For Mr. Trump, who boasts about his transactional approach to deal-making on the world stage, the mass starvation unfolding in Gaza is a test of whether an America First foreign policy can confront one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century.
Global crises, especially those unfolding far from the United States, have often been tests of whether American presidents would show moral leadership on the world stage. Failures have been a source of painful regret. In a 1998 visit to Rwanda, President Bill Clinton said the United States and the rest of the world did not do enough to stop the genocide there. As he left office, President Barack Obama questioned why his administration did not do more to plan for the social chaos that engulfed Libya after its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was killed.
Now, it is Mr. Trump’s turn to address the question of whether America still intends to take a leading role among nations in confronting the humanitarian effects of war. He will have to decide whether his preference for focusing on problems at home can justify ignoring horrific images of desperate children dying in Gaza hospitals.
To date, the president has appeared wary of using American power to ensure that food, medicine and fuel reach more than two million Palestinians living amid the rubble caused by nearly two years of Israeli bombardment. He has largely blamed Hamas for stealing food that has already been delivered.
Three weeks ago, when Mr. Trump met with Mr. Netanyahu at the White House, the president did not dwell on what humanitarian organizations were already signaling was an all-out food crisis in Gaza. Both men praised each other and blamed Hamas’s negotiators for refusing to agree to a cease-fire.
And as he traveled to Scotland on Friday, Mr. Trump deflected repeated questions about the hunger crisis in Gaza by insisting that food was being delivered by the United States and Israel, but was being blocked by Hamas.
Meeting on Sunday with Ms. von der Leyen, Mr. Trump declared that suffering in Gaza was “not a U.S. problem, it’s an international problem.” He then lamented that he had not been properly thanked for the tens of millions the United States had dedicated toward helping Gaza.
“Nobody said, ‘Gee, thank you very much,’” Mr. Trump complained on Sunday. “And it would be nice to have at least a thank you.”
But after a series of meetings with European leaders, including Mr. Starmer and Ursula Von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, Mr. Trump began to echo the desperate language of other leaders: There is “real starvation” in Gaza, he said, and the United States would do more to help.
“That’s real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can’t fake that,” Mr. Trump said. “We have to get the kids fed.”
Mr. Trump emerged from the meeting criticizing as ineffective the current aid distribution effort his administration has backed. He said he wanted to create more food sites that were more easily accessible to Palestinians.
“We’re going to set up food centers and where people can walk in and no boundaries. We’re not going to have fences,” he said. “They see the food. It’s all there, but nobody’s at it because they have fences set up that nobody can even get it. It’s crazy what’s going on over there.”