The meeting between Trump and Russian president Putin in Alaska yesterday has left observers scratching their heads. In the past, summits between these two major nuclear powers the US and Russia (or the former Soviet Union) would have a clear agenda and be preceded by weeks of detailed negotiations between lower-level officials, down to the drafting of the final joint communique to reveal what had been decided. The summit itself would be for the principals to sign off on what had largely been already agreed, with the addition of a few relatively minor features. The idea of a summit so that the two leaders could just shoot the breeze was unheard of. While the two of them just chatting and getting to know each other better was of some value in lowering the temperature and reducing the risk of nuclear war, it was never the main point of those earlier meetings.
And yet that is what this summit ended up being. Originally scheduled to last six hours with lunch in between, it was reduced to just three hours with the lunch omitted. Instead of a joint communique being issued about the decisions that had been made, followed by a press conference with journalists asking questions, there were just 12-minutes of statements, nine by Putin and three by Trump, that consisted of just platitudes and revealed nothing at all and allowed for no questions.
You can see for yourself
In short, the summit seemed to be a bust.
The idea of even having a summit to discuss Ukraine seems to have been precipitated by Trump finding himself unable to deliver on one of his most grandiose promises, that he could end the war in a day, even before he was even sworn into office. As Susan Glasser writes, in his desperation to try and get even close to that promise, Trump found himself making a series of threats and appeals to Putin, none of which had any effect.
The backdrop for this uniquely Trumpian combination of braggadocio and toxic partisanship was, of course, anything but a master class in successful deal-making; rather, the impetus for the summit was the President’s increasing urgency to produce a result after six months of failure to end the war in Ukraine—a task he once said was so easy that it would be done before he even returned to office in January. Leading up to the Alaska summit, nothing worked: Not berating Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Oval Office. Not begging Putin to “STOP” his bombing. Not even a U.S.-floated proposal to essentially give Putin much of what he had demanded. Trump gave Putin multiple deadlines—fifty days, two weeks, “ten or twelve days”—to agree to a ceasefire and come to the table, then did nothing when Putin balked. When his latest ultimatum expired, on August 8th, instead of imposing tough new sanctions, as he had threatened, Trump announced that he would meet Putin in Alaska a week later, minus Zelensky, in effect ending the Russian’s global isolation in exchange for no apparent concessions aimed at ending the war that Putin himself had unleashed.
A further sign that the summit was a failure is that Trump immediately gave an interview with the most sycophantic of Fox News personalities Sean Hannity and even there, could not some up with anything to even mildly justify the hype over the summit.
In the coming days, there will be endless explanations from Trump and his team as to why he didn’t get more out of the session. But, even in his post-summit interview with the great White House amplifier, Sean Hannity, the President struggled to alchemize the non-deal into Trumpian gold. “On a scale of one to ten,” Hannity asked the President, how would he grade the session? “The meeting was a ten in the sense that we got along great,” Trump responded. When Trump started talking, however, it was hardly about the summit at all, but about the “rigged election” in 2020 and how terrible Biden was and how he and Putin could have got so much done together if there had been no Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Soon he was on to riffs about Iran and the border and his tariffs and how things in the U.S. are going so great that “Vladimir” told him, “Your country is hot as a pistol.” (Yeah, right.) On and on Trump went, about beating ISIS and why mail-in voting is terrible, about how big China is and how powerful America’s nuclear weapons are. Those tough-guy sanctions he once promised to place on Putin if he didn’t produce a deal weren’t so much as mentioned.
The more he talked about anything other than Russia, in fact, the more it was obvious: Even Trump knew he had bombed. “Now it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” he said at one point. If there’s one unwavering Law of Trump, this is it: Whatever happens, it is never, ever, his fault.
Trump saying that now it was up to Putin and Zelensky to talk seems to suggest that he is washing his hands of the whole thing.
So it was a typical Trump performance whenever it involves people whom he cannot bully, all bluster and distraction, with no substance whatsoever.
One reason why we didn’t have lower-level officials negotiating everything could be that Trump and Putin are dictators who see themselves as the source of all knowledge…or something.
I hope that Trump doesn’t just walk away from Ukraine in the hope that his MAGA base will forget about it. That would make it even more obvious to the folks in Europe that the U.S. is unreliable.
The image of Vladimir Putin speaking from a podium bearing the US presidential seal tells us more than Trump intended.
Lol. We’ve pretty much always regarded the US as unreliable -- we’re not stupid, we know that the US only supported us because it was in your interests to do so, and that if your interests did not align with ours, then you obviously would not sacrifice those interests for our sakes. I mean, we spent the whole of the Cold War expecting to be your expendable nuclear battlefield…
The problem now is that you don’t even appear to have any consistent sense of what your interests are any more. You’re not just unreliable, you’re dangerously unpredictable. In fact, you appear to be having the national equivalent of a psychotic breakdown.
