National Interest

by Andreas Umland

    The change in Trump’s rhetoric vis-à-vis Russia has so far meant very little.

    After threatening to end military aid to Ukraine, US president Donald Trump appears to have had a change of heart.

•     The administration’s initial assumption was that its pro-Russian rhetoric, signals and diplomacy would trigger reciprocal reactions in Moscow and pave the way for ending the Russo-Ukrainian War. Now, Trump seems to have realized that this approach is not only a dead end, but has had the opposite effect. Russia’s air attacks on Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have only escalated.

What Is America’s Current Ukraine Policy

    Most Americans, among them also many GOP members, Republican voters and even MAGA supporters, still favor supporting Ukraine. Trump may now be recognizing that the political costs of his pro-Russian approach are becoming high. His recent change of course is a concession to prevailing anti-Putinist and pro-Ukrainian domestic moods rather than the result of cognitive progress in the White House’s evaluation of Russian foreign policy.

    On July 14, Trump publicly threatened Moscow’s trading partners with secondary sanctions if the Kremlin does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine soon. Could this constitute a U-turn in Trump’s policy toward Russia  Perhaps.

    So far, this and similar official statements by Trump and his administration remain talking points about uncertain future action. To put it mildly, most of Trump’s oral and even some written statements have to be taken with a grain of salt.

    Reactions in Ukraine to the new rhetoric in Washington have thus been mixed. Ukrainian commentators recognize that Trump is now striking a different tone, after months of publicly courting Vladimir Putin. Yet, most Ukrainians remain skeptical about how sustainable this apparent shift in Washington’s attitude will be.

    As Trump has, for the first time, given Putin an ultimatum, there may be a chance of further development of the matter. If the Kremlin does not agree to a peace deal within 50 days, the US is supposed to impose punitive tariffs of 100 percent on Russia’s trading partners. While a far more concrete plan than previous announcements, Washington has started, with this scheme, a complicated game. The pressure on Moscow that Trump wants to build up should not come directly from the US.

•     Instead, it must be exerted by third countries, such as China, India and Brazil, which purchase oil and other goods from Russia, however, it is unclear whether and to what degree these and further countries will bow to such American pressure.

Can Trump’s Tariffs Help to End the Ukraine War

Will a 100 percent US tariff be sufficient to motivate, for instance, India to stop trading with Russia  Should Trump’s scheme not lead to significant cuts in non-Western foreign trade with Russia and Washington indeed impose tariffs on countries continuing to make deals with Moscow, retaliatory measures from them on imports from the US will follow. Are ordinary Americans ready to suffer for Ukraine

    Trump’s scheme does not appear to have been thought through and may never have been intended to be implemented. A more effective approach would have been to threaten Russia’s trading partners with very high tariffs, such as the 500 percent proposed by the US Senate. That would have signaled to these states that their disconnection from Russia is imperative. What the result of Trump’s current convoluted approach to stopping Russia’s aggression will eventually be remains to be seen.

    In the short term, the US’s new sanctions plans may have effects opposite to their intention. Probably, Trump’s announcement will only lead to an intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine during the coming weeks. Oddly, the Kremlin has now been given a quasi-official timeline within which it can continue bombing without immediate economic consequences. Washington’s 50-day deadline raises suspicions that Putin is being given another opportunity to occupy more territory and achieve military successes before negotiations resume.

    Should Trump’s plan work, a loss of non-Western trading partners could harm Putin’s war machine. If China, India and other countries, under the threat of American sanctions, turn away from Russia and follow the US’s lead, that will be a problem for the Kremlin. To date, the greatest weakness of the numerous direct international sanctions on Russia has been that Moscow has been and remains able to turn to alternative markets and foreign buyers, thereby compensating for the impact of the West’s punitive measures.

    Should Trump’s tariffs take effect, these detours may become more complicated for Moscow.

What Kinds of Tariffs Should Trump Impose on Russia

    In addition to the tariff ultimatum, Washington also announced “massive” deliveries of US weapons to Ukraine. This concerns mainly (but not only) the famous mobile surface-to-air missile systems: “the Patriot.”

    Several European countries, including Germany, are supposed to purchase them in the US and then pass them on to Ukraine. This is also a complicated scheme, yet it is more realistic than Washington’s secondary sanctions planning. Here, the third parties are the US’s Western partners rather than less cooperative or even adversarial non-Western governments.

    The Patriot systems have proven to be among the most effective interceptor weapons against Russia’s various larger missiles. Thus, there is high demand for them in Kyiv and hope that Ukraine’s air defense will indeed soon have more Patriot systems at its disposal. How many of these and which other US weapons will go to Ukraine now seems to depend largely on their European buyers.

    What arms, in what quantity and over what period will arrive in Ukraine is so far difficult to establish. The German government, moreover, has decided not to provide detailed advance information on weapons deliveries.

    The unorthodoxy of Trump’s sanctions and support schemes stems from their origins in Trump’s concern with domestic rather than international affairs. In particular, his approval of paid-for arms deliveries to Ukraine is primarily an America First policy rather than a new geopolitical strategy.

•     Worse still, his transactional approach to security matters undermines the credibility and trust in the United States as an international partner.

How Has Trump’s “America First” Policy Changed International Relations

    The Trump administration’s new strategy also runs counter to the logic of the worldwide nuclear non-proliferation regime. In particular, it contradicts the special responsibility that the five official nuclear-weapon states; the US, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France have for the preservation of international order.

    Trump’s transactional approach to protecting fundamental rules of post-1945 inter-state relations, such as the immovability of borders and impermissibility of genocide, is weakening an international system that the US itself created and from which it has been benefiting for 80 years now.

    Making others pay for Ukraine’s daily weakening of a decades-long archenemy of the US may look smart at first glance. Yet, considering the US’s entire defense budget, the costs of America’s recent free military support for Ukraine have been relatively low. In contrast, the destructive effects of US arms in Ukrainian hands, on Russia’s military and economy, have been high.

    They have continuously reduced Moscow’s ability to attack a NATO member state, which the US would be obliged to support, under the 1949 Washington Treaty’s Article 5. The Trump administration is now voluntarily stepping back from this strategic bargain and strangely ignoring its beneficial repercussions for US national security.

    In any case, Trump’s recent rhetorical turn against Putin is still welcome. The question is whether Washington is indeed intending to do so and, if so, will be willing to walk its new talk. So far, Trump’s administration has not abandoned its generally myopic view of US national interests and its readiness to define them with the help of populist, if not demagogic, slogans.

•     The new administration continues to disregard the far-reaching implications of America’s stance towards the Russo-Ukrainian War for the stability and legitimacy of the world order, about which Americans should be as concerned as most other nations.