Why A Second Donald Trump Presidency Won’t Necessarily Constitute a Win for Putin

By Ivan Kurilla, Visiting Scholar, Russia and Eurasia Program, The Fletcher School

In a February 2024 interview with Russian state television, President Vladimir Putin commented that he would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced and predictable than Donald Trump. Was he telling the truth, lying or telling the truth so everyone would think he was lying? While it is too soon as of this writing to know for certain, Biden’s July 21 decision to cede the Democratic presidential race to his vice president, Kamala Harris, in no way forecloses a Trump victory in November. So while we cannot get into the head of an experienced autocrat such as Vladimir Putin, it remains worth attempting to tease out, based on what we already know of the former U.S. president’s foreign policy preferences and leadership style, what a second Trump term might entail for U.S. policies toward Russia, Ukraine and the war between the two.

Introduction

Writing about the future is always a difficult task, especially for a historian who feels more comfortable explaining events that have already occurred. Nevertheless, Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House provides us with a rare opportunity to judge the future by looking back at his previous presidential term.

Another challenge is the high emotions and acute partisanship among Americans when discussing Trump’s personality. As a non-American, I believe I am free from these emotions. (My issue is different: I am an anti-Putin Russian who has spent many years studying Russian-U.S. relations and wishing they would improve.)

A third challenge in discussing Trump today is that the international situation has changed significantly since he left office. Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to an initial bi-partisan consensus that Ukraine must be supported; and Hamas attacked Israel, leading to a retaliatory war in Gaza and mass protests in the United States. Therefore, we cannot simply project Trump’s policies from 2017–2020 onto his possible term from 2025–2028.

Nevertheless, Trump’s policies during his presidential tenure can give us some understanding of his potential visions and, more importantly, his reactions to critical situations. I am willing to make three predictions in that regard:

1. A second Trump term will likely alter U.S. policy toward Russia and Ukraine, but is most likely to result, at best, in a “frozen” conflict in which a ceasefire comes at the expense of tabling both Ukraine’s aspiration to achieve a guarantee it will be able to join NATO; and its ambition to recover all its lost territories, including Crimea. 
2. A second Trump administration is also likely to insist that all the costs of maintaining the ceasefire, and any reconstruction costs, be borne by America’s European allies. 
3. Finally, a future Trump administration is also likely to attempt, as it did initially in Trump’s first term, to mend relations with Putin in order to prevent closer ties between Russia and China. Unlike eight years ago, Russia policy is unlikely to dominate Trump’s ongoing domestic battles, but expect major challenges to his plans to come from Ukraine, Europe and naturally, Russia itself.

On the Way to the Presidency

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and after a brief flare of optimism that its chief successor state, the Russian Federation, would become a powerful democratic partner for global peace and prosperity, escalating corruption and Putin’s escalating brutality in Chechnya soon led to, as former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III put it in 1999, “One of the most acrimonious foreign policy debates in America today… ‘who lost Russia?’” 

Since then, criticism of each subsequent administration’s Russian policy has been a part of political attacks during presidential campaigns; with each new president attempting to restore the relations ruined by his predecessor. Barack Obama attempted a “reset” policy after the frigid final months of the Bush administration following the Russian war in Georgia. During the 2012 election campaign, his Republican rival Mitt Romney attacked Obama’s Russian policy as too mild; reminding the public that Russia was “our number one geopolitical foe.”

Donald Trump, not yet a presidential contender, attacked Obama in 2013 by comparing him to Putin. On Larry King’s show, Trump said that Putin had done “a really great job outsmarting our country.” By 2016, however, U.S.-Russian relations had significantly deteriorated, and Donald Trump was at ease to criticize Obama’s Russian policy from a different angle. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on July 31, 2016, Trump claimed that Russians had not moved into Ukraine, and when reminded about Crimea, which had been annexed in 2014, he replied with a series of tweets, “When I said in an interview that Putin is ‘not going into Ukraine, you can mark it down,’ I am saying if I am President.” A few days later, in another talk show, Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump insisted that Obama was a “weak and ineffective” leader who let Russia annex Crimea.

