Credit Where It is Due to Trump -- Hostages Returned, Peace In Gaza Seems More Possible
The hostages appear to have been released from Gaza, which is a huge step forward after 2 years of violence. Not only is this a joy for their families, but it also likely makes ongoing violence in Gaza much harder for both parties. I had initially thought Trump was making progress by being the "crazy man" in the negotiation who might do anything (sort of like trying to play poker with a 16-year-old). And a lot of the Left is likely to continue to treat it that way. But from everything I have read in the last few days, Trump's team did a lot of hard diplomacy all over the Arab world, carefully corralling every potential Hamas supporter and getting them all to tell Hamas it was time to settle (here and here for example).
This should not be surprising -- Trump showed a similar facility with negotiating in the Arab world in his first term with the Abraham Accords and really did not get enough credit for it.
So tomorrow Trump will likely tick me off again but for today he should be thanked for his work on this deal.
Postscript: and no, great work negotiating this peace deal does not convince me he has some super-brain master plan behind the tariffs