Trump confuses Europe with contradictory statements

What is Donald Trump's real strategy towards Ukraine and Russia? Answering this question is difficult if we start from a number of contradictory statements by the president and the actions of his administration, which often take even American allies by surprise.

As in the case of Trump's assessment of the invasion of Russian drones on Polish territory. According to him, this could have happened by mistake, although with the addition that he was dissatisfied with it. Not only Poles did not like such an assessment.

But on September 10, when Russian drones flew over the western Belarusian border towards Poland, a US delegation had just arrived in the Belarusian capital Minsk to negotiate with President Alexander Lukashenko on the lifting of sanctions against the Belavia airline in exchange for the massive release of political prisoners. The US embassy in Minsk is also to resume.

This meeting culminated in the U.S.-Belarusian dialogue that had been going on for several months. There was also a phone call between Trump and Lukashenko. Given the interconnectedness of Minsk and Moscow, it cannot be assumed that the Kremlin would not be informed of these shifts. After all, this is the first half-opening of the sanctions grip that the Russians can use to get spare parts for their American Boeings.

Early last week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said in an interview with One America News that Trump considers Russia's economic isolation to be pointless: "The president has been very honest with both Europeans and Russians in that he sees no reason why we should isolate Russia economically."

Nevertheless, in recent weeks, Europeans have been negotiating with the Trump administration how to put economic pressure on Putin to force him to negotiate peace.

Brussels even concluded that it had Trump on its side because of his declared frustration with Putin's unwillingness to move forward in peace negotiations. 

But the head of the White House said on Saturday that he was ready to push the Russians to the wall if NATO member states stopped buying oil from them. But this will hardly happen in the case of Turkey, Hungary or Slovakia. And Trump's demand that the Europeans impose a 100 percent tariff on China and India for their purchases of Russian oil is unfulfillable. It is tantamount to economic suicide: with India, the EU is close to concluding a major trade agreement and is heavily economically dependent on China. Trump cannot be ignorant.

Imposing impossible conditions can thus be a tool to finally put Europe in front of some Trump-Putin agreement that neither it nor Kiev will like.

To this can be added the observation of Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post: "Trump and no one in his administration behave as if securing a free and independent Ukraine is a key goal in itself."

Trump is playing his geopolitical game and Europeans can only watch.

Miloš Balabán, Právo Daily