{"id":117655,"date":"2025-05-20T17:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/117655\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:49:10","slug":"what-trumps-phone-call-with-putin-reveals-about-his-view-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/117655\/","title":{"rendered":"What Trump\u2019s phone call with Putin reveals about his view of the world."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked Monday for more than two hours<\/a> but made not an inch of progress toward ending the Russia\u2013Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

No one who\u2019s been following the brutal conflict, now in its fourth year, could have been surprised by the impasse\u2014except, perhaps, for Trump, who said afterward that he believes Putin wants peace<\/a>. But judging from both leaders\u2019 summaries of the call, it seems Trump doesn\u2019t really believe this or care about Putin\u2019s motives. He wants the war to end quickly only so that the U.S. and Russia can resume good relations\u2014and if this means Ukraine\u2019s surrender, so be it.<\/p>\n

Trump hailed the \u201ctone and spirit\u201d of their conversation as \u201cexcellent<\/a>.\u201d Putin, in a formal statement, deemed the talk \u201cfrank and useful<\/a>.\u201d But upon close inspection, it\u2019s clear neither man was talking about prospects for peace.<\/p>\n

Every now and then<\/a> in recent weeks, Trump has called for an \u201cimmediate ceasefire.\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky endorsed the idea. Putin never has. Earlier on Monday, several European leaders<\/a> urged Trump to renew the demand during his conversation with Putin. Trump, who not long ago even threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia if Putin didn\u2019t go along with a truce, ignored their plea.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Fred Kaplan
\n Trump\u2019s Attempts to Increase American Power Are Backfiring
\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

For his part, Putin continued to insist that prior to a ceasefire, the two combatants must address the war\u2019s \u201croot causes<\/a>\u201d\u2014which, in Putin\u2019s mind<\/a> (and public words), amount to the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state with its own language, culture, and aspirations to align with Europe. To Zelensky, and to most of Europe\u2019s leaders, this would amount, plain and simple, to surrender.<\/p>\n

Trump didn\u2019t challenge Putin on this point. He also told reporters that he would not impose sanctions<\/a> or any other punishment on Russia, regardless of Putin\u2019s actions. Finally, he said that Russia and Ukraine would have to hold negotiations on their own<\/a>\u2014a reversal of his statement, just a few days earlier<\/a>, that only direct talks between him and Putin could end the war. Now, he said, if Putin refuses to hold talks with Zelensky, \u201cI just back away, and they\u2019re going to have to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notice the clear tilt. Trump is acknowledging that Putin, not Zelensky, is the one resisting a ceasefire\u2014yet if Russia stays on that course, the U.S. won\u2019t step up its support for Ukraine; instead, Trump will simply pull out. Trump has said (and some analysts agree, though others do not) that without firm U.S. support, Russia will win the war. That seems fine with the American president.<\/p>\n

It is noteworthy, even eyebrow-raising, that the day before the much-anticipated phone call, Russia slammed Ukraine with one of the largest drone attacks since the war began<\/a>\u2014yet Trump didn\u2019t so much as mention it in their talk, or if he did, he didn\u2019t consider it worth mentioning in his recounting of the call.<\/p>\n

This part of the conversation could have been wrapped up in 10 minutes. What did the two leaders talk about for more than two hours? Mainly, it seems, about trade\u2014or as Trump put it in his social-media post, \u201cTRADE<\/a>.\u201d As he elaborated:<\/p>\n

\n

Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic \u201cbloodbath\u201d is over, and I agree. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He went on to say that Ukraine too \u201ccan be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country\u201d\u2014but only in one sentence and no words in ALL CAPS.<\/p>\n

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    To the extent a coherent foreign policy is emerging in Trump\u2019s second term as president, it is centered around three goals. The first is trade, at least to the extent that it enriches the United States and Trump himself (see the tariffs and his recent trip to the oil-rich countries of the Middle East). The second is the promotion of \u201cgreat-power politics,\u201d narrowly defined as an exclusive focus on transactional relations with other \u201cgreat powers.\u201d The third is peace at any price in order to promote the first two.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s nothing here about democratic values, securing alliances, curbing poverty, wiping out diseases, or any other aspects of \u201csoft power\u201d (which bolsters U.S. interests much more than he realizes).<\/p>\n

    In this view of the world, the defense of Ukraine is a sideshow at best. If it gets in the way of what Trump sees as his larger interests, it\u2019s a hindrance. This explains, to a great extent, Trump\u2019s repeated concessions to Putin\u2019s demands\u2014and clarifies the immense challenges facing not only Ukraine and Europe but also America\u2019s position in the world as we\u2019ve known it since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[32,332,17966,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-117655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-slate-plus","11":"tag-ukraine","12":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114541426339582799","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}