Based on reporting today we can say that Trump’s Ukraine policy is beginning to take shape. [1]
It appears to be “carrot and stick”. The stick is “if you don’t sign our proposed peace deal we will screw your economy by ratcheting up sanctions”. The carrot might be the converse; no sanctions and trade. A sort of business proposal.
The peace plan itself is harder to make out but based on comments from Trump and people around him it may include a commitment that Ukraine will not join NATO and some willingness to tell Ukraine to relinquish territory. It is not at all clear if Trump’s team have grasped that what the Kremlin is looking for is the kind of new Russia-NATO settlement proposed by them in the December 2021 “ultimatum”, which includes NATO drawing down forces in the Baltic states, (and presumably now, Sweden and Finland). At the time the US, in their response did actually offer that Russia could inspect their missile installations in Poland and Romania, which was well-received and they also proposed a new treaty limiting the positioning of intermediate range missiles, which should be well-received by Russia, since that was a long-standing demand. [2] I would imagine that all these questions will need to be discussed and the negotiation is quite complex.
With that in mind I don’t think that presenting Russia with the plan as a fait accompli and on a take it or leave it, carrot or stick basis, is likely to work – unless the plan meets all their security demands.
Zelensky meanwhile has been playing an interesting game. On the one hand he has been sucking up to Trump and trying to use Trump to “impose peace by force”. This could be seen to be making the best out of a bad situation. Yesterday, though, he was in Davos urging Europeans to back him independently of the US. At any event he has been presenting wild ideas about a European force of 200,000 in Ukraine to back up the peace. This is a non-starter. Russia went to war because they saw Ukraine and its links with NATO and Western military power as a threat. The Kremlin is hardly going to agree to this now.
One must hope. But none of this looks particularly promising. Trump appears not to really understand what this is about for Russia. It is going to take more than saying he can see their point of view about NATO and then threatening them with sanctions if they don’t support whatever he proposes. Trump talks about ratcheting up sanctions; but Russia-US trade is minimal. EU-Russia trade is still quite high, (surprisingly perhaps given the undying and eternal support offered to Ukraine by EU leaders). In 2023 Russian exports to the EU amounted to $84.9 billion and imports from the EU amounted to $78.5 billion according to Barron’s. [3] But, it is for European leaders to determine whether to cancel this trade, and they haven’t yet. (Trump could try to force them with secondary sanctions, which would mean some kind of a sanctions war with Europe, which might be interesting. Since that would in turn affect the US economy I doubt he would use it, though he might threaten it, in order to try to get the EU on board with a new round of sanctions). However, polls from Europe show that public support for Ukraine is falling. It seems unlikely that EU leaders will now, after two years, start to demand real sacrifices from their populations. No doubt Trump could exert more pressure on the Russian economy, for example secondary sanctions on anyone touching Russian oil or gas at all. That might affect India but perhaps China less so. I think there is some scope for increased sanctions pressure but I am not sure how much. And, I doubt whether the Kremlin will want to be seen to be caving in to sanctions pressure. This war is, in part, about, to use Professor John Mearsheimer’s phrase, the “US attempt to knock Russia out of the ranks of the Great Powers”. Submitting to sanctions pressure would look rather like an acceptance of economic vassal status. To do that would be counter to the whole trajectory of their strategy. I suspect that the Kremlin would try to fight it. Their track record of countering sanctions so far might give them some grounds for confidence.
I suspect that team Trump is going to have to go back to basics a bit if they really want this to end. And – they need to remove Zelensky from the discussions. He is looking increasingly unrealistic.
Notes
- https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-putin-trump-moscow-zelenskyy-kremlin-frontline-live-sky-news-latest-12541713
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/us/politics/russia-demands-us-ukraine.html
- https://www.barrons.com/news/russian-exports-to-europe-down-two-thirds-in-2023-72a3e824 See also, for details: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=EU_trade_with_Russia_-_latest_developments&oldid=657062