| Hello,
It was unedifying to see Donald Trump clapping Vladimir Putin’s arrival in Alaska. But it was not surprising. Mr Putin won at least a propaganda victory thanks to the missteps by America’s president. Don’t expect similar simpering for Volodymyr Zelensky when he shows up at the White House on August 18th. The Ukrainian president’s goal is to avoid humiliation of the sort he suffered in February, when Mr Trump and J.D. Vance harangued and goaded their visitor before throwing him out. This time, I hope the Ukrainian will find the strength to keep calm (and maybe put on a suit). He faces the same challenge as he did before. The American president, unable to confront Russia consistently, is in a phase of blaming the victim of the war. Thus the American argues Mr Putin’s case, calling for Ukraine to appease the Russian aggressor by giving up strategically important territory in the vain hope of peace. The ghost of Neville Chamberlain must have been flitting around in Anchorage.
It’s hard to see any bright side. The risk, again, is that America cuts military and other aid to Ukraine, or finds other ways to undermine that country further. For Europe, and the West more generally, that is a path to vulnerability. Mr Zelensky, along with his European backers, at least have come to better understand how to wrangle the American president. They know that Mr Trump and some of his advisers, notably the hapless Steve Witkoff, have a poor sense of strategy. The president so obviously yearns for the quick win, an eye-popping deal, the striking public announcement that will lead to his getting the Nobel peace prize. This means he tends to be persuaded by those he has met most recently. Our correspondent in Kyiv has just written on the fears among Ukrainian officials of a Trump-Putin stitch-up.
One week Mr Trump blusters that he will punish Russia unless it agrees to a ceasefire. The next he dismisses the idea of a ceasefire entirely—what matters, he says, is a full peace agreement. Thus the job of allies is to hold their nerve, placate the president, praise him effusively, and wait until Mr Trump’s opinion flips again. It may be that the report of an atrocity in Ukraine will change his mind, or perhaps the comments of a different adviser will.
Allies must work within the Groucho Marx school of American diplomacy. You want principles in foreign policy? Mr Trump has principles, and if they don’t deliver quickly, well, he finds he has others. Right now the situation is bleak for Ukraine. But give it time and America may be back to threatening sanctions on Russia. The task facing Mr Zelensky in the White House is to help nudge the American gently in that direction, while avoiding a confrontation.
A few weeks ago I paid a much lower profile visit to the Arctic, along with a colleague who produces our excellent podcasts. We spent some time (I hesitate to write days, because the sun never set) in the far northern archipelago of Svalbard, where walruses, reindeer and arctic foxes prowl. This is a part of Norway, as agreed by a treaty that came into force precisely a century ago, in August 1925. Oddly, however, the treaty obliges this NATO country to host a Russian-run settlement, where the Russian tricolour flies over buildings, signs are in Cyrillic and a bust of Lenin looms over the main square. You can read some of what we found in the Russian-run town, or listen to our 20-minute podcast about the trip.
Finally, I asked last week about your own expectations for the Alaska summit. Some wrote to object to my description of Mr Trump as a poor negotiator. Denis Bolen and David Kole, for example, argued that the American leader has an impressive record in foreign affairs. Ismaila Ali expected that Ukraine would concede Donbas and Crimea as a solution that could “work out”. Deborah Dailey pointed to the example of Finland, which “ceded some land to Russia to get Russia off their back years ago and it worked. Finland goes its own way.” Others commented that it is galling to see America abandoning its democratic allies. Santiago Rigby predicted, accurately, that Ukraine “will be again pushed under a truck” and quoted a classic line from Henry Kissinger, that to be America’s friend is fatal. Finally, Galen Strawson saw no circumstance “in which it would be OK for Russia to gain any territory at all” and observed that it is “beyond belief” (or was until recently) that America “might condone and even support such a thing”.
I agree, Galen. Rewarding Russia’s aggression today merely invites more of it later and elsewhere. For next weekend I’d like your views on what Ukraine (and Europe) should do next. And what should Mr Zelensky wear in the White House? Remember, the only other man not to wear a suit in the Oval Office in recent months was Elon Musk, and that relationship didn’t end well. Email me at economisttoday@economist.com. |
