Trump Is Not Likely to Hand Ukraine to Putin in Alaska

Opinion|Putin Should Be Careful What He Wishes For

President Vladimir Putin might be forgiven for thinking the second Trump administration is a boon to Russia.

In just a few months, President Trump has succeeded in antagonizing allies with his tariff spree and noncommittal statements on NATO — an organization Mr. Putin has derided as an “anachronism.” His administration has dismantled foreign aid and declared war on “gender ideology,” aligning the United States more closely with Russia’s own illiberal policies. And by threatening to gobble up Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, Mr. Trump has appeared to license the irredentism that Mr. Putin would argue justifies the force with which Russia has pummeled Ukraine for more than three years.

On Ukraine, Mr. Trump’s inconsistency has been the only constant. He has blamed Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, for starting the war; he has blamed Mr. Putin for prolonging it. And he has flip-flopped on U.S. weapons support, making it harder for Ukraine to reliably plan.

Now an impatient Mr. Trump, obsessed with claiming the laurels of peacemaker, has precipitated a showdown in Alaska on Friday without Ukraine or Europeans present — a diplomatic coup for Russia.

But Mr. Putin should be careful what he wishes for. In the world as it is being remade by Mr. Trump — with rules that are fluid, relationships protean and raw power the key currency — Mr. Putin’s Russia, resource constrained and mired in the war in Ukraine, is going to find itself ill equipped to throw its weight around, whatever the outcome of Friday’s summit.

Consider the tariffs. Russia, already facing an economic slowdown, has little reason to gloat over America’s imposition of tariffs on imports from more than 90 countries. A U.S. trade war could slow global growth and dampen demand for Russian commodity exports, forcing the Kremlin to cut nonmilitary spending or draw down its remaining reserves.