Donald Trump emerged from a much shorter meeting than expected with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage to say there was “no deal” but an “extremely productive” meeting in which “many points” were agreed to. What points?
What was true before the Trump-Putin meeting remains true today: Putin has often stated his ambition to subordinate and eventually take over all of Ukraine, and Trump has failed to hold Russia to account for any of its actions in the country.
Here are my conclusions about the Alaska meeting:
First, it was a disaster for Trump. He got played; his effort to flatter Putin with the location and the optics failed. Second, Putin was given no incentive to stop his war. To the contrary, Trump gave him every incentive to keep fighting—no demands of any kind, and no leverage, such as tariffs or sanctions—to make Putin stop and think. As former secretary of state Susan Rice said on MSNBC, Trump “let Putin out of the penalty box.”
Third, Ukraine is put in a very difficult position, though it has the backing of European leaders. Trump has abandoned any U.S. role in defense of Ukraine, leaving it to the other NATO members to provide military support.
The next Trump-Putin meeting, with Zelensky in attendance, is slated to aim at a deal over Ukraine’s territory. Trump said as much when he told Fox News Radio prior to the Alaska summit: “The second meeting is going to be very, very important because that’s going to be a meeting where they [Putin and Zelensky] make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?”
Imagine the scene: Trump accepts Putin’s invitation to hold the next meeting in Moscow, at which Zelensky is put in the position by Trump of either agreeing to Putin’s territorial demands or face further destruction of Ukraine. It’s a sellout of an independent country by a U.S. president who believes he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mel Gurtov is professor emeritus of political science at Portland State University.
