TRUMP PLAYS DOWN HOPES OVER PUTIN TALKS AHEAD OF MEETING
▶ Russian leader likely to gain from talks just by turning up, expert says
Helsinki’s presidential palace was built for the Russian Tsars and hosted Cold War meetings between the US and Kremlin leaders.
Yet it is hard to imagine the Finnish capital has ever had the buzz of uncertainty that reigns as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin prepare to shake hands today.
The sense that there is a lot at stake is underlined on arrival by giant black billboards with white type erected by Finland’s leading newspaper group. In English and Cyrillic, the signs proclaim: “Mr President, welcome to the land of the free press.”
Despite comparisons with summits such as Yalta, which carved up the map of continents, Mr Trump has played down the encounter’s ramifications.
“I go in with low expectations – I’m not going with high expectations,” Mr Trump told CBS News. “I believe in having meetings. Nothing bad is going to come out of it and maybe some good will come out.”
As a target of international sanctions who was drummed out of the G8 after the annexation of Crimea, Mr Putin can be a winner just by turning up.
Andrei Kotunov, a former Russian senator and a proxy spokesman for the Kremlin on international relations, said Mr Putin “already got his victory” because the summit granted him a platform to make his points on world issues.
Washington officials last week rejected a proposal that Mr Trump could offer a US withdrawal of its limited troop presence in Syria. But one international diplomat told The
Washington Post it was clear America considers Syria to be “a Russian thing”.
Lindsey Graham, the US Republican senator, was angered by the speculation. “I don’t trust Russia to police Iran or anyone else in Syria.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, left Moscow last week convinced that President Bashar Al Assad would, after the fall of Deraa, restore his legal authority to rule throughout Syria with Russian backing.
And the Russians reportedly guaranteed Iranian forces would be kept away from the Israeli border.
Following the pattern of Mr Trump’s unorthodox summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, few would be surprised by a US military concession. The US leader offered in Singapore to cancel major military exercises with South Korea without prior consultation with Seoul.
Military drills are a major deterrent in international re- lations, especially in eastern Europe where the Baltic states and some others are under the shadow of a resurgent Russia.
“I am worried,” said Ian Bond, a former British diplomat who leads the Centre for European Reform in London. “Trump is unprepared, Putin will be ultra-prepared.”
The US president was to arrive in Finland from Scotland last night, having upset allies in Nato during a row over military spending last week.
Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday that he was preparing for the Putin summit with briefings and meetings during his stay at one of his Scottish golf courses. But he spent a sizeable chunk of Saturday on the 120th round of golf of his presidency.
Writing in the French newspaper Le Monde last week, Vladislav Inozemtsev, the director of the Centre for Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow, said that no normal agenda would be suitable for the meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin.
Instead the encounter should be viewed as part of the foundation Mr Trump was building to exercise US power under his America First project.
For Mr Putin, the opportunity to restore a transactional relationship with the US and perhaps parts of Europe and Nato would be a great prize.
“For Mr Trump, two points are essential. On the one hand, he wants to understand what Putin has in his mind, and to establish a relationship with a leader whom he obviously respects,” Mr Inozemtsev wrote.
“As he engages step by step in a confrontation with the whole world, the American president intends to side with a ‘strong man’ whose unpredictability is comparable to his.
“Strange as it may seem, the Trump-Putin alliance could be built on a common vision of the world and be consolidated in favour of the general rise of populist and nationalist policies.”
Bulgaria and the Czech Republic broke cover at the Nato summit to urge less pressure on Russia. The new Italian government has signalled its opposition to the Russia sanctions regime.
Even the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, was unable to resist the lure of yesterday’s World Cup to travel to Moscow for discussions with Mr Putin on Syria and Iran.
The European establishment can do little, but look on askance at the American president’s manoeuvres.
Veteran French politician Hubert Vedrine, who coined the term “hyperpower” to describe America after the Cold War, warned yesterday that Europe was “face to face with an existential threat” in Mr Trump.
There is little remedy on offer, no matter how special a country’s ties may have been with the US. Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, pleaded with Mr Trump to deal with the Russian leader “from a position of strength”.
Following the pattern of Mr Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un, few would be surprised by a US military concession