Trump called Putin “a strong leader” and promised that “we’re going to have a great relationship with Putin and Russia.” Meanwhile, Democratic opponents found an Achilles’ heel in Trump’s praise of Putin. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic media labeled Trump a “Russian puppet” and accused him of preparing to concede U.S. interests to Russia.

As the 2016 election neared, President Obama imposed more sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats, but Russia did not respond reciprocally, hoping that the Trump administration would be friendlier. In January 2017, a few days before his inauguration, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he was ready to lift anti-Russian sanctions: “If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?” In another interview, Trump called NATO “obsolete,” raising concerns among America’s European allies; in particular the Baltic States. He also suggested that sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea could be eased in return for a deal to reduce nuclear weapons.

After Trump’s victory, and as evidence trickled out that Putin’s Internet Research Agency was likely complicit in Hillary Clinton’s defeat, Democratic media continued to attack Trump as a pro-Russian president. A special investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller examined whether Trump was in fact a Russian asset, but although Mueller’s report confirmed Russian election interference, it found no direct conspiracy or collusion in the Trump campaign.

Trump’s Russia Policy

Most observers agreed that Donald Trump began his presidency with a shortage of experience, seasoned advisors and concrete plans for a Trump-branded U.S. foreign policy. His administration was very unstable, with a large proportion of high-level officials resigning or being fired during his term. However, he had ideas and what his followers liked to call “vision.” Part of his vision was a plan to improve U.S. relations with Russia, challenging the prevailing attitudes at that time. Trump insisted that China, not Russia, was the major threat to American economic and strategic security, so he planned to make a deal with Putin. As Carnegie analyst Alexander Gabuev put it, Trump was “trying to borrow a page from Henry Kissinger’s template of ‘triangular diplomacy’ for managing relations with Russia and China,” or “to position Washington in the beneficial corner of the triangle—that is, as the power that has better relations with the other two corners than they have between themselves.” One could also suggest that Trump aimed to emulate one of his role models, President Ronald Reagan, who managed to transform U.S.-Russian relations from enmity to friendship; a change that significantly influenced American public sentiment and helped the nation move past a number of crises of the 1970s.

During Reagan’s presidency (and Trump’s youth), Russia, or the Soviet Union, played a very important role in American discourse about self-identity: Russia was a “constitutive other” of America, a nation described as opposite to the U.S. system and values, and thus available to refresh American identity. If the USSR was an “evil empire,” as Reagan called it in 1983, then the USA could be imagined as a country of “rebels” (both “evil empire” and “rebels” were images taken from the then very popular George Lucas “Star Wars” films; and Trump likely appreciated Reagan’s ability to use popular culture to frame complex political issues). But when the USSR collapse and Russia was no longer a stand-in for an evil empire, American identity inevitably changed as well.

I suggested that Trump needed a breakthrough with Russia to help him score points in his “culture wars” within American society. Just as Reagan was willing to overlook the Soviet war in Afghanistan and human rights violations in the USSR to reshape the image of a “constitutive other”—and thereby alter American self-perception—Trump could potentially ignore issues in Syria or Ukraine if it helped him influence how contemporary Americans viewed themselves. If he succeeded in winning Russia over and transforming it in the minds of Americans from a threat to a friend, his domestic standing would be improved, and his critics defeated.  Since at least 2012, Putin’s Russia has portrayed itself as a defender of “traditional values,” positioning itself as a counterbalance to American “liberal values.” However, if Russia was not truly an opposing pole, then liberal values were not such an indispensable asset of the United States. And, of course, if Russia was no longer a formidable enemy, then Trump’s own association with Russia was not a sin. However, internationally, this would mean acts such as the annexation of territories of neighboring countries could go unpunished, and the system of international law and norms would be further undermined. Moreover, by 2016, the role of Russia as an American Other had significantly faded.

