Trump Will Be Tougher on Russia Than Many Expect
A closer reading of the history suggests the incoming Trump administration will pursue a harder line on Russia than some observers have feared.
As Donald Trump returns to the White House, deep anxieties persist over how the new administration will deal with the threat Russia poses to global security. These anxieties have been stoked by a combination of friendly overtures to Vladimir Putin during his first term, criticisms of European allies, and criticisms of U.S. policy toward the war in Ukraine. But a closer reading of the history of the first Trump administration and a closer look at the actions on the part of the new Trump cabinet suggests the incoming administration will pursue a harder line on Russia than some observers have feared.
Much of the worries stem from the contrast between the occasionally conciliatory language President Trump has used toward Putin and his inflammatory criticisms of American and European leaders and institutions. 2018 was particularly illustrative of this dynamic. That year, Trump congratulated Putin on his reelection and then claimed to trust the Russian leader’s word over that of the U.S. intelligence community regarding attempted interference in the 2016 election, all while launching months of rhetorical broadsides against then-German chancellor Angela Merkel.
But this is only part of the story. Trump, for all his apparent distrust of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessments toward Russia, still imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian entities for attempts to interfere in U.S. elections. He then further trusted intelligence community assessments to support U.S. European allies by punishing Russia for its attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Britain and withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty after Russia’s regular arms control violations. It is also worth noting that many of Trump’s less-than-diplomatic dealings with America’s European allies hid reasonable critiques of Europe’s own friendly dealings with global autocrats. Trump repeatedly berated Merkel over Germany’s conciliatory policy toward Russia represented by the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
For all his apparent coziness toward Putin, Trump imposed tougher sanctions on Russian officials, closed Russian consulates, and provided more military assistance to Ukraine than the Obama administration. The Trump administration even directed the “annihilation” of hundreds of Russian proxy forces in a battle in Syria in 2018, a feat Trump has privately expressed great pride in despite downplaying the battle in public.
Trump has employed a similar mix of exaggerated friendliness and menace toward other global strongmen as well. Trump’s relationship with Turkey’s president, Recep Erdogan, has been characterized by some as a “bromance”, but Trump still issued multiple public threats to “totally obliterate and destroy” the Turkish economy if Ankara launched military action against U.S. Kurdish allies, which weakened the Turkish lira. Trump’s relations with China’s Xi Jinping have been even more mercurial.
Whether Trump’s diplomatic approach toward allies and adversaries is wise is the subject of a separate debate, but the principles behind Trump’s often volatile foreign policy has consistently been a pragmatic evaluation of broader American national interests and as well as personal political considerations. The weight of these considerations suggest that a second Trump term in office will be tough for Russia.
The incoming special envoy for ending the war, retired General Keith Kellogg, recently postponed a trip to Kyiv to meet with the Zelenskyy government until after the official inauguration. Many concerned observers viewed this as a snub, a hint of an impending betrayal of the Ukrainian government. But shortly after the trip was canceled, Kellogg appeared on Fox News to set new expectations that it would take as many as 100-days to get an interim ceasefire, and reassure viewers that peace would not favor Russia.
The shift to a long-term strategy to end the war hints at a recognition of how politically disastrous the withdrawal from Afghanistan was for President Joe Biden. Trump will be especially eager to avoid a foreign policy disaster, as his larger domestic economic agenda depends on hard bargaining on trade. A deal to end the war which looks like an American capitulation to Russian interests will undermine the credibility of tariff threats and erode confidence in the U.S. leadership of the global financial system. This appears to be a special concern for Trump, who has threatened countries looking for alternatives to the U.S. dollar, particularly BRICS members with 100% tariffs, stating “There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.”
This hostility toward attempts to erode the underpinnings of America’s global leadership invariably pits Trump against Putin’s broader ambitions. Russia’s decision to openly align itself with China, North Korea, and Iran and to attack the validity of the American led international order will make it more difficult for the Trump administration to placate Russia without appearing to compromise American interests. A position made more difficult since vast majority of Americans still deeply distrust Russia and its leader.
The irreconcilable differences underlying Trump’s relationship with Putin have become more evident since Trump was sworn into office. On inauguration day Trump told reporters that he thought Putin was “destroying Russia” by not making a deal to end the war. A day later Trump remarked, “I think Russia is going to be in big trouble” and suggesting it would only get worse as the United States would be eyeing new sanctions. By Wednesday Trump was launching into all-caps tirades at Putin on Truth Social suggesting that America could either make Russia end the war the “easy way or the hard way.”
Trump has indicated that “the hard way” for Russia to get to the negotiating table will come from pressure on its energy exports. Kellogg has specifically named a target of $45 per barrel as a ceiling for Russia’s oil exports. The Trump administration will likely attempt to drive down the price of Russian exports to below this level through a combination of increasing domestic production, negotiating with Saudi Arabia to increase its own production, facilitating strikes on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure by weapons financed with their own frozen assets, and incentivizing countries to cut back their imports of Russian crude.
Putin, despite making some recent ingratiating remarks about Trump’s leadership and performance in the 2020 election, appears poised to test Trump’s resolve, signing a new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran, Trump’s bête noire, just day before the U.S. presidential inauguration.
About the author: Dan White
Dan White is a program associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute. Dan is responsible for managing Kennan Institute programs and policy outreach. Dan’s research focus includes U.S. foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine and geopolitics in Eurasia.
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