The meeting between Trump and Putin, which is expected in the coming weeks, could bring a turning point in the war in Ukraine, but also change the global order. As Washington and Moscow negotiate without European leaders present, the question is whether the US is abandoning its longtime allies in favor of closer cooperation with Russia.
Planned meeting Trampa and Putin on ending the war in Ukraine represents a major reversal in American foreign policy. It is a tectonic upheaval that will have a major impact on global politics, he writes Deutsche says.
If there is a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the end of the war in Ukraine, which is associated with high expectations, the tectonic shifts and the move away from the decades-old American foreign policy doctrine — the one that meant the United States as the defender of the global order based on values and principles, and Russia as the violator of those rules.
A re-examination of the long-standing US security alliance with former allies and like-minded people is now inevitable.
"People are not sure if the United States will stand by its allies and friends," says Kristina Berzina, director of Geostrategy North at Germany's Marshall Fund. "Russia has made it clear that it sees the United States as an adversary." She presented her war in Ukraine as a war against NATO. Despite this, Trump and his officials use very soft rhetoric or even encourage Russia, offering it unprecedented economic opportunities."
"Deeply offensive" to Europeans
The shift in US policy happened in just a few days, starting with a phone call between Trump and Putin on February 12, effectively ending US efforts to keep the Kremlin isolated internationally after the illegal invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
The telephone conversation was followed by a meeting of high-ranking delegations in Saudi Arabia led by the heads of Russian and American diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio, which is the first direct meeting since the beginning of the war. It was a meeting between the aggressor state and the state, which used to help Ukraine the most militarily, but without the presence of representatives of Ukraine and allies from Europe.
Kristina Berzina emphasized that holding the summit in Saudi Arabia, instead of in neutral countries like Switzerland, moved the discussion on European security outside the old continent.
"I think many Europeans are deeply offended by being ignored," Berzina believes. "It's one thing to be in a room and debate, it's quite another to not be invited at all."
Trump accuses Zelensky of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
After the summit, a war of words ensued between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump blamed Zelensky for the Russian invasion and called him "an unelected dictator", ignoring the fact that holding elections is difficult in a situation where many citizens are on the front line and cannot go to the polls, while the country itself is fighting for survival.
On the other hand, Zelensky stated that Trump "unfortunately lives in a bubble of disinformation", alluding to the similarity of Trump's statements with the Kremlin's propaganda narratives.
There are no indications that the meeting between Putin and Trump could make room for other leaders, which further underlines the deterioration of relations between the US on the one hand and Ukraine and Europe on the other. This situation, as pointed out by Pavel Bayev, a senior fellow at the Center for the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, should force Europe to find a way to take care of its own security.
"It all boils down to the fact that Europe must take greater responsibility for strengthening its security and that European security is actually a matter for the Europeans themselves." Much more effort should be put into it," says Bajev.
Uncertain outcome
The sudden change in US foreign policy has shocked US allies. However, Trump's mistrust of Ukraine and Europe, as well as his affection for Russia, although surprising, are not completely incomprehensible, according to Max Bergman, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
"There are many theories about why the new US administration is now cooperating with Russia - from Trump's business ties to Russian oligarchs and Russian money laundering, to Russian interference in the 2016 election and helping Trump, to Trump's simple preference for autocratic leaders like Putin," says Bergman. "But what is certain is that Trump has always been consistent in his affection for Russia and his disrespect for NATO."
Despite that affection, the first summit between Trump and Putin may not necessarily produce the results Trump wants.
"There is a very clear difference between the way Trump sees the war - as something senseless that needs to be ended as soon as possible - and the way Moscow sees it, as an existential conflict, in which the key interests of Russian security and survival are threatened," explains Bayev of the Brookings Institution. "That gap is very visible and I don't see any willingness by Moscow to change its strategic approach to the war in Ukraine."
A chance to undermine American power
Apart from the deal Trump is seeking with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, the US president may find that closer cooperation with Moscow brings limited strategic benefit to the US – if not outright harm.
"I don't know why we would want to empower our archenemy," says Bergman. "The US does not have any economic benefit from cooperation with Russia." Maybe something in terms of minerals, but when it comes to the prospects of importing oil and gas from Russia, which makes up half of the Russian economy, we are market competitors."
Allegedly, an actual agreement on Ukrainian raw materials is on the table. Zelensky rejected the initial proposal of the Trump administration, according to which Ukraine would have handed over rare metal deposits worth about 500 billion dollars to the United States as compensation for the aid provided after the outbreak of the war - further evidence of Trump's negotiating logic known as political "transactionalism" that does not recognize multilateral limits.
Bergman expects that Putin will use the opportunity provided by the Trump administration to further weaken American global power.
"I think that Russia would act quickly to cause chaos in the world, so that the US would not have the opportunity to re-establish order in the next four or five years, with a new administration," says Bergman. "It would be a very dangerous and unstable global environment in which the existing international order - based on not attacking other states - would be completely undermined."
Losing the trust of America's allies
If alliances are the key to America's global power, then weakening them would also weaken America's effectiveness on the world stage.
"If Trump seems to be selling out Europe, as some fear, what will he do with Japan?" Or with Taiwan", asks Kristine Berzina. "The US has had enormous global power thanks to its pull power, which has forced many allies to fight and die alongside the US in the Middle East." That power will disappear if America's allies no longer trust the United States."
Whether the meeting between Trump and Putin will mark a permanent loss of trust in the US is not yet clear, but it could become a historic moment in which the American leader finds more common ground with autocrats and their regimes in the world, leaving a leadership vacuum on the global stage, based on values.
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