The politics of Twitter amateurism: Trump's team suffers a crushing defeat in negotiations with the Kremlin, passing it off as a success
After winning the election, Trump’s circle developed two views on the strategy of negotiations with Putin. However, Keith Kellogg, who advocated a longer process and a search for tools to put pressure on Russia, has been completely pushed away from contacts with the Kremlin in the last week. Supporters of a rapid negotiation blitz without the participation of Europe and Ukraine gained the upper hand. While the latter, insisting on effective measures to contain Moscow, have become the main targets of political attacks by the Trump team.
The strategy of tough negotiations, which Trump is considered to be an adherent of, involves putting forward a significant threat and making a tempting offer against it. However, in fact, in Riyadh, Trump's negotiators moved to the second stage, without succeeding in the first. As a result, they were forced to put on the table a set of concessions on almost all points of Putin's ultimatum, without receiving a single public promise in return.
Trump, who is considered a strong negotiator, actually has a long trail of failures, the most striking of which are the deal with the Taliban, which ended in the collapse of the United States in Afghanistan, and the negotiations with Kim Jong-un on the nuclear program that ended in complete failure. Trump's new blitz is similar to both the Korean and Afghan scenarios at the same time.
Having received nothing from Moscow, the Trump administration has already managed to quarrel with Europe and attack President Zelensky. Moreover, the US strategy, which had remained unchanged for 80 years, was actually revised, based on the principles of bipartisan consensus in foreign policy and the indivisibility of Euro-Atlantic security. Representatives of the new team, on the contrary, put party and ideological considerations to the fore, attacking instead of geopolitical rivals, internal political opponents in America and Europe.
Even if Trump's goal is to shift the focus of political containment to China, lost trust in the United States in Europe will affect alliance opportunities in Asia. And the Trump team’s hopes of driving a wedge between Russia and China look amateurish and unrealistic in the context of Russia’s real trade dependence on China. For these hopes to become at least somewhat realistic, about 30% of Russian trade needs to be redirected towards Europe.
As a result, Trump and his team operate with fictitious threats, projects and figures that brought and continue to bring them popularity on social networks, but do not make any impression on Moscow and Beijing. Even if ensuring the independence of Ukraine and protecting Europe are not the goals of the Trump team, nothing so far indicates that this team will be able to achieve its goals, but the fact that as a result of its actions, Putin succeeded in this will become a fact recorded and learned by the world.
Kellog or Flash?
After Donald Trump finally took office as president, his team discovered that his campaign promise to stop the conflict in Ukraine in a day could not be fulfilled. On the contrary, to reach a “strong” deal with Putin, it was necessary to demonstrate the new administration’s ability to increase pressure on the Kremlin and exploit its weaknesses, which have become even more visible after the outgoing Biden administration introduced the latest round of sanctions.
The representative of this point of view in the new administration was Keith Kellogg, who was appointed special envoy for Ukraine and Russia and stated that ending the conflict would take more time - about six months - and additional pressure on Moscow. Several attempts by the Trump team to threaten the Kremlin with sending American soldiers and a huge number of missiles to Ukraine, concluding a mineral deal with it, or restricting Russian oil exports had no effect because they were difficult or impossible to implement in practical terms. Any realistic threat to Moscow required resources and time (Re: Russia: The time of transactionism).
It is characteristic that in recent weeks Kellogg has been completely removed from the Trump team’s contacts with the Kremlin. He did not participate in Trump’s emissary’s blitz visits to Moscow and the negotiations in Riyadh, and even found himself in the background in Washington’s contacts with European leaders. The overall strategy of the Trump administration has also changed: in the last week, its attacks have been directed not at the Kremlin at all, but at President Zelensky and Ukraine’s European allies. That is, on those who insisted on security guarantees and effective measures to contain Russia as a mandatory part of the deal. Vice President Vance made it clear in an insulting manner at the forum in Munich that the United States does not intend to take into account the position and interests of Europe in negotiations with the Kremlin and does not consider it as a strategic partner. And to President Zelensky, who said that Ukraine would not agree to a deal concluded without its participation, Trump responded with accusations that he himself was to blame for Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
Following the talks in Riyadh, Trump representatives had little to say about their logic or results, but they insisted that President Trump intended to act quickly. Mike Waltz, in particular, told Reuters about this. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with the same agency, tried to correct it somewhat, noting that the meeting was the first step on a long and difficult path, the ultimate goal of which is a just and lasting end to the war. However, there is reason to believe that, as in the case of Kellogg, the ideologists of the blitz will be closer to Trump than the supporters of longer and more balanced strategies.
Second phase instead of first
Tough negotiation strategies, of which President Trump is considered a fan, involve two phases - a “significant threat” and a “profitable offer” made against its background. In this case, the first part turned out to be a bluff and that is exactly how it was perceived in Moscow. However, President Trump did not retreat from the blitz strategy. In fact, the Trump administration has moved to the second phase of a “hard bargaining strategy” (a winning offer) without achieving any progress in the first phase (a significant threat).
