EU leaders must master Trump management
Last Wednesday, on very short notice, the presidents and/or prime ministers of all the other major countries in the Nato alliance got together online to prep Donald Trump for his "summit" meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
He had to be coached about his newly adopted positions defending Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity because everybody knows that Mr Trump tends to echo the views of the last person who talked to him, especially in subjects he doesn't know about (which is most subjects).
So French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and sundry other European Nato notables drilled Mr Trump on what to say and what not. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also got a few words in.
Most importantly, they all said, Mr Trump must insist that Russia accept a cease-fire before peace negotiations started. Otherwise, Mr Putin could drag the negotiations out forever while continuing to conquer more Ukrainian territory. Mr Trump was already quite cross about Moscow's foot-dragging on a cease-fire, so he seemed to take their advice seriously.
Indeed, just before he stepped aboard Air Force One to fly to Alaska on Friday he told reporters: "I want to see a cease-fire rapidly...I'm not going to be happy if it's not today ... I want the killing to stop." But he was flying there to meet Mr Putin -- who would then become the last person he talked to on the subject.
It was probably inevitable that Mr Trump would do a U-turn as soon as he was in Mr Putin's presence. All his promises of "severe consequences" (secondary tariffs on countries importing Russian oil) if Mr Putin would not agree to a cease-fire went out the window. The fifty-day deadline, the eight-day deadline, the tomorrow deadline -- all forgotten in a moment.
Flying home from Alaska, Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: "It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement."
Who's "all"? Mr Trump, property tycoon Steve Witkoff and former Florida senator Marco Rubio (total 6 years of foreign affairs experience) vs Mr Putin, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov (total 133 years of foreign affairs experience).
To be fair, Mr Trump probably didn't understand that this meant the Russians could go on fighting and bombing Ukraine until there was a peace settlement agreeable to Moscow -- which will only be reached if and when Russian's maximal demands, amounting in practice to the subjugation of all Ukraine, have been accepted. He's not a detail man.
Mr Trump then summoned Mr Zelensky to Washington to hear the bad news, and he was to arrive yesterday. But so will almost all the European Nato leaders who prepped him last Wednesday. They are coming uninvited (although everybody will pretend otherwise) for a last-ditch effort to turn Mr Trump around again. It might even work again.
Even if it works this time, it's impossible to be always the last person Mr Trump speaks to, and the effort to be that person soon degenerates into slapstick and pratfalls. The European Nato heads of government (and Canada's) will soon have to build a new Nato that does the old one's job of deterring Russia, but without the United States.
They will, of course, carry on the pretence of the old Nato as long as possible, because although they have the money and the numbers to perform that task without American help, there will be many shortfalls and gaps in the new alliance during a lengthy transition (three to five years).
It will take a lot of hypocrisy and a massive campaign of perpetual flattery for the old Nato countries to keep Mr Trump on side for that long while simultaneously keeping Ukraine out of Russia's hands. However, that is the task they have now set themselves, although some have yet to come fully to terms with the new strategic realities.
