“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,” observed US President Donald Trump, reacting to the intensive Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine over the weekend. In fact, the Kremlin leader seems pretty much unchanged, despite the urgings of the White House, merely continuing his policy of grinding war in Ukraine, in which aerial assaults have become an all-too-regular feature. The real question is whether Trump has changed, or at least if his attitude toward Putin has started to shift amid what looks like an increasingly futile US effort to forge peace in Ukraine, something Trump bragged he could do – let’s not forget – in short order. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, certainly thinks a mental corner has been turned, telling reporters in Vietnam that Trump’s latest rebuke of his Russian counterpart as “absolutely CRAZY” means the US president “realizes” that Putin has “lied” on the war in Ukraine, adding that he hopes Trump’s words will “translate into action.”
But the record suggests otherwise. This is the sixth time this term that Trump, who consistently says he has a strong relationship with Putin, has publicly expressed impatience or downright annoyance with the Kremlin boss. Back in March, Trump revealed he was “pissed off” with Putin for refusing to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. In April, Trump demanded “Vladimir STOP,” after a Russian missile strike on Kyiv left a dozen people dead. “Maybe he doesn’t really want to stop the war and is just tapping me along,” Trump mused later. The Trump scoldings have been routinely accompanied by expressions of personal disappointment and threats of possible retaliation, like secondary tariffs on “all oil coming out of Russia,” or unidentified “further sanctions.”
Asked again, after the latest rebuke of Putin, whether he would now consider putting more sanctions on Russia, Trump replied: “Absolutely.”
So far, there has been no real sign that Trump is prepared to use the substantial economic leverage at his disposal to force the Kremlin to rethink its hardline stance. Not so in the US Senate, where a cross-party bill has been introduced to make it more difficult for Russia to fund its war. The bill, now backed by 81 senators, not only proposes more direct sanctions on Russia, but also secondary sanctions, such as a massive 500% tariff on countries that buy Russian energy. But the measures, which would seriously impact an already fragile and oil-dependent Russian economy, are super-controversial as they would also punish China, India and the European Union, which are all still major Russian energy consumers. It is, of course, possible that Trump could now throw his weight behind the bill, or perhaps a watered-down version of it. But that would be a huge change in direction, given his consistent reluctance to confront and punish the Kremlin so far.
More likely, the latest upsurge in violence in Ukraine may further convince an already frustrated US president that he is simply unable to bring the warring parties together any time soon. And, amid all his anger and bluster about Putin, Trump may simply choose to walk away.
