View from Washington: Trump falters in his approach to Putin

President Donald Trump, on Truth Social and in interviews, is pushing the idea that Russia needs to hurry up and make a deal on Ukraine before Trump, taking advantage of Russia's economic problems, imposes high tariffs and other sanctions on Russia. To emphasize his own thinking about the futility of the Ukraine war, Trump says that Russia has suffered of casualties.

The western press has been full of stories all of which have the same thing: “Russia's economy is in free fall and in a huge crisis.” But, anyone running a war that is costly and where the national currency value has fallen precipitously, where interest rates are outlandish and inflation nearly out of control, would naturally be worried and alarmed, notes Stephen Bryen, a former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense.  That does not mean either Putin or his ministers are in a panic, and it does not mean that the Russian government is about to collapse.

Most of these articles plastered in Western media reports lack sources.

Russia right now has a labor shortage and full employment. Typically an economy in trouble is characterized by people out of work, low wages or no wages, and supply shortages especially consumer goods. Russia has consumer goods, although imported ones and some domestic products (butter and eggs for example) are expensive but not in short supply.

Sanctions have opened the field to China, and Chinese products are cheaper than western ones, automobiles for example. There is no doubt that the war has contributed to the labor shortage, but it is hard to tell how much. Wages are high and increasing.

Russia also is energy independent and can regulate fuel prices at home, unlike Europe. In fact, because of the sanctions imposed on Russia and the not-so-secret destruction of Russian pipelines (and the artificial decision to not renew transit agreements for pipelines through Ukraine), the European economies are in worse shape than Russia when it comes to employment and energy shortages and costs.

Germany already is in a recession but Russia is not. Some think that the European currency, the Euro, is living on borrowed time. Further economic erosion in Germany and France could impact the value of the Euro.

The energy crisis in Europe could become worse if Russia decides to stop supplying gas, oil and LNG, meaning that Putin can damage Europe much more than Trump can damage Russia with new sanctions, tariffs or any other economic measure.

The flood of reports about Russia's economy and Putin's problems are part of a scenario promoted by Biden and his deep state colleagues on the mistaken belief that the US could engineer regime change in Russia. Trump seems to be endorsing that policy. Unfortunately, it is counterproductive as it only strengthens the Russian determination to finish the Ukraine war and win it.

Worse still, it harms Trump's credibility with Moscow in getting a deal to end the war. Trump came to office relatively free of any relationship to the Biden deep state policy. He seemed to understand that the policy of trying to upend Moscow and Putin was counterproductive and unintelligent.

His approach gave him an advantage, coming into office without any Biden foreign policy baggage, which he is now in danger of losing.

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