“I think it’ll be good. But it might be bad,” President Donald Trump mused to dozens of White House correspondents ahead of Friday’s summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“What happens, happens.”
Yet whatever does happen, it became clear this week that the meeting will be very different from anything in the decades-long history of U.S. summitry with the Kremlin.
Why We Wrote This
President Trump’s supporters say his apparently casual approach to Friday’s summit with Vladimir Putin will be key to his success. Critics fear he is simply “winging it.”
Instead of reams of position papers, gaming-out sessions with policy experts and aides, and pre-drafting of anticipated announcements, Mr. Trump will be relying on the power of his personality and, as he told the reporters, his own dealmaking experience and native intelligence.
That’s reassuring for his supporters: If anyone can break the Ukraine logjam and end the killing, they believe, it is President Trump. Critics, on the other hand, fear that Mr. Trump is simply “winging it.”
Particularly unsettled are the European countries directly affected by Mr. Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine; they are concerned by the possibility of a Russia-friendly deal that could embolden Mr. Putin to mount future attacks.
That’s because across the table from Mr. Trump will be a leader who, they have learned from long experience, will have a rock-solid idea of what he wants from the meeting, what he is willing to offer – and what he is not ready to concede, or even discuss.
Mr. Putin’s approach is the polar opposite of “what happens, happens.”
The contrast helps explain why U.S. allies across the Atlantic – NATO’s European members and Ukraine itself – have been scampering diplomatically this week to persuade Mr. Trump to go into the talks with some well-defined bottom lines of his own.
There can be no deal, they are insisting, without a prior ceasefire. The “land swaps” Mr. Trump has mentioned cannot give Mr. Putin the prize he has long sought: full control over Ukrainian regions he has unilaterally annexed but not fully conquered.
And it will have to include credible guarantees of Ukraine’s future security.
The transatlantic partners have been at pains to avoid outright criticism of the summit plans. In bilateral contacts with Mr. Trump since last weekend and in a group video call on Wednesday, they have lauded his potentially pivotal effort to end the nearly three-and-a-half-year war.
They have focused instead on seeking broadly common ground with Washington concerning the requirements for any fair diplomatic agreement. Their top priority is to ensure that it safeguards Ukraine against Mr. Putin’s goal of one day capturing the whole of the country.
After Wednesday’s call, which included European Union and NATO leaders and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz voiced confidence that the message had been heard. And Mr. Trump told reporters it had been a “very, very friendly” call.
Nevertheless, the European view of the forthcoming summit was perhaps best captured by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the start of this week.
“I have many fears, and a lot of hope,” he said.
He and other European leaders were able to find ample reason for both in President Trump’s freewheeling remarks to White House reporters on Monday.
They will have been reassured by the fact that he ruled out trying to agree a deal quickly with Mr. Putin at the summit, which is being held at a U.S. military base in Alaska.
Mr. Trump said he would be going to listen, adding confidently that he would know within “two minutes” whether the Russian leader was truly ready to end the war and reach a negotiated settlement.
He also said that, right after the meeting, he would contact Mr. Zelenskyy, as well as NATO and EU leaders, to let them know what had transpired: whether he felt that no deal was possible, or what a potential agreement might look like.
Still, Mr. Trump’s White House briefing also included remarks giving cause for concern to Ukraine and the Europeans.
On several occasions, he echoed Mr. Putin’s narrative about the war, blaming former President Joe Biden and Mr. Zelenskyy for the conflict.
In taking Mr. Zelenskyy to task for declaring that Ukraine’s constitution barred him from formally ceding any territory, he also glossed over the fact that it was Mr. Putin’s unprovoked invasion that started the war.
“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying, ‘I have to get constitutional approval.’” Mr. Trump told reporters. “He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?”
And he left unclear – beyond a reference to “oceanfront property” that might revert to Ukraine’s control – just what kind of land swaps would be on the table.
The Europeans’ immediate ambition, assuming the Alaska summit runs beyond two minutes, will be to use the opportunities presented by continuing negotiations to shape the deal that will eventually be done.
After all, Mr. Trump says repeatedly that it is the Europeans, not the United States, that should now play the main role in supporting Ukraine and ensuring its postwar security.
Their singular focus will be on convincing the U.S. president of the need to begin the process with a step on which they unequivocally agree: a ceasefire.
Their nagging worry is that they – and indeed even Mr. Trump – cannot know how the summit will unfold.
In other words, “what happens, happens.”
