'No deal': Takeaways from Trump's Alaska summit with Putin

USA Today

3 hours ago

WASHINGTON – Vladimir Putin caught a ride in the presidential limousine and achieved recognition on the world stage.
Donald Trump flew more than 4,000 miles and rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader in Alaska – and left empty-handed after some three hours of negotiations.
A much-hyped summit between Trump and Putin that saw the U.S. president flex his deal-making skills achieved no major breakthrough in peace negotiations over Russia's war against Ukraine.
The talks culminated in a vague statement to the media in which Putin spoke of an 'agreement.' Trump was then left in the awkward position of declaring 'no deal' had been reached.
A planned press conference? Called off. The two leaders spoke briefly and answered no questions.
'There were many, many points that we agree on,' Trump said without elaborating. 'A couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there,' he added. 'So there's no deal until there's a deal.'
More: 'No deal': Live updates from Trump-Putin Alaska summit
Trump said he'd be calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO allies on his way home to debrief them on the conversation with his Russian counterpart, who had been isolated by western leaders after invading Ukraine in 2022.
As the American president, who'd warned of 'severe consequences' if a ceasefire wasn't reached, waved goodbye to press while boarding Air Force One for Washington, Putin taxiied down the runway in the distance.
Putin invokes 'root causes' of war, jabs Trump foe Biden
For a television president who regularly fields questions from reporters, Trump's quick exit after the meeting was abnormal.
The two men spoke for a combined 12 minutes – with Putin going first. He praised Trump for convening the meeting, saying relations between the two countries had fallen to their lowest point since the Cold War.
But he soon brought up old charges about the 'root causes' of the conflict that he's long blamed on NATO enlargement and Ukraine's alignment with the West.
And while Putin notably said 'the security of Ukraine should be secured' and Russia was 'prepared to work on that' he did not say what he had in mind.
'I would like to hope that the agreement that we've reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine,' Putin added, without saying what it entailed.
He then warned Ukrainian and European leaders not to 'throw a wrench in the works' with 'backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress.'
'I just don't think we heard anything that signaled any sort of shift in Russia's maximal position,' David Salvo, a former State Department official who served in Russia.
He cast Putin's comments as 'grandstanding' and said of security guarantees for Ukraine, 'I don't think he's ready to soften his position quite yet.'
Putin also jabbed at former President Joe Biden and said he agreed with Trump's assertions that the war never would have happened if the Republican had won in 2020.
Trump said Putin's comments were 'very profound.' He described the meeting as 'extremely productive' and said the two sides agreed on 'many points' without divulging the details.
'We didn't get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,' Trump said.
Trump leaves without a ceasefire agreement
Hanging over the summit was a potential ceasefire, which Zelenskyy and European leaders thought could emerge from the talks.
But expectations fell quickly as Trump talked up potential 'land swaps' that have been rejected by Zelenskyy. Trump sought to lower expectations ahead of the summit and cast the conversation as talks about future talks.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told CNN while the summit was happening, 'I think the best that we could hope for is that there is a commitment coming out of Putin to a ceasefire with enough contours to it that it is believable that it will be more than just a brief moment to check a box here.'
The summit ended without any mention of a ceasefire by Putin or Trump, who repeated in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity after the summit that he believed an agreement was in sight.
Trump added: 'Now it's up to President Zelenskyy to get it done.'
He indicated that a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine was part of the discussion.
Putin teases possible business deals with Trump
First, there were joint hockey games. Then, there were films promoting 'traditional values.' And at their Alaska summit Putin made another enticement: potential economic investments.
'It is clear that the U.S. and Russian investment and business cooperation has tremendous potential," Putin said. "Russia and the U.S. can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high tech and in space exploration. We see that arctic cooperation is also very possible.'
Accompanying Putin at the summit was Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy for investment and economic cooperation. The Putin adviser met with Witkoff in Washington in April.
'He's bringing a lot of business people from Russia. And that's good, I like that, because they want to do business,' Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way to Alaska. 'But they're not doing business until we get the war settled.'
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick came with Trump.
Trump later referred to "tremendous Russian business representatives" at the summit and said "everybody wants to deal with us."
In his Hannity interview, Trump indicated that Putin also tried to flatter him by saying the 2020 election he lost to Biden was 'rigged' and fanned baseless claims that the outcome was the result of widespread voter fraud.
Trump rolls out the red carpet for Putin
Putin received a warm reception in Alaska after years of being left out in the cold by western leaders.
The summit began with Trump giving Putin an outreached hand, as the Russian leader walked down an intersecting red carpet on the tarmac to greet him. Trump clapped his hands in applause as Putin approached.
They shook hands, patted each others' arms and walked together, posing for pictures on a platform with a sign reading 'Alaska 2025.' In the background: Military planes and personnel and green cloud-covered mountains.
A reporter shouted "President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?" while Putin stood next to Trump on the platform. He gestured but didn't say anything.
Trump and Putin rode together, without aides, to the summit in Trump's limousine.
Gone was the frustration that Trump had expressed throughout the summer over Putin's reluctance to agree on a peace deal.
'I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir,' Trump said of his Russian counterpart as they shared a stage together in Alaska.
Now what? Severe consequences? Secondary Tariffs? Another meeting?
The lack of progress at the Trump-Putin summit raised questions about what comes next.
Trump said he planned to speak with Zelenskyy and NATO leaders to brief them. He again talked about moderating a three-way meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy.
And although he'd warned before the meeting that if Putin wasn't cooperative he would face 'severe consequences' and threatened tariff hikes on Russia's top trading partners, for now, he said he was letting China off the hook.
"Because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that,' Trump told Hannity. 'Now I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now, I think the meeting went very well."
Trump's next moves will be closely watched to see if he maintains the friendly posture toward Putin that he took at the summit or takes a firmer approach.
'By framing it as a positive meeting, in his own mind, it takes the pressure off of himself to make Russia pay a price for continuing the war,' former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said. 'At least for right now.'
Trump told reporters before the meeting that he was 'not looking to waste a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money' negotiations and wanted to see the war quickly wrapped up.
'The wildcard now is whether Trump's actually going to get tough on Russia, or whether it's going to be in sort of endless talks and letting Russia stall for time,' said Salvo, managing director for the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund.