Back in January, with US President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” still fresh in the memory, there was genuine unease in Moscow over the US president’s intentions.
When Trump mused that high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Russia might be necessary, one high-profile and pro-war Moscow commentator wrote: “It’s better to prepare for the worst. Soon, we’ll look back on [former US president Joe] Biden’s term with nostalgia, like a thaw.”
How wrong can you be?
Since then, the US president has repeatedly talked the talk without coming close to walking the walk. In May, when Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a 30-day ceasefire and peace talks in Turkey went nowhere, a “bone-crushing” US sanctions package failed to materialize. An Aug. 8 deadline for Putin to agree to a ceasefire somehow morphed into a red carpet welcome in Alaska, where Trump applauded a leader wanted for war crimes as he disembarked from his plane. The “severe consequences” threatened by Trump if the Alaska talks failed to lead to peace never happened.
Emboldened, Putin has continued to prosecute his war aims in Ukraine and probe for Western weaknesses.
Last week’s incursion of Russian drones into Polish territory laid bare inadequate NATO planning, as F-35 and F-16 jets were hastily scrambled to deal with cheap kamikaze devices that cost about US$10,000 each to produce.
It also communicated a warning of possible escalation in the event of any “reassurance force” deploying European troops on Ukrainian soil.
Such a provocation called for a robust and unified response, exerting the kind of pressure on the Kremlin that Trump has so far refused to countenance. Instead, the US president appears, once again, to prefer bullying his European allies to targeting Putin.
In a statement that reeked of bad faith, Trump declared at the weekend that the US was “ready” to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, but only if certain unlikely conditions were met.
Washington, which is eyeing a considerable economic prize, is insisting that the EU must increase its imports of US liquified natural gas at a rate that analysts judge cannot be done.
Other demands include the imposition by the EU of 50 to 100 percent tariffs on Russia’s most important ally, China, and an end to all imports of Russian oil by NATO members.
This includes Turkey, which has refused to sanction Moscow, imports 57 percent of its oil from Russia and lies outside the EU.
Those looking on the bright side in Brussels hope that Trump’s pressure might persuade friendly governments in Hungary and Slovakia to end their deep dependence on Russian energy imports.
That is extremely unlikely to happen, as Trump and his advisers must know. Nor can the EU afford to court the kind of economic retaliation from Beijing that caused Trump himself to back down from a full-blown trade war.
During this week’s state visit, it would be British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s turn to try to pin Trump down on decisive action, but from the unproductive Alaska talks to his latest diversionary tactics with the EU, Trump keeps finding reasons not to get tough on Russia.
Last week’s drone incursion in Poland represented an ominous upping of the ante. Ukraine’s prospects, and wider European security interests, are being steadily undermined by a president who, in this context, barks, but never bites.
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