Trump’s political adversaries chose to use the Russia theme as a high ground to attack the president, and during most of his time in office, Trump was forced to defend himself from accusations of being “a Russian asset.” Under the lengthy special investigation by Robert Mueller into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s Russian policy was constrained. Instead of the planned rapprochement, the president needed to prove his hard stance against Russia. Furthermore, the U.S. Congress voted to impose tougher sanctions against Russia, both in response to the discovery of Russia’s meddling and as an attempt to further undermine Trump’s legitimacy by attacking the president’s presumed ally.

As a result, despite friendly language and several meetings with Putin—including one bilateral summit in Helsinki, Finland—U.S.-Russian relations continued to deteriorate throughout 2017–2021. After the G-20 meeting in July 2017, Trump said he discussed with Putin forming a joint “Cyber Security unit” to combat election hacking, but faced backlash from lawmakers and never pushed this project forward.

In fact, a review of the Trump administration’s policies reveal them to be largely contrary to Russia’s interests. He ordered an airstrike on Syria, withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal, sent lethal weapons to Ukraine—which is something his predecessor had refused to do (including anti-tank weapons)—opposed the proposed gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and worked to overthrow the Venezuelan government, which Russia considered an ally.

In July 2017, Trump signed into law a bipartisan bill imposing new sanctions against Russia, while simultaneously claiming that the new law contained “clearly unconstitutional provisions.” The bill restricted Trump’s ability to ease sanctions against Moscow. Severe cuts in the number of diplomats complicated the work of Russian and U.S. embassies and consulates, and sanctions against companies and individuals demonstrated suspicion and mistrust. By the end of Trump’s presidency, the bright hopes for better relations shared by some Republicans and many Russians, from the Kremlin to opposition leaders, had faded away.

Trump’s Foreign Policy Style and Its (Possible) Impact on Russian-US Relations

To understand Trump’s policy, it is insufficient to look solely at his vision; we must also consider the style of his foreign policy. In the spring of 2017, after North Korea tested new missiles capable of reaching American soil, Trump escalated the U.S.-North Korean rupture. Instead of complying with Kim Jong Un’s nuclear blackmail, Trump started a military buildup, sending a “fire and fury” warning to Pyongyang. This appeared to enjoy success: Kim retreated, and during two summits with Trump, Kim’s team attempted to negotiate a more “reasonable” policy. This episode suggests that Trump is not afraid to escalate tensions in the face of nuclear threats.

One can argue that Russia is not North Korea, and Trump might be more cautious when dealing with Russia’s demands. This may be true, but we should remember another important episode. On Feb. 7, 2018, near Khasham, Syria, American military forces killed between 60 to 200 members of Russia’s Wagner PMC working for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a direct assault. Journalists immediately called the Battle of Khasham the first direct conflict between Russian and American soldiers since the end of the Cold War. However, the Kremlin kept silent and distanced itself from Wagner, not making the issue a central issue in Russian-American relations.

Even though the battle took place in Syria, and was limited to a matchup of U.S. military against contract soldiers working for Wagner and not representing the Russian Federation, such an outcome may, in my view,  give Trump confidence that Putin would avoid direct confrontation and that Putin’s nuclear threats have their limits. Thus, Trump might believe Biden is wrong to take Putin’s nuclear threats so seriously. Whether this assumption is correct remains uncertain, but to the extent Trump’s foreign policy style is to favor the opposite policies of his predecessors in office, that may be a future Trump administration’s initial position.

Plans and Expectations

Taking together Trump’s previous policies and a picture of his overall foreign policy style, we can get at least some sense of the policies a new Trump administration might pursue toward Russia. For any president elected in 2024, the Russian war in Ukraine will constitute one of the major foreign policy challenges. At this point, the U.S. public has expressed no imperative demand, which remains divided on the issue of aid to Ukraine. A recent (June 2024) poll by Pew Research Center shows that almost “a quarter of Americans (24%) now say the U.S. is not providing enough aid to Ukraine … Still, more Americans (31%) think the U.S. is providing too much aid, and 25% believe it’s giving the right amount.” This division may change, but as it stands it leaves a future president relatively free to choose their policy. 

