Trump's ‘art of the deal' fails again outflanked by a wily Putin

The Herald Scotland

12 hours ago

EMBLAZONED on the podium's backdrop were the words, 'Pursuing Peace'. But just around the time that US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were wrapping up their much vaunted meeting in Alaska on Friday, at least seven regions of Ukraine were under air raid alert.
'Elusive Peace' instead it seems was the prevailing message to come out of this the first meeting between a US president and Putin since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After nearly three hours of talks, there was a brief appearance before the media, during which Trump and Putin said they had made progress on unspecified issues, but offered no details and took no questions, from the journalists gathered.
Trump, usually loquacious and ready to bat off reporters' questions, seemed to sense that he would be asked about his pre-summit threats of 'very severe consequences' if Russia did not end the conflict.
Instead, the assembled global press had to settle for both men hinting at 'progress made,' 'points agreed on' and talk of a follow up meeting with a glum looking Trump insisting, 'There is no deal until there is a deal.'
Trump's much sought after ceasefire deal it seems remains out of reach for now, but what followed the summit was a lengthy phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the leaders of some NATO countries including UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, joining for part of the conversation. Trump and Zelenskyy also agreed to meet in Washington on Monday.
It's long been recognised that successful diplomacy of any kind requires give and take on both sides, but for now that - in public at least – does not seem sufficiently forthcoming for any major breakthrough.
(Image: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)
So, what then does the outcome of the Alaska summit mean for both Trump and Putin. What too does it signify for Ukraine and its European allies in terms of the way forward?
To take Putin first, the consensus among many observers is that the Russian president came out of the summit having achieved one of his major goals, which is the start of his rehabilitation as a world leader.
The Alaska get-together with the powerful photo opportunity it presented, ended Putin's isolation from the West. Almost from the moment he stepped off his plane onto the red-carpeted tarmac, Putin will have been pleased with what the Kremlin will view as a triumph.
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War Criminal
NOT only was the Russian leader – a man wanted by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal - greeted with applause from his host, Trump, but his welcome stood in marked contrast to the public humiliation that Trump and his advisers inflicted on Zelenskyy during his visit to the White House earlier this year.
'The meeting looks like a win for Putin,' observed Oleh Shamshur, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the US and now a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
'There was high ceremony and a warm reception -painful for Ukrainians to watch - a breaking out of diplomatic isolation, and a delaying again of a round of harsher direct and secondary sanctions. There was, in other words, quite a bit to sell his new 'victory' to the Russian public and to an international audience of both friends and foes,' Shamshur added.
It helped Putin too that the Alaskan venue was rife with symbolism: the proximity of Russia and America across the Bering Strait, the sale of Alaska by Tsarist Russia to the United States in 1867; and the American lend-lease agreements that armed the Soviet Union to help it resist Nazi Germany (an important supply route ran through Alaska).
Putin of course made the most of all this and in his closing speech recounted how, on arrival on the red carpet, he had greeted Trump with 'Good afternoon, dear neighbour.'
But as the New York Times (NYT) noted, this was more than a photo op and move towards international rehabilitation for Putin.
'In addition to thawing Russia's pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO - a perennial Russian goal - and postponed Mr. Trump's threat of tough new sanctions,' the newspaper said.
'Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Mr. Putin did not commit to a cease-fire by last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia's war effort by buying its oil and gas.' the NYT added.
It went on to cite Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Russia expert and senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs as saying, 'Instead of getting hit with sanctions, Putin got a summit.'
According to the independent Russian online news portal Meduza, even before the start of Friday's summit the Kremlin had issued instructions to Russia's state-controlled media on how to cover it.
The guidelines says Meduza told pro-Kremlin outlets to emphasise that Putin spoke to Trump about 'Kyiv's unwillingness to negotiate,' that Moscow is 'ready for various scenarios in the talks,' and that the Russian president 'sets the agenda for Russian-American relations.'
Meduza detailed how a media strategist working with the Kremlin's political team had told them told them that pro-government audiences were being prepped for the possibility that the summit 'may not lead to a pause in fighting.'
'It's a warm-up to keep expectations low -and avoid disappointment,' the source said.
'The main point is dialogue with the US for the sake of dialogue. Putin and Trump are working on an agreement, and it's Putin who sets the terms of that agreement.'
Economic Pressure
IN short, Putin got to share the stage with the US president and proffer enough flattery and meaningless talk of respecting Ukrainian security to stave off further immediate sanctions and economic pressure.
Some observers say the Alaska summit was a stark reminder of their last infamous encounter in Helsinki in 2018. Back then by the time Trump came out of the room after his one to one meeting he looked dazzled by the Kremlin leader.
