Trump has jettisoned a lot of ideological baggage and he’s outfoxed his opposition, which puts him in a pretty good position to negotiate a deal with Putin. From Ian Proud at strategic-culture.su:
President Trump, not held back by dissenters in his own party, appears strongly placed to agree a deal with President Putin.
Media coverage of America’s recent talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia focussed almost exclusively on the prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia and the U.S. probably want different outcomes from the talks. But President Trump is better placed to reach a deal with President Putin that he was in his first term.
The speed with which America has moved to reestablish diplomatic contact with Russia has left European leaders breathless and flatfooted. Zelensky has also been damaged by a needless public fight with President Trump that he could not win, after accusing him of living in a Russian disinformation bubble.
Donald Trump has arrived in the White House, for the second time, following a collapse in U.S.-Russia relations under a preceding Democratic Party President. What seems different today is that the politics of Washington have made it easier for him to engage with President Putin.
In 2017, Russia undoubtedly hoped for a potential reset of relations with the United States after a general collapse in engagement under President Obama. In Obama’s final foreign policy fling on 29 December 2016, he expelled 35 Russian diplomats, in response to the so-called Russiagate allegations.
In my view, Obama hoped these expulsions would make it harder for President Trump to engage with President Putin, if Russia retaliated with reciprocal diplomatic expulsions. But, Putin deliberately paused on retaliating, waiting to see what Trump might offer.
The real obstacle to engagement in 2017, which doesn’t seem to exist today, was the bipartisan resistance in Washington to President Trump improving relations with Russia in any way.
Just one day after Obama expelled the Russian diplomats, the rabidly anti-Russian late Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) were in Kyiv. There, they pressed for even tougher sanctions against Russia, and more support for Ukraine.
Even before President Trump had been sworn in, moves were being made by representatives of his own political party, to hem him in. The vehicle to achieve this was the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which imposed sweeping new sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.