The trouble with even the best polling on U.S. foreign policy in my view, however, is that U.S. foreign policy has remained relatively untethered to U.S. public opinion for decades. When a Democratic president is attempting to warm relations with Russia, Republicans become fiercely anti-Russian (this was true of Obama’s “reset” efforts). The reverse is true as well: when George W. Bush and Donald Trump were attempting a thaw in U.S.-Russian relations, Democrats became fiercely anti-Russian. None of this was tied to U.S. public opinion, and it remains a truism in U.S. politics that for decades, only 3 in 10 Americans register interest in foreign affairs. What then should we expect from Trump if he is elected in November?

Trump has already promised to “end the war before the new year” as president-elect. What does he mean? Little is known about his plan, but since leaving office, Trump has been critical of U.S. funding for Ukrainian defense, has threatened American withdrawal from NATO and has suggested making a deal with Putin. A direct reading of these signals is not promising for the Ukrainian cause, and many politicians have already voiced their concern that Trump, if elected, will trade Ukraine to Russia.

In his debate with Biden on June 27, 2024, Trump stated that Russia’s conditions of keeping all Ukrainian territory were “not acceptable” to him, but he again suggested that Putin would never have attacked Ukraine with Trump in the White House. He also drew attention to the volume of U.S. aid to Ukraine and, while not claiming he would cut the aid, suggested it would be unnecessary if Biden had acted, as Trump would have, to prevent the war.

We can also expect that for Trump, foreign policy will once again be just one of the tools to advance his domestic culture wars. Even if he cannot hope that Russia will become friendly, Trump’s commitment to isolationist “America first” rhetoric may lead the U.S. back to “sphere of influence” thinking; potentially giving up Ukraine as a country the U.S. could not and would not defend.

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, two of Trump’s top foreign policy advisors, published their plan to stop the war on June 25. While Trump has not expressed support for the plan, it deserves attention. The authors suggest increasing pressure on Ukraine to agree to a cease-fire and peace talks without immediately attempting to regain lost territories, and threatening the Kremlin that if Russia does not agree to peace talks, the volume of American military assistance will increase to help the Ukrainian army prevail. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, who visited Trump on July 11, and later met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping recounted Trump’s plan in a letter to 27 EU member leaders. The Financial Times got the first look at that document, and concluded that it “tallies with a policy paper on the conflict” written by Kellog and Fleitz.

The plan indeed looks like a concession to Putin’s aspirations, and it has already triggered criticism from Ukraine’s supporters. However, the question persists: what could be offered to Ukraine in exchange? Some speculations in recent months have hinted at immediate NATO membership for Ukraine, which would guarantee the country’s security in the future. But even without discussing the acceptability of such a plan for existing NATO members—the recent summit of the organization reaffirmed promises to accelerate joining procedures—Ukrainian membership in NATO is an obvious red line for the Kremlin, making any such plan an obstacle to the quick solution. If the United States decides to cut its assistance to Ukraine, its rift with European allies will deepen and NATO itself will enter very rough waters.

Donald Trump’s choice for Vice President, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, has so far been among the leading opponents of U.S. aid to Ukraine. While we may expect that the Vice President’s role in shaping foreign policy will be minimal under Trump, there are other people around the Republican candidate who will most probably define it. We may find some insights in an article by Robert C. O’Brien, former national security adviser and a possible choice for a top position in a new Trump administration. He suggested keeping “Moscow off balance with a degree of unpredictability,” sending more lethal weapons to Ukraine “financed by European countries” and admitting the country to the European Union immediately, “waiving the usual bureaucratic accession protocol” in order to send a message to Putin that the West will not cede Ukraine to Russia. As we can see, most of the heavy lifting in this initiative would be done by the Europeans.

