Trump Put America First in Putin Summit

Neocon-filled commentariat and congressional GOP seem not to have gotten memo on America First and MAGA.

On Fox Business: Many of the assumptions about economic and political pressure in Russia are wrong. Video: https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6376968893112

Despite unmet hype that the White House never promoted, and lectures about what President Donald Trump “must do” from neoconservative globalists who are entirely absent from relevance in elections except when being condemned by voters, but who appear prominently on cable news and in Congress, Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin marked a decent success for two reasons:

First, it dealt in reality. Second, Trump put America first.

News coverage by the media centered around Trump’s inability to extract a unilateral ceasefire agreement from Putin. Trump did in fact desire this, and has said as much since his election victory. However, he has always put this in the context of a greater goal: ending the killing in Ukraine, which means ending the war. Getting there would require a comprehensive agreement, a concept on which Trump and Putin agreed.

Ending the war is a way of putting America first because it will allow the U.S. to continue to bury former President Joe Biden’s Europe-first foreign policy, which was unwise since it ignored China as the chief threat to the free world and reckless since it risked war with Russia, which has more nuclear weapons than any nation. Biden’s policy also involved sending hundreds of billions of dollars to corrupt, authoritarian, and undemocratic Ukraine somehow in the name of democracy, while continuing to let European moochers off the hook for paying for their own defense. Ending the war will also halt Russia’s embarrassing exposure of the fact that the NATO alliance is a paper tiger with the United States and perhaps Turkey as its only consequential members.

As for injecting reality into unreal situations—a Donald Trump trademark from time immemorial—both leaders in the room realized that Russia is (very) slowly winning the Ukraine War. This has barely been reported by the dishonest media—both its right-leaning and left-leaning outlets—but it is a fact. In the last year, Russia has patiently closed the only serious incursion that Ukraine made into Russia, which was near Kursk. Farther south, Russia has been slowly eroding Ukrainian territory. Nothing indicates this erosion will stop. In fact, there is as much probability of a sudden Ukrainian collapse of the type that befell Germany in October 1918 after years of stalemate in World War I.

Therefore, the reality is that Russia is hesitant to call a ceasefire as it gains ground, which would allow Ukraine more time to reinforce its defensive capabilities.

Then there is the reality that much else of what has been said by unreformed globalists in both congressional parties and hawkish media analysts—most of whom have no exposure to senior-level decision-making—has been misleading. These claims have included:

- Trump can easily crush the Russian economy.

- The Russian economy has already been crushed, with rampant inflation and in steep decline.

- The Russian economy is in the process of being crushed by secondary sanctions on some of consumers of Russian oil.

- Trump has whipped Europe into shape and they are now our ready deputy dogs, prepared to sally forth resolutely.

- We have some sort of obligation to end this war on terms favorable to the Ukrainian government.

- Putin is a murderer with whom no deal can be had.

Here is the reality:

- The Russian ruble has appreciated about 40% this year against the dollar. Unlike the United States, which has “major loser” Jerome Powell for a central banker, Russia has a diligent steward of currency, Elvira Nabiullina, at the helm of its bank. If she were any nationality other than Russian, she would have won a Nobel Prize in economics.

- When it comes to statistics, it is important to remember that everyone lies about everything during war. Nonetheless, Russia officially exhibited 3.6% growth in economic output in 2023 and about 4% growth in 2024. Even if inflated, this hardly reflects a collapse.

- Inflation in Russia is running close to 10%, which is painful, but not a crisis level, especially in a culture that can invoke nationalist sentiment to endure sacrifice (e.g., Russia). Inflation eased somewhat over summer, enabling Nabiullina to cut interest rates from a high of 21% to 18%.

- Russia exports about half of the oil it produces and about one-third of these exports have gone to India. These exports amount to just 2.5% of Russian GDP. While Trump has enacted additional 25% “secondary” tariffs on India, bringing the total to 50%, there is no indication India (also a modern, nationalist culture like Russia) will comply. Even if it does, Russia can find other consumers of its oil. Russia’s bigger customer is China, which consumes about half of Russian exports. Trump so far is unwilling to threaten China with secondary tariffs since he is seeking a comprehensive trade deal with Beijing and successful summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this year.

