Putin-Trump meeting: Nothing more than a photo-op

Donald Trump came into the White House promising to end the costly, destructive proxy war with Russia in Ukraine on his first day in office. Finally, seven months later, the White House and U.S. corporate media grandly pre-publicized the Aug. 15 meeting in Alaska of Presidents Putin and Trump. The publicity raised great expectations, making it appear that Trump was doing something to end the intense war against Russia that the U.S. and NATO have been waging since the overthrow of a Ukrainian government friendly to Russia in early 2014. 

Trump brought no new offer to the summit.  Despite the publicity, the meeting ended early, neither president made any ending statement, and the corporate news organizations had nothing of substance to report on. War in Ukraine grinds on.

In reality, the second Trump administration, no different from the Biden administration, has extended U.S. involvement, begun under the Obama administration, and increased both U.S. and European NATO imperialist funding and involvement in Ukraine. 

Even if it were Trump’s goal to lift the U.S. sanctions on Russia, he would have to first win a full Congressional vote ending them, because these sanctions have been locked in. The imperialist collaborators in Europe and Canada have also locked in the most prohibitive sanctions ever passed on Russia.

U.S., British, European Union, Canadian, Australian and Japanese imperialism have imposed more than 16,500 economic sanctions on Russia. These sanctions primarily target Russia’s financial system, with measures including freezing foreign currency reserves. They block the sale of Russian oil, gas, wheat and fertilizer, freeze assets of Russian banks and exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system. 

To the great frustration of these imperialist predators, the Russian economy and state survived these sanctions, which were designed to impose a regime change and new looting of Russia. Now Russia’s trade is overwhelmingly conducted with the countries of the Global South. 

By threatening to withdraw U.S. multibillion-dollar support to the fascist, totally corrupt and now unelected Zelensky regime, Trump did succeed in coercing all other NATO member countries to vastly increase their military budgets. Now many plan to spend up to 5% of their gross domestic product on weapons.

What this means for the European working class is that the European rulers will rip billions of dollars from social programs and spend these same billions purchasing U.S. weapons to pour into the meat grinder in Ukraine.

This arrangement means more profit to the owners of U.S. military industries. By extending the war, it brings more suffering to the people of Ukraine and Russia. It accelerates the drive toward a wider war and the danger of a direct confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, both armed with nuclear weapons.

Workers World has always covered the danger posed by the aggressive NATO military alliance. Since its founding in 1949, NATO’s military forces have been commanded by U.S. generals. NATO existed from the beginning to keep Europe capitalist and keep European workers in the grip of U.S. corporate domination. Since 1990, the U.S. has also used NATO to expand U.S. corporate domination to the Global South, notoriously in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

The only thing new from the summit is the need to redouble the effort to dissolve NATO and get the U.S. and its military out of Europe and the rest of the world.