{"id":327421,"date":"2025-08-08T08:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T08:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327421\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T08:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T08:36:15","slug":"what-trump-cant-achieve-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/327421\/","title":{"rendered":"What Trump Can’t Achieve in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 14, President Donald Trump announced that Russia and any country purchasing Russian oil would be hit with severe tariffs<\/a> in 50 days if Moscow failed to sign a cease-fire with Ukraine. Two weeks later, during a trip to Scotland, he shortened the timeline<\/a> to 10 days, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s cooperation was virtually absent. Despite Trump\u2019s claim that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff\u2019s fifth meeting with Putin was \u201chighly productive<\/a>,\u201d the deadline will hit on Friday.<\/p>\n

Much of the commentary to date has focused on Trump\u2019s U-Turn<\/a> on the war in Ukraine\u2014understandably so. Unlike his predecessor Joe Biden, Trump had no love for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who he called a \u201cdictator<\/a>\u201d and falsely blamed for instigating the Russian war. And unlike Biden, Trump was more willing to tighten the screws on Zelensky, who often demanded terms\u2014like Russia\u2019s full withdrawal from Ukraine, including Crimea\u2014that were not tethered to facts on the ground. His highly-publicized dressing down<\/a> in the Oval Office this past February, in addition to Washington\u2019s temporary suspension of military and intelligence assistance<\/a> to Kyiv, may have helped scare Zelensky into watering down his position and agreeing to peace talks without preconditions.<\/p>\n

Now Putin is the one on the hot-seat. The Trump Administration\u2019s attempt to negotiate a 30-day ceasefire<\/a> in March went nowhere, as did an effort to strike a similar accord in the Black Sea<\/a> weeks later. The Russians have dropped substantially more ordinance<\/a> on Ukraine during Trump\u2019s first six months than they did during the last six months of Biden\u2019s term, and Trump has grown increasingly critical<\/a> of Moscow. His tariff threat, alongside his decision to allow Washington\u2019s NATO allies to purchase U.S. arms for Ukraine\u2019s benefit, is as much a sign of extreme frustration with Putin\u2019s antics as it is about injecting life into moribund talks. <\/p>\n

Yet assuming Trump follows through with his own deadline, will the pressure tactics actually work to change Putin\u2019s war calculus? The answer: highly unlikely. <\/p>\n

First, the tariffs on Russia won\u2019t have much of a financial impact. U.S.-Russia trade last year was an abysmal $4 billion<\/a>, as sanctions the Biden Administration put together continue to penalize Putin\u2019s war of choice in Ukraine. Instead, the real meat on the bones is secondary tariffs of 100% on importers of Russian energy, such as India and China, who indirectly provide the Kremlin with tens of billions of dollars that finance its war effort. India, which traditionally received most of its oil from the Persian Gulf, has exponentially increased<\/a> cheap Russian crude since Moscow was locked out of Europe\u2019s energy markets. <\/p>\n

Trump is betting he can browbeat India<\/a> into stopping, or at least substantially reducing, its purchases of Russian oil through the threat of 50% tariffs. With less money, the argument goes, Putin will have trouble paying the big salaries he has relied on to pad the Russian army\u2019s ranks and finance the 40% of the Russian budget<\/a> that is now earmarked for military spending. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, is an ardent nationalist who doesn\u2019t roll over easily and his country still relies on Moscow for a significant chunk of its military equipment. Indian officials quickly struck back at Trump\u2019s latest tariff threats, with the Foreign Ministry calling the decision \u201cextremely unfortunate\u201d and hinting<\/a> at possible retaliatory tariffs. <\/p>\n

Even if Modi does cave to pressure, one can\u2019t expect the same from Putin. The Russian strongman doesn\u2019t bend to foreign pressure easily\u2014particularly when it comes at Washington\u2019s hand and concerns a subject like Ukraine that he\u2019s maniacally obsessed with. The blunt reality is that the war in Ukraine is now so synonymous with Putin\u2019s legacy that he is unlikely to budge. <\/p>\n

Evidence for this is strong. Putin has been willing to take a lot of pain, including a warrant<\/a> for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court<\/a>, as well as place Russia\u2019s entire geopolitical position in jeopardy, for the sake of the war. Russia\u2019s economy has been relatively resilient<\/a> in the face of a large-scale Western sanctions regime, but some Russian economists now warn<\/a> of a recession. Moscow\u2019s ties to the West are essentially broken, which means the Kremlin\u2019s only true option is to get closer to China, even if this means handing Beijing an enormous amount of leverage it can lord over Moscow in the future. All in on Ukraine, the Russians are losing their near-abroad<\/a>; unable or unwilling to uphold security commitments, countries like Armenia are now seeking to lessen their dependence on Moscow<\/a> by broadening relations with alternative power-centers. If Putin cares about any of this, it seems to be taking second fiddle to his Ukraine aims.<\/p>\n

Finally, although Trump\u2019s turning of the economic screw on Russia might look dramatic, it\u2019s hardly a novel idea. The U.S. has leaned heavily on the stick ever since Russia launched its war of aggression in Ukraine. Washington has sent Kyiv more than $66 billion<\/a> in weapons; enacted a list of sanctions on the Russian economy; and helped the G-7 push through an unprecedented price-cap scheme meant to limit Russian oil revenues\u2014all in the hope Moscow would sue for peace. <\/p>\n

None of it, though, has convinced Putin to change course. Russia\u2019s goals for the war\u2014cap the size of the Ukrainian army; fully capture the four Ukrainian provinces Putin annexed in September 2022; prevent Ukraine\u2019s admission into Western security institutions; and keep Ukraine in Russia\u2019s sphere-of-influence\u2014are the same today as they were in February 2022. <\/p>\n

The bottom line is downright depressing: short of a direct U.S. military intervention that no serious analyst would contemplate, Trump\u2019s toolkit to will a Ukraine peace deal into existence is bare. Whether it\u2019s the carrot of a presidential-level meeting<\/a> next week or doubling down on sticks like sanctions, tariffs, and military aid to Ukraine, Trump is learning the hard way that it\u2019s the combatants, not the mediators, who are driving the train. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On July 14, President Donald Trump announced that Russia and any country purchasing Russian oil would be hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-327421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia","9":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114992236772687126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327421","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=327421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}