- Other steps like suspending more Russian entities from the SWIFT bank-transfer mechanism or taking Russian money held in U.S. institutions (i.e., “theft” absent a declaration of war against Russia), would merely speed alternatives to SWIFT and the use of the U.S. dollar in international exchange, bringing forward the date of financial crisis due to difficulty refinancing the massive U.S. national debt. Russia has also proved resilient to steps like these over the past three-and-a-half years. (See above re Elvira Nabiullina.)

- Europe is mostly just talk and its political system faces crisis. Germany talked a big game about a $116 billion extra defense expenditure when the war began. This turned out to be make-believe. It is now talking about an expenditure five times that amount. This is as bogus as European promises to spend 5% of their national output on defense. All major European governments are deeply unpopular with their voters because they refuse to quit the globalist enterprise that includes things like lax immigration and focusing on other people’s wars instead of domestic concerns.

- None of the hawks appearing on TV and in print from the uniparty are able to define a compelling, vital U.S. national interest in Ukraine. They usually don’t even try because they don’t know how.

On Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky will don his fanciest green undershirt to appear at the White House. As recently as last week, Captain Undershirt declared that his government would not agree to a peace agreement that recognized Russian control of land that was part of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia controlled from 1783 onward.

This demand is unrealistic. Losing wars has consequences. Ukraine will likely have to cede much if not all of the land Russia controls. If Zelensky does not back down—and his past insolence and ingratitude toward Americans and repeated attempts to end Trump’s political career indicate he won’t—Trump’s options are to walk away, continue U.S. involvement in the war as is, or signal the Ukrainian military that Zelensky must go. The last step invokes ugly memories such as when the U.S. declined to stop the coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 (and his incidental murder)—one of endless historical lessons illustrating why we should have never gotten involved in this war in the first place.

Trump suggested he will try to help Zelensky see reality. Flying home from Alaska, the president remarked: “Now it is really up to President Zelensky to get it done.”

Throughout this affair, Europe has played a profoundly unhelpful role, especially by encouraging Captain Undershirt’s intransigence. Highly unpopular British Prime Minister Keir Starmer preened to Trump in recent days about European support for Ukraine. A spokesman said:

The Prime Minister was clear that our support for Ukraine is unwavering - international borders must not be changed by force and Ukraine must have robust and credible security guarantees to defend its territorial integrity as part of any deal.

All of this nonsense is a non-starter with the Russians. Clearly force can change borders. And a potential or de facto western alliance with Ukraine is why Russia invaded in the first place. Starmer’s statement is also a sad and pathetic pretension of relevance. What exactly is London going to do except connive to get America to expend more blood and treasure on its behalf? We should recognize that Britain, France, and Germany have worked against Trump in ending this war. In the same manner, they worked against Trump in his first term to undermine U.S. sanctions on Iran. Britain and France dragged us to war in Libya—still a disaster. Ultimately, Europe is about vacations, not the future. They should go yodel up some more wine and cheese for the tourists and take care of their own problems.

Therein lies the true unknown about the summit in Alaska: whether Trump and his top lieutenants also spoke with the Russians about the future beyond the Ukraine War, whether it ends this summer or years from now. Europe has clearly divorced itself from Russia and there is no going back. Russia, like America now looks to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa for its future. While there is no indication the United States and Russia will cease to be adversaries, the leaders may have glimpsed a future part of the new world order unfolding.

In that context, putting America first means trying to put some distance between Russia and China, and putting an end to North Korea figuring out drone-centric warfare through practice on the battlefield in Ukraine. Putting America first also means recognizing Europe’s uselessness and ending the war rather than indulging pretenses of the Ukrainians.

Will this happen? Perhaps. Trump has a strong record of putting America first.