Despite his lofty talk, the ex-president won’t be able to change the diplomatic course
By Ivan Timofeev, programme director of the Valdai Club.
Former US President Donald Trump has already stated on several occasions that he could improve relations with Russia and solve the Ukrainian crisis, if he returns to the White House. He has also insisted that he would never have allowed the conflict to start. However, such statements should be seen as rhetoric and populism rather than Trump’s actual policy agenda.
The tycoon-turned-politician will not be able to do what he claims, and for many reasons. There is the example of his first term, when he made such statements but failed to improve relations with Moscow. On the one hand, he was severely handicapped by the so-called “RussiaGate” hoax election scandal and, on the other, US-Russia relations were already in a rut, and getting worse and worse.
At the same time, the situation was much more favorable during Trump’s first term in office, especially as there were no military actions on the scale we are seeing now. Nevertheless, he wasn’t able to put the relationship back on a constructive track.
Trump also promised to improve relations with North Korea but didn’t achieve much in this area either.
Indeed, Trump even increased sanctions against Russia. And while he was moderate enough in implementing the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), he was assertive in sanctioning Nord Stream-2, seeing it as a way to push Moscow out of the Western European gas market and open it up for American LNG.
Today the problems are much bigger, there are military operations going on. And it is completely unclear how Trump is going to improve relations. Of course, the Republican is an advocate of transactional ties, but he is primarily concerned with the interests of the US. Trump doesn’t care much about Europe – or, indeed, other countries. But we can see that his first term had no impact on NATO or on America’s relations with its Western allies.
So, it is unlikely that anything will change now. Moreover, it’s not just about the Ukrainian crisis. We remember the list of Russian demands made at the end of 2021, and the West’s reaction to them. And Trump is unlikely to be able to turn the situation towards a compromise.
First and foremost, Trump is an anti-China politician, and his presidency will be of primary concern to Beijing. Russia doesn’t care whether Trump or Harris becomes US president, as the structure of its relations with Washington will not change fundamentally.
This post was originally published on Publico.ru web-portal, translated and edited by the RT team
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