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There is a list of probable questions that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will face today at the presidential palace of Helsinki : Syria, Ukraine , disarmament. There is the belief that nothing concrete will come out of the top. The same American president said, in an interview with CBS to go to Helsinki "with low expectations". And Trump himself, a few hours after the meeting, lifted the roll on Twitter: "Our relationship with Russia has never been worse than that". The State Department then filtered the news that very little work was done at the meeting, for example at the one with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. There is, however, a general belief, even in American political and diplomatic circles, that the meeting serves Putin's interests more fully and that the result for the administration of Donald Trump will be much more uncertain. . [19659002] First, the agenda. In Helsinki, the US president and the Russian president will certainly talk about Ukraine. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 – found to be illegal by the United States and Europe and the cause of heavy sanctions against Moscow – could be the object of. other American openings. Trump caused great consternation at the meeting of G7 last June, when he explained that in Crimea, "people speak Russian" and that, therefore, the peninsula should be annexed to Russia. Recently, the government of Kiev received badurances from Washington that US policy on Crimea remains unchanged, but there remains strong concern that Trump will be able to grant to Putin. Certainly also during the interview (which will take place with the sole presence of performers) will be addressed on the theme of Syria, with the US demand in Moscow to contain the Iranian influence in the region. And on the agenda, there is also the renewal of the 1945 Treaty on the new start the Treaty on the Reduction of Nuclear Weapons signed in 2010 . The agreement expires in 2021 the US National Security Advisor John Bolton expresses doubts about the renewal and the Russians demand that the missile defense system of Europe East is included in the negotiation. So, Putin and Trump will have to face the question.
That said, the symbolic and propaganda aspects of the meeting are probably more important than the political and diplomatic aspects. Trump arrives in Helsinki pursued by the now ubiquitous ghost of the investigation of Robert Mueller on Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Friday 12 officials military intelligence Russian officials were formally indicted by the US Department of Justice to have, in various ways, attempted to influence the presidential election process. In the interview to CBS Trump said that he "did not think" ask Putin to extradite the twelve Russian officials, but that "could do it". The lack of conviction of the US President's statement reveals the divisions that on the subject of Russian interference continue to exist in the administration. If the US Treasury Department talks about Moscow's "malicious activity" in the world, the US president complains that the entire Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt" that "seriously harms our relationships with Russia ".
Despite all the efforts made by Casa Bianca in recent months to try to defuse the "Russian bomb," the ghost of the "evil activity" of the Kremlin continues to mark American politics. It was not just the Democrats (who asked Trump to cancel the meeting with Putin after the charge of the twelve Russian officials) to relaunch the allegations about Moscow's role in the 2016 Republican victory. Republicans themselves openly oppose any opening to Russia. The Republican Senator John Kennedy explained that "Putin can not be trusted" and that dealing with the Russian authorities is like "making arrangements with the mafia". His colleague Thom Tillis went even further, explaining that any agreement between Putin and Trump will have no value because "he must first go through Congress". In other words, the whole Republican Party remains deeply suspicious of Putin, considering him an unreliable interlocutor, thinking that Russia did the work of piracy during elections of 2016 and that she now supports the forces of the far right in Europe to crush the West and question the overall geopolitical balance.
Trump's most recent statements, on the "enemy" commercial Europe of the United States and on the need for Britain adopts a radical Brexit, has further worried the former Washington's diplomatic establishment, which sees in Trump's statements an unprecedented questioning about the policies USA of the last decades. Obviously, all divisions in Washington and in the Atlantic camp are favorably perceived in Moscow. And here is the Russian interest on the eve of the meeting in Helsinki. Trump's latest statements against Europe and NATO have even taken Russia's political circles by surprise. Tatyana Parkhalina President of the Russian Association for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, recently told Russian public television that "we are witnessing something surprising, that even the Soviet Union does not Could not get it done: split the United States and Western Europe did not work then, but that seems to work now with Trump. "
The open crisis in relations between the United States and Europe, and the breaking of the American policy on the attitude to adopt in Russia, I am already a victory for Moscow. "We are well aware that the US establishment is hostage to stereotypes" against Russia, said Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov . The fact is that these stereotypes do not disturb the Kremlin but are indeed seen as a useful tool for fomenting divisions and splits in the West. Then there is the theme of the return of the image that the Helsinki meeting can offer to Putin. After the success of the Football World Cup, Putin can enjoy a new important star and an important recognition, both international and international. On the outside, the Russian president shows that Russia has come back to speak on an equal footing with the United States. On the inside, thanks to a capillary control of the media, he can show the renewed Russian prestige, which could lead (as has already been broken down by Trump) to a readmission to G7 . because only the entrance to the presidential palace of Helsinki is a success for Putin. The concrete results of the meeting are much less important to him. Putin could bring a promise about the US's future involvement in Trident Juncture of NATO . Or insurance on a softening of the United States in the history of Crimea . However important, these are not the true goals of the Kremlin. This is the new role of Russia on the international scene and the now manifestly inability of the United States to position itself as a world leader, the results already achieved by Moscow. The result for Trump is much more nuanced and uncertain. However, you come home, doing nothing or posting new relations with Russia, the US president is bound to raise new criticisms and suspicions.
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