The last time President Donald Trump was in the same room as Vladimir Putin, their relationship was in a moment of ascension.
“We have a very, very good relationship. And we hope to have a good time together,” Trump said while the 2019 meetings took place in Japan. “Many very positive things will emerge from the relationship.”
Six years later, there was not much positive thing between Russia and the United States. Putin broke into Ukraine a year after Trump left the presidency in his first term. And in the months since he returned to the White House, Moscow has not given any indication that he will slow down the conflict. Trump, who has already shown hope of ending the war, was disappointed with his former friend.
This creates a darker scenario for Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, the seventh time the leaders meet, and the first since the US president returned to power.
“I believe that now he (Putin) is convinced that he will make a deal,” Trump told Fox Radio on Thursday (14). “I think he goes. And let’s find out – I’ll know very quickly.”
The meeting, which will take place at a US air base north of Anchorage, Alaska, carries some uncertainty about what will be said, which results will be agreed and what will happen next.
The White House has already reduced expectations, and but Trump adopted a more optimistic tone on Thursday compared to the advances of the summit. However, intended to normalize ties between the US and Russia.
In the center of everything will be two men with a complicated relationship – much examined by the public, often secret and never fully understood, even by some of Trump’s closest allies.
In the eight years since the leaders first gathered on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Germany, the ties faced ups and downs. Trump praised Putin and adopted his views, but also canceled abruptly, furious meetings, and told other leaders that he thinks Putin changed to worse, advisers said.
“There is a realistic adjustment and a reduction in expectations,” said John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Eurasia Center of Atlantic Council. “Even Trump is pointing out, correctly, that he might not be able to trust Putin.”
If there was a constant in the relationship, it was the brands left by the 2016 elections, in which US intelligence agencies found that Russia tried to interfere with Trump.
These conclusions – and attempts by Congress and other authorities to hold those involved responsible – influenced Trump’s view of Russia and Putin for years. He expressed a certain affinity for the Russian leader and last month threatened to prosecute Obama government officials-including the former president himself-for reasons related to the investigation of Russian interference in the election.
“It was a tension in the relationship,” said Trump on Wednesday (13) about investigations. He added, “This made everything very dangerous for our country, because I couldn’t really deal with Russia the way we should have done it.”
In fact, electoral interference placed a shadow on all previous Trump with Putin meetings, including that at the Hamburg G20 in 2017. The meeting of that year lasted more than two hours, with only Trump’s then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the room.
Then Trump asked his interpreter to hand over his notes to ensure that the content of the discussion was not revealed. And at a leader dinner at the same summit, Trump sought Putin for another one -hour conversation – this time, without any other American authorities around and only with Putin’s interpreter to translate.
The two leaders met several times after that, including in a dome of Asian leaders in DA Nang, Vietnam. Trump said Putin denied again in the US elections – and indicated that he believed him.
“I really believe that when he tells me that, he’s serious,” Trump said at the time. When Putin was reelected the following year, Trump congratulated him on the victory.
Putin’s isolation on the world scenario
Putin, 72, resisted five US Presidencies.
He strolled through Moscow with Bill Clinton and visited George W. Bush on his ranch in Texas, where Bush said enthusiastically about the Russian leader: “I managed to get a notion of his soul.”
But Putin has been increasingly isolated over the past decade, punished for much of the world by his invasion of Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, by slaughtering a Polish plane, a deadly attack in the UK and many other atrocities.
An attempt to resume ties with Obama failed, and Russia was finally expelled from the eight group, now G7.
Can Trump face Putin?
After Trump took office, Putin sought to restore his place on the world scenario through a summit in Helsinki. It was that meeting, where Trump met Putin at closed and no counselors, who fed skepticism about the president’s ability to face the Russian autocratic leader.
Trump faced an attack of fury from both the Democratic and Republicans – and global condemnation – for accepting Putin’s word about interference in the US elections.
“We all remember that disturbing press conference in Helsinki, where President Trump seemed to submit to Putin, above the analysis of his own intelligence community,” Ret said. Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO ally ally commander. “I really hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t think it’s going.”
But seven years later, after repeatedly adopted a conciliatory tone about Putin and praising his profound relationship with the Russian leader, Trump seems much skeptical about the prospect of reaching an agreement on Ukraine. This change only occurred in May, when Trump suggested that he would travel to Turkey to preside over a meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Nothing will happen until Putin and I’m together, ok?” said Trump.
The meeting never really took place, and Russia intensified its bombing campaign about Ukraine. After that, Trump reduced the expectations of ending the war.
“I’m not happy with Putin,” Trump said last month, one of the strongest statements so far about the Russian leader. “We received a lot of Putin bullshit, if you want to know the truth. He’s very cool, all the time, but that means nothing.”