Trump and Geopolitics: China in the Room

Let us now look again at the recent history of Trump’s strategic vision. He considers China the major threat to U.S. interests. During his first presidency, Trump accepted the need for a trade war with China, and in 2020, his national security adviser (the same O’Brien), underlined that China, not Russia, was the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

Looking at the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the perspective of containing China, one can see two contradictory tasks: first, it is vital to prevent further alignment between Russia and China, making nuclear and militarily advanced Russia a de facto satellite of its rising rival. This task requires improving relations, decreasing sanctions pressure and giving Russia freer room to balance between Chinese and American demands. The second task is to prevent China from attempting to conquer Taiwan. Everyone understands that the Russian-Ukrainian case serves as a testing ground for Chinese foreign policy planners: if Russia walks away successfully annexing the territories of its neighbor, China will see it as a green light for its own attempts to annex Taiwan by force. That is one of the stronger arguments for thwarting Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine since 2014.

The peace plan announced by Trump’s advisers pursues two goals: stopping the bloodshed and laying the groundwork for steady improvement of U.S. relations with Russia; thereby decreasing Russia’s dependence on Chinese (and to a lesser extent, North Korean) support. This is the first concern we see.

However, if Trump considers the second problem more important, or if he fails in pressing Kyiv and Moscow to cease fire, he may move to a plan that involves more decisive assistance to Ukraine to reclaim its territories. Such a move would mean rapid escalation of the Russian-U.S. military confrontation, which in the last three years has likely been deterred by Putin’s threats to use nuclear arms if NATO (read: the U.S.) meddles more directly in the war. However, as we know from Trump’s first term, he might be less susceptible to nuclear blackmail than Biden appears to be. This scenario brings us to brinkmanship diplomacy and a possible nuclear crisis with unclear outcomes. What will happen if Trump moves this way? The Kremlin may step back or increase the stakes, perhaps by testing a nuke in a Russian nuclear testing ground or in the Black Sea. The level of unpredictability will increase, but brinkmanship diplomacy may be successful. Thus, Putin might have been sincere when he said that President Biden was a better choice for Russia (him) than President Trump.

Now, turning to the Kremlin’s options, it seems Putin and his advisors are also waiting for the results of the November elections in the United States. If Trump wins and increases pressure on Russia, a military escalation may follow. However, the Syrian case suggests another outcome; especially because unlike Trump in the United States, in Russia, Putin has much more control over what the Russian public learns about the course and cost of his “special operation.” Putin may use the change in American presidency to propose (or agree to) a compromise that allows him to appear as a victorious leader while conceding many of his previous demands—perhaps even relinquishing some (but certainly not all) of the territories he has annexed. The Russian elite also appears wary of becoming too aligned with China, indicating a preference for restoring a balance.

Looking at this elite group, one can speculate that they anticipate a significant offer from Trump, one that goes beyond Ukraine. Putin has already responded to Trump’s call for ending the war, expressing that he didn’t know what the plan was but believed Trump was sincere and “supported it.” However, a complicating issue remains that the Russian elite remembers the years from 2017 to 2020, when Trump proved unable to fulfill his promises. Thus, Trump would first need to convince Moscow that he now possesses greater power and fewer constraints than eight years ago. If he can do this, it could make a difference for the Kremlin.

This brings us back to the domestic aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Trump may make bold moves on the international stage, but to effectively lead other states—whether allies or adversaries—he must maintain the image of a democratically supported president. He needs to embody the will of the majority of his fellow citizens, rather than appearing as an accidental, eccentric politician who could soon be replaced by one of his opponents in America’s cultural and political battlegrounds.

Conclusion

Trump’s potential second term could bring changes to American policy toward Russia and Ukraine, although this policy may not necessarily lead to peace and is unlikely to achieve justice for the victims of Russia’s aggression (including Russia’s own citizens). Trump will likely seek a ceasefire and mutual concessions (potentially demanding territorial concessions from Ukraine as a temporary solution), while also pressing European allies to bear the brunt of international guarantees and military aid to Ukraine. He may also attempt to mend relations with Putin in order to weaken Russia’s ties with China. Unlike eight years ago, Russia policy will be peripheral to Trump’s domestic battles, but major challenges to Trump’s plans will come from Europe, Ukraine and naturally, Russia itself. 

(This post is republished from Russia Matters.)