Why Trump Refuses to Impose Sanctions on Russia

Last week, the European Union adopted the seventeenth package of sanctions against Russia. It targets almost two hundred vessels of the Russian shadow fleet, hybrid threats and respect for human rights.

Europe would like the United States to join the sanctions pressure. The weekend Russian drone and air strikes on Kiev and other areas should also contribute to this. US President Donald Trump condemned them, saying that Putin has "gotten completely crazy." He added that he is considering further sanctions against Russia.

But isn't this just rhetoric again? After all, in one breath he once again criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to Trump, he is not doing his country any good when he speaks the way he does. "Everything he says causes problems, I don't like it and it should stop," Trump said. Such a statement suggests that he does not actually want to impose further sanctions – after all, Zelensky is strongly calling for them.

After his phone call with Putin, Trump justified his reluctance by arguing that Russia could withdraw from the talks on ending the war due to sanctions. But there may also be business behind it, as The New York Times wrote. The American side is interested in cooperation with Russia in the energy sector and in the mining of rare earth metals. It is no coincidence that, at the behest of Trump and Putin, the capable managers and businessmen Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriyev are involved in the US-Russian talks on Ukraine and the normalization of relations. Dmitriyev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said at the US-Russian meeting in Riyadh that US companies had lost $324 billion due to leaving the Russian market.

The subtext of Trump's phone call with Zelensky and some European leaders after his conversation with Putin last Monday is also worth noting. Trump indicated that the era of US economic and security pressure on Russia, due to its war against Ukraine, is coming to an end. Trump has also signaled that he will withdraw from the peace talks and leave them solely to Kiev and Moscow. However, this does not necessarily mean that he will stop communicating with it. Some European leaders have even stated in this context that Trump's main goal was not to achieve peace in Ukraine, but to normalize relations with Russia.

In the case of Ukraine, Washington already has a "colonial" treaty up its sleeve on the use of its mineral wealth. It did not commit to any security guarantees for Kiev in it, and now, according to inside information, it does not want Zelensky to be invited to the NATO summit in The Hague in June.

It is difficult to predict what to expect from Trump in relation to the war, Ukraine and Russia. This is crystal clear from one of his latest statements, that Russia should have remained part of the grouping of the most powerful Western states, the former G8, because "there might not have been a war". This is a kind of "emotional realpolitik" with a business touch.

Miloš Balabán, Právo Daily