How To Read the Trump-Putin Meeting

As the first clips of Putin and Trump’s face-to-face meeting emerge ahead of their sit-down at 9:45 AM EDT, the commentariat is ready to pounce:

Now in video. “I *LOVE* this guy!” https://t.co/E9SukZZUHn

— David Frum (@davidfrum) July 7, 2017

This is but the beginning of what is sure to be a day of obsessive body language analysis and a near-hermeneutical attention to every syllable uttered by the two leaders. While we remain skeptical that any kind of meaningful cooperation with the Russians is possible—the level of spiteful cynicism coming out of the Kremlin lately is staggering—President Trump clearly decided a long time ago that a diplomatic opening needed to be tried. That is his prerogative as Commander in Chief. He certainly won’t be the first post-Cold War President to attempt such a thing.

And while the paranoids still convinced that President Trump is some kind of puppet installed by the all-powerful spymasters in the Kremlin won’t be able to see past the ominous significance of back-slapping at what has always been a vain and empty diplomatic confab, for the rest of us it’s useful to try to get past the surface optics to see what might really be going on.

Rumors have it that President Trump may offer to give back the Russian properties in the United States—most likely used for intelligence gathering activities and impounded by the Obama Administration in its waning days as a sign of displeasure over Moscow’s election-meddling—as a gesture of good will in an effort to kick-start negotiations. But behind that sweetener, the Trump Administration’s policies are looking anything but Russia-friendly.

Last week, ahead of his trip to Warsaw, President Trump spoke at an event at the Department of Energy:

In what he called a policy of “energy dominance,” Trump re-branded efforts to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to markets in Eastern Europe and Asia that had been set in motion during the previous presidential administration.

The United States also will offer to export coal to Ukraine, where energy consumers often have suffered from cuts in natural gas supply by Russia.

“We are here today to unleash a new American energy policy,” Trump said at an event at the Department of Energy attended by oil and coal executives and union members who build pipelines. “We will export American energy all around the world.”

Global “energy dominance”, with an explicit effort to undermine Russia’s own local energy hegemony in its near-abroad and in Europe? That’s certainly not music to the Kremlin’s ears. If Trump were the Putin puppet some think, he would be undercutting the United States’ energy weapon. He would have embraced the Paris Accords, limited U.S. production and export of fossil fuels, stopped pipeline projects wherever he could, and tightened regulations on oil and gas exploration—to say nothing of limiting the use of coal in U.S. power plants.

Then, speaking in Warsaw yesterday, President Trump had more pointed words for the Kremlin:

Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests. To meet new forms of aggression, including propaganda, financial crimes, and cyberwarfare, we must adapt our alliance to compete effectively in new ways and on all new battlefields.

We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes—including Syria and Iran—and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.

Some dismissed this as merely perfunctory, while others completely glossed over it while fulminating over the supposed racism and bigotry hiding in the President’s paean to “the West”. That’s a mistake. The President made it as clear as day that he sees the Russians as aggressive rivals, not as partners or allies. And it wasn’t just rhetoric: this little growl comes after the President OK’d a 40 percent funding increase for the European Reassurance Initiative, an Obama-era project for deterring Russian aggression along the EU’s eastern flank. A workable relationship is perhaps possible, the President seems to think, but he no longer seems to be under the illusion that Putin’s Russia is a potential friend.

Finally, this morning brought news that former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker—no Russia dove—has been appointed as the State Department’s Special Envoy for Ukraine. He will likely serve as the back channel interlocutor with whoever Russia offers up—a channel set up under Obama, and manned by Victoria Nuland and Vladislav Surkov. For a taste of Ambassador Volker’s opinions on the folly of the Minsk Agreements—a set of documents dear to the Kremlin—click on over to this 2015 essay of his.

None of this means that Vladimir Putin didn’t try to help Donald Trump in the campaign last year. But at a minimum, it means that Putin’s interference doesn’t appear to have given him a docile American President.

That’s how we’re looking at these negotiations, in any case. We suspect the Russians will pocket whatever sweeteners we give them out of the gate, and then continue to cause all the trouble they can, until they feel they have hit a real wall. That kind of meaningful push-back was never forthcoming from the Obama Administration. President Trump, in contrast, is poised to deliver.

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