This week’s visit of US National Security Advisor John Bolton to Moscow has been truly important: preparations for serious bilateral talks are in full swing, and the forthcoming summit meeting of presidents Putin and Trump can be considerably different from those private meetings held on the margins of international events, says Ivan Timofeev, Programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
It is early to say that the US policy towards Russia has changed significantly. John Bolton arrived in Moscow only to set up the framework for the Putin-Trump summit, though Bolton’s visit itself can be seen as quite a positive development. Indeed, one can hardly recall the date of the most recent US-Russia summit; all of the past meetings between presidents of the US and Russia were held on the margins of international events.
Considering the negative attitude towards Russia and Trump’s policy in the US, Bolton’s visit has significant importance due to the preparations for serious bilateral talks going far beyond meetings on the margins.
Surely, it is not the time to expect any fundamental shifts resulting from the upcoming summit. Its agenda can include such issues as nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and global strategic stability. These are traditional issues for the US-Russia agenda. Economic cooperation is likely to be in the background, because it has traditionally been very weak. As for Ukraine and other problematic issues, one can hardly ever expect any progress here. Putin and Trump are likely to concentrate on strategic stability.
Considering a possible shift in the US-Russian relations, it should be noted that the two countries’ relations have remained bad since the beginning of Trump’s presidency, but one cannot observe any political quakes able to make them worse. This is a kind of “operative pause”, when the US can look around, assess the agenda and decide what to do next.
Trump is a politician who usually plays on the so-called countertrends. If everyone repeats that Russia is bad, he would say no, one should not state that so unambiguously. If everyone stands for receiving more migrants, he says that a huge wall should be built. That is his feature as a politician.
For him, the upcoming meeting with Putin is an opportunity to gather more political points. The same logic prevailed in his meeting with the DPRK leader Kim Jong-un. No American president had done that before – and Trump took a decision and did it.
One should not search for any special logic in why the Trump-Putin meeting is being planned right now. It is evidently not related to the controversies at the recent G7 meeting, the tariffs introduced or any other decisions that bring more tension to America’s relations with its allies in Europe and other parts of the world. Trump is a man who only works for himself.