@3 Dunc
Be careful referring to the USA as if it was a person. What happens here, along with much of our foreign policy, is not at all what most residents would like or even understand to be the case. Most people cannot give even a modestly accurate accounting of our spending/budget, and have next to no knowledge of the things our country has done over the years, such as our actions, in say, Iran in the 1950s, and how that resonates through the following decades. And it’s not like it’s easy to find these data as there is an entire “news” echo system that exists to make money by lying to people and getting them upset, and another branch that is wholly owned by Wall Street. And most people are working too hard to “get ahead” and raising their families to have the time to do the research.
Instead, it is better to view the USA as a lesson in what happens when capital is allowed to run amok with no constraints, and no sense of the common good. It has always been this way, but it certainly became increasingly visible and virulent since 1980 with Reagan and the GOP alliance with the so-called “religious right”. The “psychotic breakdown” to which you refer is shared by the sane people here to the utter incompetence and viciousness we find ourselves in. I only hope that people elsewhere see what is happening here and say, “Yeah, we need to avoid that” and tighten the reins on the monied interests in their countries. Good luck with that. As George Carlin said, they won’t be happy until they have everything. They’re coming for all of it. Every last cent.
EU Today
This was reported before the summit. No independent confirmation but it lines up with what happened. The US envoy Steve Witkoff misunderstood the Russian position and thought a breakthrough had been made. Trump jumped on that to announce a possible peace via trading land. Putin had no intention of giving up any land but went ahead with the meeting because it looked good for him no matter what happened.
I’m pretty sure Trump knew the meeting was pointless before it happened. He had hyped it up so much he couldn’t back out without looking foolish. So he carried through with the motions. When it became clear he couldn’t even get a cease fire out of Putin to make it look like some sort of progress was being made he cut the meeting short.
Ha ha another show with Impotent Don and Gangster Putin. You only need to watch the latter’s gurning face to know who came out best… I bet they are having mad parties right now in Moscow, and well they should.
Sorry, but I share Dunc’s opinion, Jimf’s objection notwhitstanding: this is a complete breakdown in American politics, where the elected representatives are hell-bent on inflicting maximum damage on their own country (and others while at it).
That poor devil Zelensky is probably going to be eviscerated again next week, and Europe is deep into its usual role of just standing there dithering to do anything effective.
For anyone who won’t have a chance to watch the full twelve minutes, here’s the key points of what they said, and what they wanted to convey.
Putin:
Not got your earpiece in yet, old man? Then I’ll go first instead while you pretend to fiddle with your microphone.
Our discussions were “quite useful”.
Firstly, I’d like to remind you (and Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine…) that Alaska used to be ours. We can work with that. You know what I mean.
Secondly, it’s been four years since we had a summit. That was bad of you, and that caused me to start a conflict. But we can be friends, right? You just have to agree with our legitimate concerns. And work on Ukraine’s concerns too, of course. But I’m warning you that you can’t allow Europe and Kiev to throw a wrench into the works of agreeing with our legitimate concerns.
Thirdly, Russia’s trade has grown in the last few years. You want some of that, right? Come see us after.
Fourthly, we are literally in tomorrow, but you are literally in yesterday. The international date line proves that, and it’s only four kilometres. So simple you understand this metaphor. So simple.
Your team has been cooperative with ours, oh, did you think you were in charge of it? But thanks for your cooperation and well wishing so far.
Well wishing. Hmm.
Did you wish anyone well? Several times? We have the tape. And, you know, The Other Tape.
Anyway, I know you care about prosperity, I have the evidence, and that prosperity relies on your cooperation. I won’t mention your predecessor Biden’s name —but NOW you’re thinking about him, aren’t you? If Biden hadn’t won, there would be no war. I can confirm that. I didn’t want war. And I didn’t want… you’re still thinking about Biden, aren’t you?
Thank you. It’s just business. Hurry up. Thank you.
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Trump:
We had a productive meeting apart from the big ones we came for and there’s no deal until there’s a deal but I’m gonna tell Zelenskyy but we’ve got our great leaders some of the hottest in the world great deal makers we’ll get it done in very short time but I’ve always loved Vladimir I call him Vladimir tough meetings though but I love Vladimir but it was difficult for us with the Russia Russia Russia Hoax we put up with Russia Russia Russia hoax Vladimir which was nothing to do with him he put up with it I said it was a hoax the Russia hoax and I knew it too it was all productive and we didn’t get there but we’ll get there once we get back look but I know you all all you Russians I remember all your faces cos I remember clearly I have a great memory so I’ll stop people from getting killed.
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And then there was this wonderful coda:
Trump: See you soon?
Putin: Next time in Moscow?
Trump: Oooh, interesting! (Really? You’d do that for me? Moscow? Did you know I’ve been desperate to erect one of my buildings in Moscow for a long long time? Some say it’s been too long. I’m thinking about my parade already.)
I’ll get heat for that. From the Press. And already a little of my own just thinking about it.