(CLO) During his election campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to negotiate with Russia to ease tensions between the two countries. So will US-Russia relations change significantly under Trump?
The door to US-Russia negotiations is wide open
According to Yury Borovsky, Head of the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy, Moscow State Institute of International Relations/Russian Foreign Ministry, the victory of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election is a "window of opportunity" for US-Russia relations, which are in the most difficult period in history.
During the election campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly expressed his pragmatism towards Russia. Unlike incumbent President Joe Biden and other Democrats, Mr. Trump is ready to negotiate with Russia, and this is a good basis for building effective, mutually acceptable US-Russia relations.
In addition, the Republican Party also won majority control in the Senate and almost the entire House of Representatives in the US Congress, so expectations that President Donald Trump's administration will ease tensions with Russia will be even greater, even easing and eventually lifting sanctions against Russia.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at a previous meeting. Photo: Rianovosti
It is unlikely that the general US approach to geostrategic competition with Russia will change, but it is likely that the confrontation will undergo major and predictable changes. There are also many opinions that the US under President Donald Trump version 2.0 will abandon the construction of liberal hegemony and begin to build its foreign policy mainly on the basis of realism.
In other words, Washington could recognize the emergence of a multipolar world order, which could give US foreign policy toward Russia, China, and other centers of power a more pragmatic, restrained, and constructive tone.
However, there are also opinions that the possibility of a foreign policy succession cannot be ruled out despite the Republican presidential candidate winning; because the entire US power system cannot be restructured overnight, and with the strong and unpredictable personality of President Donald Trump, as what happened in his first term, it could cause Russia and the rest of the world to suffer a new escalation of tensions.
The Core Issue - The Conflict in Ukraine
The military conflict in Ukraine will remain a key aspect of US-Russia relations, at least early in his term. Mr Trump has previously stated his intention to act as “the great mediator” in the Ukrainian conflict if he wins the presidency. This means that even before taking office in January 2025, Mr Trump and his team will seek to engage closely with the Russian and Ukrainian leadership.
The future nature of US-Russia relations will largely depend on the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. After Trump’s election as President, the US role in the Ukrainian crisis is expected to change. Unlike the Democrats, Trump will not seek Russia’s “strategic defeat” and will try to de-escalate the situation without harming US interests and its military-industrial complex.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict will be the focus of Mr. Trump's upcoming policy. Photo: Reuters
According to Russian expert Yury Borovsky, Mr. Trump will probably try to reconcile Moscow and Kiev as soon as possible and thereby present himself to American voters and the whole world as an excellent mediator.
President-elect Trump needs peace in Ukraine for several reasons. First, Trump is unhappy that since 2022 the United States has spent huge sums of money on Ukraine that could have been used for other purposes. Second, Trump has more reason to blame incumbent President Joe Biden and the Democrats for starting the bloody conflict. Third, Trump wants to go down in history as the politician who saved humanity from global war. Unlike Biden, who “inherited” Ukraine policy during his years in the Obama administration, Trump has absolutely no connection with the current Kiev government and is not personally interested in unlimited support for the administration of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Moreover, the Democrats, accusing Trump of pressuring Zelensky, initiated impeachment proceedings against him in 2019, which he will certainly not forget.
In the coming period, the international community is likely to see concrete proposals from the incoming Trump administration to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. However, analysts say that Moscow and Kiev’s refusal to make concessions, even in the face of Washington’s ultimatum, which Donald Trump and his team have already mentioned, could lead to an even greater escalation of the conflict and an even further deterioration of US-Russia relations.
History has shown that the so-called deal of the century proposed by Mr. Trump in 2020 to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has failed, even though the current wars between Israel in the Middle East took place during the time the Democratic Party was in power.
Therefore, if the Trump administration’s “peacemaking” efforts fail, the conflict in Ukraine will become even more deadlocked and could move into an even more dangerous phase. At the same time, there could be another scenario in which the current state of affairs in the Ukraine conflict will be “frozen,” remaining dormant for months or years.
Ha Anh
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/ong-donald-trump-se-giup-quan-he-my--nga-binh-thuong-tro-lai-post320979.html
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