Why Trump hands Putin victories

From the Atlantic / Yahoo!News:

"Trump Hands Putin Another Victory

Jonathan Lemire, May 22, 2025

For years, President Donald Trump has bragged that he, and only he, could bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. “I’ll have that done in 24 hours,” he said repeatedly during his most recent presidential campaign. Once back in the White House, he told advisers to plan for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hope of creating a made-for-TV spectacle during which he could formally announce a resolution to the war, two administration officials and an outside adviser told me.

But plans are now shifting, those officials said. (I agreed not to name them so that they could discuss internal deliberations.) Trump still wants to establish closer ties with Putin, and the White House will likely revisit the possibility of a meeting before long. But officials now expect that any such summit won’t involve negotiations to end the fighting.

After months of pushing for a cease-fire deal, the United States is preparing to take a step back from peace talks... Europe is on its own. And Russia has been handed a win, at least temporarily escaping consequences from the United States while it continues to pursue its aggression.

“I think something’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, seemingly still hoping for an agreement. But, he added, “if it doesn’t, I just back away, and they’re going to have to keep going. This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.”

Perhaps this outcome was inevitable. Trump has long been deferential to Putin, skeptical of Europe, and steadfast in his belief that American foreign policy should prioritize business and trade. He has frequently affirmed Russia’s narrative about the war—that Ukraine provoked the conflict—and repeatedly demanded Ukrainian concessions for peace while asking little of Putin. His flashes of frustration with his Russian counterpart have been rare and brief. A few weeks ago, after meeting with Zelensky at Pope Francis’s funeral, Trump threatened new sanctions on Russia; as he put it then, Putin’s decision to ignore U.S. calls for a 30-day cease-fire revealed that he might not “want to stop the war” and “has to be dealt with differently.” But to this point, no new sanctions have been levied...

 

Trump, by not insisting that Russia accept America’s 30-day cease-fire proposal, was giving Putin just what he wanted: permission for negotiations to move ahead more slowly. The sluggish pace will allow Russia to continue to inflict damage on Ukraine and win more territory, potentially strengthening Moscow’s position for future negotiations...

 

According to the Kremlin’s readout of Putin’s call with Trump, the Russian leader touted to Trump the possibility of significant American-Russian business deals. Trump seemed enthusiastic in his Truth Social post. “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED,” he wrote. The outside adviser and a third administration official I spoke with both told me that one of Trump’s primary motivations for ending the conflict is that he wants to normalize relations with Moscow and negotiate a trade deal involving Russia’s rare-earth minerals.

 

The U.S. is continuing to share intelligence with Ukraine and to send some aid there. (The administration briefly paused both after Trump’s heated Oval Office meeting with Zelensky in February, leading to Russian gains in the war.)... “It’s no secret that Donald Trump is mercurial on the subject of Ukraine. He’s in again and out again in his attempts to make a deal. He’s being played by Putin,” Blumenthal said..."