You can “negotiate” agreements with another party that aren’t really in that party’s interest, if there’s a gross disparity in power. You can’t do so when the other party has equivalent or greater power, which is the case in Trump’s negotiations with Putin. When that’s the case, you actually have to listen o what the other side has to say. From Simplicius at simplicius76.substack.com:
Trump made a very interesting comment during a press conference yesterday which entirely summarizes the West’s misguided approach to Russia:
[See linked article for video]
Trump is asked on his opinion regarding Lavrov’s statement that Russia could not sign a deal with an illegitimate leader like Zelensky. Trump responds by saying such statements are irrelevant because “everyone is just posturing”, and “it’s all bullshit”.
Trump could not be more wrong that a civilizational state like Russia is merely “posturing” about its existential interests. Understanding this key divergence is essential for grasping the far larger implications of the ideological rift between West and East.
It also explains why observers have been tearing their hair out trying to comprehend why Russia’s consistently clear enumerations of its demands always seem to fall on deaf ears. Russia issues the exact bullet point reduction of its demands, and the very next day Trump’s various reps and envoys muddle things by claiming they aren’t sure what Russia wants, or that a meeting is needed to further iron things out.
Trump demystifies things by explaining that these weren’t misunderstandings or a US inability to properly listen to Russia’s demands—even worse, these were outright US dismissals of Russian concerns all along. In Trump’s decadent, reality-TV-inspired world view, every global conflict is just another daytime soap opera production you can throw enough money at, ‘rizz’ up its hosts, and things fall into place.
Got hypersonic and multi-warhead Mach 10 plus?
1945 is long gone in the hourglass.