Asked at a press conference about the conclusions of the US intelligence community that Russia had interfered in the US elections, Trump said: 'President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it should be.'
Fiona Hill, Trump's senior Kremlin adviser on the US national security council, later said that she had considered pulling a fire alarm or faking a medical emergency to end the press conference such was the extent to which Putin had embarrassingly put one over on Trump.
Putin's negotiating abilities of course are a point of record.
In his 2020 memoir, A Promised Land, former US president Barack Obama in an assessment of foreign leaders, told how when his aide David Axelrod asked him his impression of Putin, he responded that he 'found him strangely familiar, 'like a ward boss, except with nukes and a UN Security Council veto.'
'Putin did, in fact, remind me of the sorts of men who had once run the Chicago machine or Tammany Hall (a historical New York City political organisation) -tough, street-smart, unsentimental characters who knew what they knew, who never moved outside their narrow experiences, and who viewed patronage, bribery, shakedowns, fraud, and occasional violence as legitimate tools of the trade,' Obama wrote.
It might have been an unflattering characterisation, but many agree on its accuracy nonetheless. This weekend despite trying to put considerable spin on the outcome of the Alaska summit, Trump appears to have once again been outmanoeuvred by Putin's cunning and uncompromising tactics.
As the Financial Times (FT) and others see it, Trump's lacklustre performance they say resulted in a political backslash on his return to Washington. The newspaper cited a number of political figures uneasy with the outcome.
On the Democrat side, Illinois congressman Mike Quigley said: 'Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin - literally - and he walked away with a green light to continue his conquest.'
But it will be criticism from his fellow Republicans that will bother Trump most.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, said it was time to reckon with one conclusion: 'This simple fact remains: true and lasting security can only be achieved with our allies - most importantly with Ukraine - at the table.'
(Image: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)
Europe's Relief
BUT it is in Europe that there will be a certain cautionary relief that Trump did not announce a deal with Putin that he would then present to them as a fait accompli. Trump's pre-summit talk of 'land swaps' had left some with frayed nerves.
Many in Europe remain concerned about Trump's willingness to hold a summit on Ukraine that excluded Zelenskyy. It was significant then that almost immediately in the wake of the summit in a moment of coordination, European leaders put out a joint statement pushing for three- way talks between the US, Ukraine and Russia.
In a statement, Keir Starmer - clearly in part designed to flatter Trump - insisted that 'President Trump's efforts have brought us closer than ever before to ending the war in Ukraine.' He went on to reiterate that the next steps must involve Zelenskyy and that peace cannot be decided without him.
Clearly the uncertain outcome of the summit, with nothing agreed on paper, has bought the Europeans and Ukrainians time to try and shape Trump's future thinking.
'We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,' the European leaders said in a statement.
'No limitations should be placed on Ukraine's armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine's pathway to EU and NATO,' they said.
According to two EU diplomats cited by Politico magazine, an extraordinary meeting of ambassadors representing all 27 member countries was convened yesterday morning to discuss the bloc's next steps. Envoys were asked to meet in 'restricted format,' without aides or telephones to minimise the risks of information leaking.
Trump's remark that the US might get involved in guaranteeing Ukrainian security will be music to the ears of Kyiv's European allies and something they will want to build on in moving forward. But this being Donald Trump means that things remain unpredictable
If Trump himself is unhappy and the unsatisfactory outcome of the summit eats away at him with his prospect of securing that coveted Nobel Peace Prize vanishing, then there is no guarantee he will end up directing his ire at Putin. There is always the fear too that Trump will walk away and be involved only from the sidelines.
'Now Trump seems to be shifting most of the responsibility to Kyiv and Europe but reserving some role for himself,' observed Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in the wake of the summit.
All eyes now will turn to tomorrow's talks at the White House with Zelenskyy.
'If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin.
Potentially, millions of people's lives will be saved,' insisted Trump yesterday still hinting that the Alaska talks went better than they appeared to.
Trump's Motives
FOR his part the Ukrainian president will doubtless be on his guard given a certain previous encounter at the White House, and also because back home most of his fellow Ukrainians remain equally wary of Trump's motives.
As an editorial in the Kyiv Independent noted about the summit; 'If the two presidents failed to reach an agreement, it means that, despite all the chumminess on display, Trump didn't approve of Russia's absurd demands for Ukraine - demands that amount to Kyiv's capitulation.'
If Trump went to Alaska with a degree of optimism as to striking a deal then he clearly he left disappointed. For his part Putin meanwhile no doubt went home with a smile on his face.
In all, the summit turned out to be strange affair and there remains a prevailing sense that something surprising might yet come of it. If nothing else it certainly underscored the challenge of bringing this the biggest war in Europe since 1945 to a just and peaceful end.