by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] A sharp rift in Washington has brought the nascent negotiations between Russia and the United States to the brink of collapse. The White House has imposed the first significant sanctions since Donald Trump's second term in office. A meeting between the two leaders in Budapest has also been postponed. This development could be seen as Trump attempting to play a cunning game.
In reality, the actions of the American president are more likely explained by the desperate situation in which he finds himself, mired in many crises at once.
Since the spring, Trump's team had hoped to implement a rather rudimentary strategy in the Ukrainian situation: to exert pressure on all parties and force them to accept terms that would be acceptable to the Americans. The problems with this approach became apparent immediately: even when cooperating with European hawks and the Ukrainian lobby, the White House often lacked the capacity or will to exert effective pressure.
As for Russia, Trump quickly ran into a lack of any serious leverage. Threatening new sanctions was pointless, as Trump himself has repeatedly acknowledged.
The vacillations surrounding the supply of new weapons, such as long-range Tomahawk missiles, have come to nothing. The Pentagon is extremely concerned about both Russia's retaliatory actions and the depletion of its own arsenals. Otherwise, in the event of further escalation around Venezuela, there simply might not be enough missiles.
Over the summer, the US administration unsuccessfully attempted to influence Russia's key trading partners, China and India, by threatening them with secondary tariffs. This was done, in part, under pressure from hawks in the Senate, who were attempting to impose 500% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.
Ultimately, the sanctions bill vanished into thin air, and Congress became mired in internal battles amid the government shutdown and the inability to approve a new US budget for next year.
However, recently the sanctions agenda has once again come to the fore.
The logic of hawkish legislators is roughly as follows: we can't pass the budget anyway because of all the divisions. So let's retreat to our comfort zone and threaten Russia with sanctions again. That's why the Senate began pushing new bills that, among other things, would include Russia on the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" alongside North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria. This would amount to a de facto attempt to impose an embargo against Russia.
The Trump administration is clearly not prepared to take such a radical step, for several reasons.
First, the US economy is dependent on critical raw materials like uranium, which comes from Russia. Furthermore, this would undermine any attempts to reach an agreement with Moscow and would sharply worsen Washington's already difficult relations with Beijing and New Delhi.
Ultimately, under pressure from hawks, Trump again adopted a middle ground. In the summer, he imposed 25% tariffs on India instead of the 500% promised by the Senate. Now, he has increased sanctions pressure on Russia's largest oil exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil.
Europe quickly joined the American sanctions. First London, then Brussels adopted similar measures. Overall, the impact of the sanctions will be felt primarily in the European economy.
Brussels will increase pressure on recalcitrant Eastern European countries that continue to buy oil from Russia.
Russian liquefied natural gas is a separate issue, as it's actively purchased in Europe by countries like France, Spain, and Belgium. They have strongly advocated for pushing back the deadline for phasing out Russian gas, now to 2027 or even later.
As for other countries, the effect of Trump's tariffs will be mitigated. Indian state-owned companies will find new ways to buy Russian oil, which New Delhi will certainly not refuse. Indian private companies may even ignore the US sanctions altogether.
Moreover, there has been no significant progress in the US-India negotiations so far. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to pointedly avoid personal meetings with Trump.
The situation with China will be even more revealing. Trump's first major Asian tour of his second term will begin very soon. However, details are still scant. All that is known is that he will visit Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea.
At the same time, the White House is strongly urging the Chinese side to hold a major bilateral summit on the trade agenda. However, Beijing has already made it clear that it does not intend to make any significant concessions to the United States at this time.
China recently tightened the screws on rare earth metal supplies, causing genuine panic in America. After all, in the spring, when supplies were already short, American industry was practically on the brink of collapse. And the price of these scarce metals soared by 4,000%.
In response, Trump imposed further tariffs on China. At the same time, he's literally begging Chinese businessmen to resume purchasing American soybeans. Without Chinese contracts, many farmers in the Midwest, the breadbasket of the United States, could simply go bankrupt. China, meanwhile, stopped buying soybeans from the United States in the spring and found new suppliers in Brazil and Argentina.
It's highly unlikely that Trump will be able to reach an amicable agreement with Beijing during his Asian tour. And he certainly won't be able to persuade China to stop buying Russian oil. He could, of course, threaten new sanctions, but this would have no effect and would only exacerbate the problems for American importers, who are facing retaliatory restrictions from China.
Moreover, inflation in the US has now reached 3% for the first time in Trump's second term. This is due to the delayed effects of all the tariffs imposed and the soaring cost of imported goods. American businesses are literally living in a state of complete chaos from month to month, unsure of what other tariffs to expect.
Most Americans expect the economic situation in the United States to worsen over the next year, and only 35-38% of citizens currently approve of Trump's economic policies.
The current anti-Russian sanctions adventure, coupled with the escalation around Venezuela, could lead to higher fuel prices on the domestic market, which could further damage Trump's position ahead of the congressional elections.
But there is also a theoretical way out of the current impasse. When it becomes clear that sanctions pressure on Russia is once again ineffective, hawks in Congress will have a much harder time justifying the introduction of new restrictions against Moscow.
At the same time, the realists remaining in the White House will be able to use this argument to their advantage: they say, we tried to pressure Russia with sanctions and arms supplies, but nothing worked, so let's sit down at the negotiating table under normal conditions.
The only question is whether Trump will still have the political capital by then for a serious dialogue with Russia. Or will he become completely bogged down in his internal wars with the Democrats, the conflict with Venezuela, and the endless drama in the Middle East, from which escape may be impossible.