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Bangkok Post
7 hours ago
- Bangkok Post
Trump-Putin summit ends without deal on Ukraine cease-fire
ANCHORAGE — United States President Donald Trump ended a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday without a deal on a cease-fire in the yearslong war between Ukraine and Russia. The summit meeting, held without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, marked the first direct talks between the leaders of the United States and Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion began in 2022. At a joint press appearance with Putin after the meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Trump said they had "a very productive meeting" and "many points that we agreed on," but there were also "just a very few" that were unresolved. "There's no deal until there's a deal," the president said, adding he would call North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies and Zelenskyy to brief them on the talks. Putin, standing alongside Trump, stuck to Moscow's stated position on the war, saying through an interpreter, "The situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security." The Russian president has been adamant about Ukraine abandoning its bid to join Nato, the US-led transatlantic military alliance, as a condition for peace. Neither Trump nor Putin offered details on what they had agreed on during their meeting, which Russian media said lasted two hours and 45 minutes. The two leaders left what was supposed to be a joint press conference without taking any questions from reporters. They were airborne not long after on their own planes. Among the officials who took part in Friday's meeting were US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Earlier, Trump greeted Putin on the red carpet rolled out on the tarmac after a plane carrying the Russian leader landed at the military base. They then moved to the venue of the meeting in Trump's presidential limousine. En route to Alaska, Trump told reporters that while possible territorial swaps would be discussed in the bilateral meeting, any decisions on the matter would have to be made by Ukraine. "I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I'm here to get them at a table," he said. There is concern on the Ukrainian side that the United States and Russia might decide on conditions for a cease-fire without taking Kyiv's interests into account. Russia currently occupies a fifth of Ukraine's territory, according to US and other media. In an interview with Fox News shortly after Friday's summit, Trump urged Zelenskyy to reach a deal to achieve a cease-fire with Russia. He indicated there would be a summit meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders that he would also attend. During the press appearance, Putin invited Trump to Moscow for the next summit meeting. Trump warned this week that "very severe consequences" could follow for Russia if Putin does not agree to stop the war. But he also said he hoped to use Friday's meeting to set up another meeting quickly that could also involve the Ukrainian leader. Zelenskyy had expressed hope that a cease-fire agreement would be the major topic during the summit, with his European allies making their position clear that territorial integrity must be respected and Ukraine must have credible security guarantees. The US president suggested earlier that any deal to halt the war would entail some territorial concessions by Ukraine. Zelenskyy said any negotiations with Russia over territory would need to take place with Kyiv's involvement after a cease-fire is fully in place.
Bangkok Post
a day ago
- Bangkok Post
Data war risks creating false calm
Political pressure on government statisticians and private forecasters risks sending markets down a rabbit-hole, which could suppress volatility today but lead to seismic reality checks in the future. US President Donald Trump has side-swiped both private and public sector economists this month, firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) boss for what he described as "rigged" jobs data and then lambasting Goldman Sachs for tariff-related research he didn't agree with. These moves seem alarming, even if there are some mitigating factors. Mr Trump is hardly the first person to criticise BLS payrolls data. It has been under scrutiny for years, not because of fears of bias, but because of low survey response rates and delays, which have often resulted in large changes to past data. The most recent report contained one of the biggest downward revisions in decades. The BLS can argue that it has suffered from years of underfunding, but it's still not a good look. What's more, similar questions about data collection have been lobbed at the BLS regarding its compilation of monthly consumer and producer price reports, which are critical now in assessing the impact of Mr Trump's tariff rises on inflation. These statistics, along with the US employment report, are the most important monthly updates for financial markets, mainly because they play a pivotal role in Federal Reserve thinking, given its dual mandate to maintain maximum employment and stable prices. Mr Trump this week appointed Heritage Foundation economist E J Antoni -- a contributor to the controversial Project 2025 wishlist of policies for a second Trump term -- to run the BLS. Mr Antoni recently suggested suspending the monthly payrolls report until data problems were fixed, which could result in long data gaps at a critical moment for the US economy, monetary policy and markets. Importantly though, the White House and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have pushed back on that idea. But then came Tuesday's attack on Goldman boss David Solomon, with calls for him to appoint a new chief economist following the release of a report on Sunday by his colleague Jan Hatzius. The report estimated US consumers had so far borne less than a quarter of the cost of tariffs but could see that rise to two-thirds over time. This may simply be nothing more than Mr Trump complaining about a forecast he doesn't like, but it's still a move that risks tinkering with one of the most basic market tenets: the plurality of views. There's an obvious concern that -- intentionally or not -- these public attacks could cause economic data, research and forecasts to become more pro-government or lead to self-censorship by those keen to avoid seeing their business or careers damaged by presidential opprobrium. To its credit, Goldman said it would keep doing its job regardless of the political pressure. But it would hardly say otherwise. Perhaps more telling was the lack of public outcry from other economists who might reasonably be concerned that Mr Trump's attacks on unflattering forecasts represent a worrying trend for their profession and market transparency overall. Of course, they or their institutions may simply have thought it best to stay quiet, assuming the issue would blow over soon. Does any of this matter long-term? To be sure, economic forecasting can hardly be held up as a sacred cow if accuracy is what matters. A University of California, Berkeley study late last year looked at more than 16,000 forecasts by banks and large firms and concluded that while 53% of forecasters were confident in their predictions, they were correct only 23% of the time. But economists' forecasts still play a role, accurate or not. So any type of bias, even unintentional, could have a significant impact on market thinking. Of course, if there were a consensus that official data was likely to be biased to flatter the government, then the process of forecasting those official numbers may just be to mechanically move in that direction. But that would undoubtedly create confusion. To better capture what's really going on, investors may be more inclined to commission private economic data. And yet the cost of doing that on a frequent basis would be prohibitive for smaller players, meaning big information gaps could open up, making markets less efficient overall. If political bias in official data and forecasting were to emerge in the current environment, one might expect to see firmer job creation and softer inflation readouts. That could keep markets calm in the short term. But any weakness in the real economy would emerge eventually, likely resulting in a rude awakening for many, no matter what the official data says. Reuters
Bangkok Post
a day ago
- Bangkok Post
EU leaders must master Trump management
It's like one of those slapstick comedies from the early days of silent films: the "Keystone Cops" movies, perhaps, or Buster Keaton's various efforts. Lots of people rushing around, constant reversals of fortune, and many pratfalls. Last Wednesday, on very short notice, the presidents and/or prime ministers of all the other major countries in the Nato alliance got together online to prep Donald Trump for his "summit" meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. He had to be coached about his newly adopted positions defending Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity because everybody knows that Mr Trump tends to echo the views of the last person who talked to him, especially in subjects he doesn't know about (which is most subjects). So French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and sundry other European Nato notables drilled Mr Trump on what to say and what not. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also got a few words in. Most importantly, they all said, Mr Trump must insist that Russia accept a cease-fire before peace negotiations started. Otherwise, Mr Putin could drag the negotiations out forever while continuing to conquer more Ukrainian territory. Mr Trump was already quite cross about Moscow's foot-dragging on a cease-fire, so he seemed to take their advice seriously. Indeed, just before he stepped aboard Air Force One to fly to Alaska on Friday he told reporters: "I want to see a cease-fire rapidly...I'm not going to be happy if it's not today ... I want the killing to stop." But he was flying there to meet Mr Putin -- who would then become the last person he talked to on the subject. It was probably inevitable that Mr Trump would do a U-turn as soon as he was in Mr Putin's presence. All his promises of "severe consequences" (secondary tariffs on countries importing Russian oil) if Mr Putin would not agree to a cease-fire went out the window. The fifty-day deadline, the eight-day deadline, the tomorrow deadline -- all forgotten in a moment. Flying home from Alaska, Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: "It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement." Who's "all"? Mr Trump, property tycoon Steve Witkoff and former Florida senator Marco Rubio (total 6 years of foreign affairs experience) vs Mr Putin, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov (total 133 years of foreign affairs experience). To be fair, Mr Trump probably didn't understand that this meant the Russians could go on fighting and bombing Ukraine until there was a peace settlement agreeable to Moscow -- which will only be reached if and when Russian's maximal demands, amounting in practice to the subjugation of all Ukraine, have been accepted. He's not a detail man. Mr Trump then summoned Mr Zelensky to Washington to hear the bad news, and he was to arrive yesterday. But so will almost all the European Nato leaders who prepped him last Wednesday. They are coming uninvited (although everybody will pretend otherwise) for a last-ditch effort to turn Mr Trump around again. It might even work again. Even if it works this time, it's impossible to be always the last person Mr Trump speaks to, and the effort to be that person soon degenerates into slapstick and pratfalls. The European Nato heads of government (and Canada's) will soon have to build a new Nato that does the old one's job of deterring Russia, but without the United States. They will, of course, carry on the pretence of the old Nato as long as possible, because although they have the money and the numbers to perform that task without American help, there will be many shortfalls and gaps in the new alliance during a lengthy transition (three to five years). It will take a lot of hypocrisy and a massive campaign of perpetual flattery for the old Nato countries to keep Mr Trump on side for that long while simultaneously keeping Ukraine out of Russia's hands. However, that is the task they have now set themselves, although some have yet to come fully to terms with the new strategic realities.
