Art of (not much of) a deal
Dear reader,
This week, I explain what the Trump-Putin call means for peace in Ukraine, talk to China expert Bill Bishop about Jack Ma’s reappearance, and break down Trump’s stance toward Beijing. Plus, your weekly rec from my dog Moose.
Let’s get to it,
- Ian
About that (Trump-Putin) phone call
A 90-minute-plus phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin yesterday scored some points for both the Americans and Russians, and without directly undermining Ukraine or the Europeans. But it’s what the two presidents couldn’t agree on that shows us the large potholes on the road ahead toward lasting peace.
Last week, the US and Ukrainian governments agreed to pursue a 30-day ceasefire with no preconditions. Putin said yesterday on that call that he agrees – as long as the halt to fighting applies only to strikes on energy infrastructure, a major military target for both sides in recent months. That’s far short of the pause on fighting by land, sea, and air that Trump wanted, though Putin did say he was also ready to talk about a pause on attacks on Black Sea shipping. (Clearly, the Russian president is tired of daily briefings on the successes of Ukrainian air and sea drones.)
In the meantime, Russian forces will continue to push for more territorial gains on the ground, and Russia remains free to launch air attacks on civilian populations. We saw more of that last night. Since spring is here and power losses will no longer leave Ukrainians in the freezing cold, the promise to hold off on attacking energy infrastructure costs Russia little.
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Putin offered Trump enough to encourage the US president to continue talks on a broader US-Russia rapprochement, one that includes benefits for both economies. Trump also has no reason to begin insisting that Ukrainians and Europeans participate in future negotiations, another prize for Putin.
Any halt or slowdown in the intensity of attacks will keep more civilians alive, at least for now. That’s good news, and there’s likely to be further movement toward a broader ceasefire at some point later in the year, maybe by the end of April.
But a durable peace agreement is another question. Putin made clear to Trump that he has some bright red lines that must be respected. For example, the Russian president insisted there could be no ongoing military and intelligence support for Ukraine from either the US or Europe. (The US readout of the call doesn’t mention that, but the Kremlin version does.) Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky will turn quickly to the Europeans for help, and he’ll get it. Neither Ukraine nor Europe has any reason to accept an end to support for Kyiv. That will be a large problem for Trump in getting the big-splash peace deal he wants.
💬 Got a question you’d like answered? Or thoughts on anything you’ve read so far? Let me know in the comments below—I’d love to hear from you!
Still, Trump might soon argue that Ukraine and its Euro allies are the obstacle that prevents a temporary ceasefire from blossoming into permanent peace. If so, Putin will miss out on a peace deal he doesn’t want in exchange for a big new opening with the president of the United States.
That’s where Trump and Putin have left it. From his visit yesterday to Finland, Zelensky offered a positive preliminary appraisal of the energy infrastructure ceasefire, but with some big caveats. He said that he’ll have a “conversation with President Trump” where he’ll try to read the fine print on Trump’s exchange with Putin. That call happened earlier today. He called on Russia to free all Ukrainian prisoners of war as a gesture of good faith, and he vowed to keep Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s Kursk region “for as long as we need.”
But the energy ceasefire is essentially a scaled-back version of the proposal for a long-range airstrike halt and naval truce that Zelensky offered before the US-Ukrainian meeting last week in Saudi Arabia. If Ukraine’s president does fully endorse the idea, Europe will quickly get to yes too. Ukraine and the Europeans will then try to work toward winning a broader ceasefire that puts the Kremlin back on the spot. For now, that prospect looks doubtful.
Sadly, today’s news on Ukraine sounds a lot like what we’ve seen in Gaza where, as hard and time-consuming as it was to get that first ceasefire, a move to phase two will yield a lot fewer points the two sides can agree on. And as with Gaza, when that first ceasefire comes to an end, expect a new burst of deadly violence.
That’s why it’s hard to be optimistic that yesterday’s bargaining has moved us any closer to a true and lasting peace, the outcome all sides say they want.
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What does Jack Ma’s reappearance mean?
Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of tech giant Alibaba, was once the poster boy of Chinese entrepreneurship and innovation. But in 2020, he disappeared from public view after criticizing the country’s financial system amid President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on the tech sector. Then, after years out of the spotlight, Ma suddenly appeared alongside Xi at a symposium with other Chinese business leaders in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People last month.
On GZERO World, I spoke with China analyst and Sinocism author Bill Bishop about the meaning behind Ma’s reemergence and apparent rehabilitation. He views this as a tacit acknowledgment from Chinese leadership that the crackdown on private enterprise “may have gone too far.” Xi is clearly trying to reengage with the private sector as he works to revive China’s sluggish economy. But is this a fundamental realignment of Xi’s priorities or a temporary reprieve?
“I don’t think there’s a lot of people who believe that the Communist Party has fundamentally changed its view of private businesses, which is that they’re there to be harnessed and managed and controlled,” Bishop said.
Watch the clip here and catch my full interview with Bishop in the latest episode of“GZERO World with Ian Bremmer,”also airing on your local public television station.
Trump’s stance on China, explained
Only two months into his second term, Trump has already radically reshaped US foreign policy. More often than not, he has acted tougher on America’s traditional allies like Canada and the European Union than on adversaries like Russia. But the president’s views on China have been … harder to pin down.
On the one hand, Trump had a friendly pre-inauguration call with President Xi Jinping and often calls him a “brilliant guy.” Yet in the same breath, he also complains that China “takes advantage” of the US, and his administration says it's pulling back from Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific theater.
So where does the US-China relationship go from here? Will Trump cut a deal with Beijing, or will China hawks in the president’s cabinet convince him to be more aggressive in containing the People’s Republic?
Watch me explain here.
Moose’s treat of the week
Veteran Ukraine correspondent Christopher Miller’s “The War Came To Us,” a gripping chronicle of the early days of Putin’s full-scale invasion as experienced by Ukrainians.
A deal where we lose.
And to think they thought the greater risk was prosecution for verifiable crimes….