs Israel's assertions that its attacks on Gaza are legitimate self-defence and its critics are motivated by bias. The UN commission's genocide finding and ICC's arrest warrant, both rejected as unfair by Israel, have only led the Trump administration to trash those institutions — particularly the ICC, which it accuses of being "run by a powerful network of leftist non-government organisations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments". Secretary of State Marco Rubio has put harsh sanctions on ICC officials, and last month wrote an op-ed declaring his goal to "dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary". He did not mention Israel or Netanyahu in the piece, but on Friday, Trump made Rubio's reasons clear: "He's trying to defend Bibi [Netanyahu] and various other people." Analysts like John Herbst, a former US diplomat in both Israel and Ukraine, believe the Trump-Netanyahu relationship is unlikely to worsen any further. "Just as there are always limits on how poor relations could be between Zelenskyy and Trump, the same is true of Netanyahu and Trump," said Mr Herbst, who is now a senior director with the Atlantic Council think tank. "And I think we probably saw a bottoming out of that relationship in recent weeks. There'll be a rebound towards a better relationship with Bibi." Ukraine has also benefited from billions of dollars in US support, but that has slowed right down since Trump took office from Joe Biden. Polling shows more Americans want to help Ukraine than Israel. But a special inspector general report earlier this year confirmed: "Congress has not made significant new funding available for … the Ukraine response since April 2024." During this week's meeting, Zelenskyy asked Trump for an emergency "winter package" of Patriot missile interceptors, so Ukraine could continue to defend itself against Russian attacks on power plants. Zelenskyy told Axios that Trump promised to try to help but said it would be difficult to sell the interceptors to Ukraine. That is because they are needed for Trump's bigger priority — the US and Israel's war with Iran.