© EPA-EFE/ANNABELLE GORDON Trump is starting to be laughed at, journalists point out.
US President Donald Trump has set a condition under which he will impose “significant” sanctions on Russia: all NATO member states must do the same, as well as stop buying Russian oil and impose high tariffs on China. Such a condition is almost 100% impossible to fulfill, as both Trump and his advisers know, The New York Times reports.
“The biggest European buyers of Russian oil are two countries with autocratic leaders that Mr. Trump admires — Hungary and Turkey [which are also NATO members] — and they are unlikely to stop. Most other European countries have significantly reduced their imports of Russian oil. However, some still rely on Russian natural gas, which Mr. Trump did not mention,” the publication explained.
It is noted that Trump has repeatedly promised action against Russia, but has left himself an excuse to abandon them. The summit with Putin in Alaska was intended to pave the way for a bilateral meeting between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, and then a trilateral meeting, this time with Trump. Instead, from that moment on, Russia continued to strike Ukraine and began to test NATO defenses, the NYT writes.
At the same time, The Washington Post also writes that after the summit in Alaska, Putin became more confident in his actions. He threatened strikes on future foreign troops in Ukraine, struck Western targets in Ukraine, and launched drones into Poland.
“The warm embrace from other rivals of the United States, which Putin also received last week in China, and the lack of a firm response from the United States have emboldened the Russian president, who is accelerating efforts to crush Ukraine and split the once-strong US-European alliance, analysts and former European and American officials say,” the journalists write.
It is noted that many people began to mock Trump, calling him indecisive and full of boasting. All because of his threats to punish Russia, which were never carried out. In particular, they quoted a quote from Moskovsky Komsomolets columnist Mikhail Rostovsky, who wrote that Trump “has shown himself to be a politician who, despite all his loud rhetoric, is unable to consistently insist on and firmly promote the solution he has chosen.”
Earlier, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker noted that after the imposition of US sanctions, Russia's ability to finance the war would end. According to him, Trump may not limit himself to sanctions in the future.
