Earlier this month, President Trump read Russian President Vladimir Putin the riot act: sign a peace deal ending the 41 month-long war in Ukraine or prepare to watch your biggest customers, like China and India, decrease their purchase of Russian oil and gas to avoid U.S. tariffs of 100 percent. In the meantime, Trump continued, the United States would be selling everything from munitions to Patriot missile defense systems to its NATO allies, who in turn will re-route this equipment to the Ukrainian army. Trump’s decision was greeted almost universally as a step in the right direction.
A lot of ink has been spilled in the days since on Trump’s supposed transformation from Putin sympathizer to Putin hater. But this is a sideshow to the main event: will Trump’s tougher line actually help him achieve an end to the war? History gives us an answer, and unfortunately, it’s not the one the Trump administration is looking for.
After months in which Washington attempted to entice Moscow into a diplomatic process, Trump has concluded that sticks are just as important as carrots in moving Putin towards an acceptable endgame. Indeed, as much as he panned Joe Biden’s strategy toward the war, Trump is now as close as he has ever been in executing it. The assumptions now guiding Trump’s strategy on the conflict are nearly identical to Biden’s: with the right combination of U.S. sanctions and military aid, the Russians will grow tired of fighting and agree to negotiate a way out.
Yet this assumption has been tested over the last three and a half years, and the conclusion is clear: the war in Ukraine is of such importance to Putin that he’s more likely to double down than talk under duress.
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