The fan of concessions laid out by the Trump team to Putin is impressive and lengthens every day. Even before the negotiations began, President Trump effectively justified Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, declared the need for Ukraine to abandon its claims to the return of territories seized by Russia, and categorically rejected the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO. De facto, he agreed with Putin’s concept, according to which the fate of Ukraine should be decided by the “great powers” without the participation of both Ukraine itself and the “non-independent” Europe. (And, apparently, with Moscow’s formal demand that neither Europeans, nor Ukrainians, nor Special Envoy Kellogg should participate in the negotiations.) And finally, apparently, he accepted Putin’s demand to hold elections in Ukraine before the agreement is signed, the purpose of which will be to replace Zelensky as president.
In fact, in Riyadh there was a complete diplomatic rehabilitation of the Kremlin and the recognition of the claims against it by Europe and the previous American administration as insignificant. And Moscow was promised not only the lifting of sanctions, but even American investment in the oil industry and the development of Arctic fields.
The Trump team is fulfilling Putin’s “ultimatum” point by point, and the list of possible concessions and “carrots” is almost exhausted. However, there was not a single public statement from Moscow about any reciprocal steps. In addition, already during the negotiations in the capital of Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin made it clear that it would categorically not tolerate any foreign troops in Ukraine. At the same time, a final agreement on the meeting between Trump and Putin was not reached, and Vladimir Putin made it clear that this meeting would require additional preparation and it was too early to talk about its timing, perhaps six months. At the same time, the Western intelligence alliance issued a warning that, according to their data, the Kremlin has not changed its original strategic goals, which envisage the complete subjugation of Ukraine, and views the negotiation process as a beneficial pause to further strengthen its position.
Parade of amateurs
Trump has gained a reputation as a strong negotiator. And it seems that Trump himself is most confident in this. He does have one successful deal to his credit - an agreement between Israel and a number of Arab states (the so-called Abraham Accords), which, however, still remains unfinished and unrealized. At the same time, the list of Trump’s negotiating failures is much longer, orientalist Mikhail Korostikov writes in a Carnegie Politika material. The most striking of them were, firstly, negotiations with the Taliban behind the backs of the US military and the pro-US government of Afghanistan, which led to the flight of US forces from the country at the beginning of the Biden presidency. And secondly, negotiations with Kim Jong-un regarding the North Korean nuclear program.
Trump’s strategy in relations with North Korea and its failure are most reminiscent of the trajectory of today’s blitz with Moscow, Korostikov notes. Then Trump first attacked Pyongyang with verbal threats, and then believed in vague promises from the North Korean leadership to make concessions, trying to seduce Kim Jong-un with courtesies and bilateral summits. Having reaped political dividends from his meetings with Trump and the cascade of pleasantries, the Korean dictator continued nuclear testing and expanding his nuclear program. Trump is ready to boldly take on seemingly intractable conflicts, but his enthusiasm has a downside - a reluctance to dive deeply into details and a quick loss of interest in the problem if it cannot be solved quickly, writes Korostikov. And his Kremlin blitz dangerously resembles both the Korean and Afghan scenarios at the same time.
Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration, described the talks in Riyadh as an "hour of amateurism" for the US national security apparatus, speaking to Reuters. Moscow was represented at the meeting by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, two veterans who have been in their current positions for a combined 34 years, while on the other side of the table sat Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who have been in their jobs for less than a month. The American team has virtually no experience in conducting international negotiations at a high level, no regional expertise on Ukraine and Russia, simply no relevant knowledge, echoes Bruen Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale University and an expert on Russia and Ukraine, on his page in X.
Russia won a complete victory in the first round, the Kremlin achieved normalization of bilateral diplomatic relations excluding Ukraine and NATO, and did not sacrifice anything to achieve it, Democrat Jake Auchincloss, who co-chairs the Ukrainian caucus of the House of Representatives, told Reuters.
Domestic policy instead of foreign policy
Moscow publicly expressed satisfaction with the results of the negotiations in Saudi Arabia. First, this was done by their participants - Lavrov and Ushakov - and then by Putin personally. However, analysts close to the Kremlin express restraint following the results of the first round, which obviously reflects Moscow’s hopes for a continuation of the cascade of concessions (Trump, who has already laid out all his cards and quarreled with his allies, needs the result of the negotiations much more than the Kremlin). At the same time, the ideologist of Eurasian anti-Western fundamentalism, Alexander Dugin, in an interview with the propaganda Radio Sputnik, stated: “The radical novelty of the ideological position of the modern United States opens up enormous opportunities for our dialogue... This ideology surprisingly coincides with ours, so completely new ideological conditions have been created for the meeting between Putin and Trump.”
He got this impression from Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich, which actually became a declaration by the Trump team about revising the fundamental principles of American foreign policy. Over the past 80 years, this policy has been based on the Euro-Atlantic alliance and bipartisan consensus on fundamental foreign policy goals, in particular on the issue of indivisible Euro-Atlantic security.
Vance's speech and the actions of the American administration overturn this doctrine. The Trump team made it clear that, firstly, it abdicates responsibility for the security of its allies and, secondly, that it does not want to deal with the current leadership of the EU, but would welcome the coming to power in Europe of far-right forces ideologically close to it. This was clearly indicated by Vance’s demarche, who refused to meet with German Chancellor Scholz on the sidelines of the Munich forum and met with the leader of the right-wing AfD, who intends to strengthen its positions in the upcoming elections. In other words, the Vice President of the United States acted not as a representative of the United States, but as a representative of a certain party group, giving preference to party interests over national interests, that is, the interests of all Americans - both those who voted for Trump and those who did not vote.
Trump’s comments also look like a revision of fundamental principles, placing responsibility for the war on his ideological opponents and respectfully defending the “right of the aggressor” in the person of President Putin, according to The New York Times. “This is a shameful reversal of 80 years of American foreign policy. Now we legitimize aggression to create spheres of influence,” says Corey Schake, a former aide to radical Republican President George W. Bush. He recalls that the American government did not recognize the Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries for forty-five years.
At the next election, American voters will make their choice again, and a politician of one or another persuasion may become president. However, the unique political role of the United States in the world was determined, in part, by the fact that the map of America's foreign policy priorities did not change every four years, and allied relations for decades strengthened their basis on the basis of long-term trust.
Chinese perspective
The new American administration's abandonment of alliances with Europe is part of a strategy to shift the main focus of American foreign policy to containing China. This popular view of Trump's strategy is echoed in today's commentary by The Economist. The United States does not have the strength to demonstrate sufficient military power on both fronts at this time, so the burden of the conflict in Europe should be placed on the Europeans themselves. There are certainly rational grounds for this position and the demand for Europe to dramatically increase its military spending and capabilities. At the same time, military experts and American generals, who gathered at the defense forum in Honolulu on the same days, were divided in opinion, The Economist notes. Some argue that the actual military balance requires the US to concentrate on the Pacific theater, others say that “containment can only be indivisible” and if America loses its credibility as an ally in Europe, this will affect its credibility in Asia equally. The Biden administration has been actively working to strengthen the Asian bloc of allies, but has given no reason to believe that the next president could erase all previous commitments with one stroke. The course of action of Trump and his team is also strikingly different from the policies of Russia and China, which are only strengthening their alliance against the backdrop of discord in the Euro-Atlantic bloc.
However, the emphatically respectful attitude towards Putin, large-scale concessions and broad promises are explained by commentators favorably disposed towards Trump’s foreign policy innovations precisely by his intention to break the alliance between Moscow and Beijing. This is how they interpret Secretary Rubio's talk of “identifying extraordinary opportunities” in Russia-US relations “on geopolitical issues of common interest” and “on unique, potentially historic, economic partnerships.”
However, these statements are imbued with the same amateurism as other elements of Trump’s strategy, given the degree of actual dependence on China in which today’s Russia finds itself. In 2024, China accounted for 31% of all Russian exports (129.3 out of 417.2 billion dollars, according to the Russian Central Bank and Chinese customs) and 39% of Russian imports (115.5 out of 294.5 billion dollars), that is, 35% of all foreign trade turnover. Changing this state of affairs will require enormous effort and time. At the same time, the United States has virtually no leverage in this process. US-Russian economic ties have never been significant—in 2021, the US accounted for just over 4% of Russian trade turnover. While Russia’s main trading partner before the start of the war was Europe: the EU accounted for 36% of Russian trade turnover in 2021 (according to Eurostat - 247.8 billion euros). It was these volumes that were mainly reoriented towards China (and India in terms of exports), while trade turnover with Europe decreased to 67.5 billion euros.
How can the Europeans be persuaded today to retake these trade flows when, in the previous three years, in close cooperation with the previous American administration, they made enormous efforts to abandon them? And what will be the position of the new US President or even Trump himself on this issue in three years?
At the same time, like the talk of a global deal on Ukrainian subsoil two weeks earlier, the current promises of unique economic partnerships, which probably mean developments in the Arctic, are more suitable for tweets on the X network or Truth Social, but can hardly be considered as any serious proposal. As a matter of fact, the same can be said about most of the proposals and threats emanating from the new administration - they are designed for an informational effect, which they should have on supporters of Trump and his “brutal” political manner in America and around the world, but are practically not implemented in practice, which is well understood in Moscow and Beijing. After all, the myths and fake numbers about the extent of U.S. support for Ukraine or the level of support for Zelensky that Trump and his staff are operating on were concocted by Russian and Chinese information sabotage units, and they will have no difficulty dealing with an administration that relies on them to promote its ideas.
Even if ensuring the independence of Ukraine and protecting Europe from the threat created by Putin are not the goals of the Trump team, nothing so far indicates that this team will be able to achieve its goals, but the fact that Putin succeeded in this as a result of the team’s actions will become a fact recorded and internalized by the world.
