Trump is trying to pull Putin away from China
The image of the summer is the picture of European leaders facing Donald Trump across his desk in the Oval Office. His allies said it was “the headmaster calling the truants in”.
The picture dramatises what the French academic Gilles Gressani calls Europe’s “happy vassal complex”.
He describes the European Union’s effective surrender to Trump’s tariff demands in July as “revealing this economic giant to be a political dwarf, unwilling and unable to engage in a power struggle to defend its interests or articulate a coherent set of strategic priorities”.
Of course, the basic realities of power haven’t really changed since the end of the Second World War. Nato arose from Western European capitalism’s desperate need for the military power of the United States to hold off the Soviet Union.
But, outside a few moments of confrontation, previous US administrations were willing to pay lip service to their allies’ national pride.
Trump doesn’t care—indeed he glories in the televised spectacle of bullying in the Oval Office. But the Europeans, including arch-happy vassal Keir Starmer, still need the US. One reason why Brussels caved in over tariffs was the fear that if, like China, it fought back, Trump would effectively withdraw the US security guarantee to Europe.
Indeed, the reason these European trusties were in the US was to stop Trump agreeing on a deal with Vladimir Putin that would abandon Ukraine to Russia.
The meeting followed the Alaska summit where Trump reneged on his promises to pressure Putin into an immediate ceasefire. This led to a torrent of accusations from Western pro-war enthusiasts that Trump now accepts Putin’s demand that Russia annex eastern Ukraine and reduce the surviving rump to its dependency. The European leaders claim they deflected Trump from this path, if he really had chosen it.
Their problem is, despite their crash rearmament programme, Starmer’s famous European “coalition of the willing” lack the military capabilities either to sustain the war or enforce a peace agreement. They still need what Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte fawningly called “Daddy”—i.e Trump and the military might of the US state.
There are many liberal attempts to psychoanalyse Trump’s supposed dependence on Putin. Once again, the realities of power are more illuminating.
First, Russia is gradually and murderously putting ever‑greater pressure on Ukraine’s armed forces. The more Putin wins on the battlefield, the less he’ll have to concede at the negotiating table. So he has an interest in dragging things out.
Second, in the global inter-imperialist contest with China, the Trump administration is openly seeking to prise Russia away from China. As defence analyst Patricia Marins recently tweeted, “Russia does not threaten US hegemony today as the Soviet Union once did, but China, with over 1.3 billion people and a robust economy, boasting the largest industrial base on the planet, does threaten the US.
“Washington knows China is its true adversary, especially militarily. The Chinese are flying fighter prototypes of a generation ahead of the Americans, launching missiles a generation ahead. In naval terms, China’s production capacity is vast, and combined with Russia’s, it may account for over 60 percent of global military shipbuilding.
“The US has unmatched industrial transformation capacity but needs to control the technological gap, partly by separating Russia from China.
“Beijing still relies on Russian technologies and supplies for its armed forces in several areas” the partnership between Russia and China “is a delicate interdependence, strengthened by Western sanctions.”
So beyond Trump’s bluster, there is a cold geopolitical logic in US imperialism seeking to break up this partnership.
It’s highly doubtful that Putin would agree to abandon China. Chinese capital may be penetrating Russia’s vast underpopulated eastern flank in Siberia. But the experience of the Western drive to break the Russian economy is a strong incentive to stick with Beijing.
Amid this great-power manoeuvring, the Ukrainian people are the merest pawns.
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