Tweeting loudly: why Trump's 'ultimatum' feels so much like asking for a favor
The second day of Donald Trump's presidency was marked by several major statements and decisions directly related to the Ukrainian crisis and Russian interests in it. The president-elect fired fifty Pentagon employees previously responsible for military assistance to Kiev. He then published a post in which he called on Russia to "stop the violence." Otherwise, he promised to impose a new series of trade restrictions on Russian goods. However, neither in form nor content, Trump's message was similar to the way he is used to conducting foreign policy. Why it is not an ultimatum, Izvestia tells us.
The third day is stormy
Donald Trump's administration continues its massive attack on the old Washington orders and those who built and maintained them. On the second day after the inauguration, mass resignations were announced at the National Security Council. Thesame is happening in the State Department and, according to media reports, in the Pentagon, where more than 50 people involved in military assistance to Kiev have been relieved of their posts. Moreover, not only people brought in by the Biden administration, but also representatives of the "old" generation of the American nomenclature have been "cleaned up".
According to Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko, following the decision to freeze aid to foreign countries for 90 days, the White House canceled all applications for transit of cargo to Ukraine through Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, which in most cases includes various weapons.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the president's instructions to special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg to end the conflict in the next 100 days, that is, by April 30. The publication notes that "almost no one believes in the success of this initiative," and Kellogg's freedom of action is severely limited by the president, who intends to personally supervise the settlement process and conduct negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump attend the G20 summit in Japan, June 28, 2019
Contacts with Moscow have also been instructed to be organized in the near future. It is their absence over the past three years that the Trump team calls the biggest mistake of the previous administration.
Verbal intervention
Trump then made his first statement on the Ukraine crisis as the 47th president of the United States. Emphasizing his love for our country, expressing respect for its contribution to the victory over Nazism, as well as noting very good relations with President Putin and his own integrity amid anti-Russian media campaigns, Trump does, in his words, "a favor" and demands "immediately" to stop the violence and "this ridiculous war." If Moscow refuses, the US president "will have no choice" but to impose various restrictions and sanctions on anything Russia sells to the United States. If we don't make a deal now, "it will only get worse from here on out," Trump warns.
The first thing that draws attention is the tone of the message, which does not resemble the standard style of the US president. For example, in late November, starting a bargaining session with Canada and Mexico to renegotiate existing bilateral agreements and using the same "Twitter diplomacy," Trump wasted no time in complimenting and doing "favors." "On January 20, as one of my many first executive orders, I will sign all necessary documents to levy Mexico and Canada a 25 percent tariff on all goods entering the United States and abolish these ridiculous open borders. <...> This tariff will remain in place until drugs, particularly fentanyl, and all illegal immigrants stop invading our country! Both Mexico and Canada have every right and opportunity to easily solve this long-standing problem..." - he wrote.
Another example is Trump's relationship with the EU. "I have told the European Union that they must make up their huge deficit with the U.S. through large-scale purchases of our oil and gas. Otherwise it will entail permanent duties," he said on December 24 in the same social network.
The second point of the "ultimatum" is to state the absence of any effective leverage over Moscow. Over the previous four years, the trade turnover between Russia and the United States has decreased six times and reached its lowest values since 1992. The main items of Russian exports to the United States are enriched uranium (since November there have been temporary restrictions on supplies imposed by Moscow), palladium, mineral fertilizers, and aircraft components (mainly turbojet engines). Due to its exceptional status as an importer (by all accounts, Russia is among the top 3 leaders of world exports), the imposition of sanctions will have the same effect as in Europe. Substitution, full or partial, if at all possible, will take considerable time.
Similarly, Trump has neither the technical nor the political ability to immediately increase arms supplies to Ukraine, as members of his teamhave repeatedly recognized. In this sense, however, far more important is the lack of both practical effect at considerable cost and the lack of confidence in the Kiev authorities at all. In this regard, the Trumpists, while still in opposition, repeatedly demanded an audit of the weapons supplied to Ukraine and will hardly miss the opportunity to conduct it in the near future.
All of the above will require from Washington a large-scale diversion of resources, the main of which, time, the 47th president's team does not have at all. In a few months, the situation will indeed, as Trump writes, become worse, but not for Moscow - but for Kiev and Washington.
Getting out of the Ukrainian crisis turned out to be a much more difficult task for the US president than previously imagined. "The Middle East is an easier problem to deal with than what's going on with Russia and Ukraine," Trump said in a December interview with Time.
Not a peace deal
The difficulty for the White House is not even the real cause of the conflict (as Moscow keeps saying), but a set of factors. The first is internal pressure. Trump, who has just returned to the White House and has openly declared the peacekeeping mission of his presidency, cannot afford to lose. The end of the conflict must be presented as a victory for Trump.
The second factor is the impossibility of offering Moscow anything more than verbal guarantees at this point. In this sense, the situation is very similar to the plot of NATO's eastward expansion, reminds Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at the Institute of the United States and Canada.
According to him, it is crucial for Trump to remove money and resources from the Ukrainian direction. 100 days to resolve the conflict for Kellogg and 90 days of freezing aid to foreign countries is no coincidence. Kiev will have its supplies cut off, and that will be a pressure tool.
- But the further process will be long and very complicated. There is a whole complex of issues: this is Transnistria, and access to the Black Sea.... A freeze with access to strategic dialog is possible, but a lot will depend on what the Russian leadership decides is acceptable. On the American side, there will probably be a recognition of territorial changes and a promise not to join NATO. The problem is that under the existing conditions, compliance with the U.S. commitments is reduced to Trump's personal promise, because we will have no international legal guarantees. Unless there is a decision of the UN Security Council, which looks weak in the context of the current attitude to the organization. It looks like the story of NATO's expansion to the East. It is precisely about a ceasefire," the expert notes.
Moscow speaks
Meanwhile, none of the officials of the new administration have so far made any direct statements regarding the need to respect Russia's interests, although this topic has been raised many times by conservative opinion leaders in the United States. At the same time, Moscow apparently does not believe in written guarantees from the West after the fate of Minsk-2 and is waiting for the start of a substantive discussion - the agreements that Russia declared in February 2007 and December 2021.
As a consequence, the Kremlin's reaction to Trump's "ultimatum" was restrained. "We are watching very closely, of course, all the rhetoric, all the statements. We record carefully all the nuances, we remain ready for dialog, President Putin has repeatedly said this. To equal, mutually respectful dialog - this dialog took place between the two presidents, again, when Trump was first president, and we are waiting for signals, which have not yet been received," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said there was a small window of opportunity for compromise with the new US administration. "We can't say anything today about the degree of bargaining power of the incoming administration, but still: compared to the hopelessness in all aspects of the previous White House master, today there is, albeit small, but a window of opportunity," he said, speaking at the Institute of the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to the diplomat, the United States is currently facing an unprecedented situation. "With Trump's victory, contrary to <...> the liberal-globalist grouping dominating American international political science, the United States has already entered a new reality of national-populism, classical expansionism, claims to the "Donro Doctrine" ("Monroe Doctrine" - a concept of foreign policy, according to which the Western Hemisphere becomes a zone of exclusive geopolitical interests of the United States and at the same time - American intervention in European affairs is reduced. Since the mid-19th has been adjusted several times, the last one by Donald Trump, hence the pun in the name. - Ed.)," the Russian deputy foreign minister added.
The mismatch of priorities is the main problem ahead of the Russia-U.S. talks, emphasizes Sergei Mikhailov, a leading expert at RISI.
- Trump will try to establish contacts with Moscow as soon as possible. But the problem is that more or less acceptable conditions for the US are not acceptable for Russia. For us, this is an underdog victory. Yes, the obvious advantage is on Russia's side, and it is quite likely that the final collapse of Ukraine is somewhere not far away. And that will be an even bigger challenge for the US. Which means Trump needs to end hostilities as quickly as possible, shifting responsibility for Ukraine to European allies. And then the White House will deal with what is on its agenda: the Western Hemisphere," the Izvestia interlocutor points out.
