Trump’s phone call with Putin – Peace or posturing?

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation on Feb. 12. Nothing was agreed to, not even a ceasefire, and no treaty has been signed between Russia and Ukraine. Arms shipments haven’t stopped. 

But the mere fact that there was a conversation is cause for endless speculation.

Trump summarized the call on his media platform, Truth Social, this way: “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations. We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation.”

Trump’s proposal the next day that Pentagon spending could be halved sent shock waves through military stocks on Wall Street.

Is any of this real? 

Trump’s past reversals 

Trump has a long history of double-crosses and complete reversals. It is a game he clearly relishes. It is worth reviewing his political record of broken promises made during his first administration from 2017 to 2021. 

In his first term, Trump continually proposed withdrawing from NATO.. The U.S.-commanded NATO military alliance expanded. NATO expands under each U.S. president, Republican or Democrat. 

Early in the first Trump administration, promises were made to resolve the continuing Ukrainian attacks, with U.S./NATO-supplied weapons, directly on Russia and on the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine. Instead, Trump withdrew from the weak ceasefire agreement called the Minsk Accords. Then he escalated, sending funds and U.S. military equipment to Ukraine.

Lifting sanctions on Russia was included in a draft of executive orders in Trump’s first administration and was a topic before a now-forgotten Trump/Putin phone call eight years ago, on Jan 27, 2017. But the sanctions remained in place. By August 2017, Trump had significantly increased the sanctions on Russia imposed under President Barack Obama. 

On Jan. 23, three days after his second inauguration, Trump addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He said he wanted to discuss “denuclearization” with Russia and China.

Trump also raised this grand proposal eight years ago. But rather than taking any positive action, he withdrew from past arms control treaties, including the Open Skies Treaty and then the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, claiming the treaties no longer benefited the U.S. 

Flips on Afghanistan and DPRK

A “new strategy” to end 16 years of U.S. war in Afghanistan quickly morphed into a big plan to ”win” with additional troops and billions of dollars in funds and military equipment for four more years — until the U.S. was driven out, four months after Trump left office. 

Trump called for U.S. troops and bases to be withdrawn from South Korea. One round of threatening U.S. military drills with tanks, jets and ships against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was postponed. With world publicity, he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the DPRK on June 30, 2018, to meet with President Kim Jong Un. 

This was an intense effort to press the DPRK to disarm, while U.S. bases, and extreme sanctions stayed in place. The DPRK stood steadfast in demanding that lifting sanctions and closing U.S. bases must happen first. Sanctions and military exercises then increased.

Trump: ‘Let’s cut military budgets in half’

Trump also said, on Feb. 13, “let’s cut our military budget in half!” He plans to take this up with Russia and China. (Barron’s, Feb. 14)

But even if the Pentagon budget was cut in half, it would still far exceed the combined military budgets of China and Russia. In 2023, with the largest military budget in the world, the U.S. accounted for 37% of global military spending. China accounted for 12% and Russia was third at 4.5%. (tinyurl.com/5du44r6s)

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun responded, “Since the United States calls for ‘America First,’ they should take the lead in setting an example of cutting military spending.” (tinyurl.com/4zcf25az)

The collapse of Project Ukraine

The corrupt Ukrainian regime, after three years of military setbacks, is facing complete collapse. Massive infusions of weapons, from the U.S. and 15 other NATO countries, disappear immediately into the gray market on arrival at the border. The systemic corruption, the rotating generals and the fascist but inept mercenary units can no longer be hidden. These are well-known facts on the ground even covered in the corporate media.

The Trump administration is faced with a war that failed to achieve its purpose of breaking up Russia. The most intense sanctions ever passed, the most lethal equipment and an unrelenting war along almost 1,500 miles of border have totally failed.

The Biden administration sold the war to the imperialist countries of the G7 as a pirates’ opportunity to join in dismembering and looting Russia. The Russian ruble would become rubble, Biden promised. Russia would collapse. 

The opposite happened. New trade relations, along with political and economic relations with China and the Global South, are a fundamental shift.

U.S. imperialism pressed the European countries to cancel hundreds of lucrative trade deals with Russia for gas, oil, grains and essential materials. European Union economies are now chained to the far more expensive fracked gas from the U.S.

Trump has handed off all future expenses of a failed war to the European Union while demanding that they pay billions of dollars more for military expenses that directly benefit U.S. corporations.

It is a lose/lose crisis for the EU.

The fact that the proposed U.S.-Russia meeting is proposed by Trump to take place in Saudi Arabia and not in Europe, when it is about a war in Europe, stunned European and Ukrainian officials. They had not been warned of the Putin-Trump call or consulted about its content.

Deputy Chair of Security Council of the Russian Federation and Former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev posted on X that the The Putin-Trump phone call shows “Europe’s time is over.” (tinyurl.com/2229sz6k)

Speaking to a NATO conference in Brussels the day after the Trump-Putin call, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth harshly drove home the point that the Ukrainian regime joining NATO or regaining land of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine that is now part of Russia is unrealistic. The U.S. will no longer prioritize European and Ukrainian security. The Trump administration will shift its attention to securing U.S. borders and supposedly deterring war with China. (tinyurl.com/347w5zkw)

Citing past experience, Russia was unwilling to even discuss a temporary ceasefire. At a press briefing in the lead up to the Trump-Putin call, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova explained: “Russia will not accept a temporary ceasefire with Ukraine, since it will only be used by the collective West to reinforce Kiev until hostilities can break out again. Moscow is seeking only a lasting solution which will put an end to the ongoing crisis. … We need reliable, legally binding agreements and mechanisms that would guarantee that the crisis will not recur.” (tinyurl.com/ahb58e5u)

Is this the plan of the Trump administration?

Rare earth minerals 

The one thing Trump is demanding from President Zelensky is a signed treaty giving the U.S. 50% ownership and full access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth minerals, including lithium and titanium, as a $500 billion payment for past U.S. weapons and assistance that have totally destroyed the country.

Ukraine already signed a Strategic Partnership deal with the EU in 2021 for the development of these same materials. Trump’s officials have suggested a mineral deal could be an “economic shield that would show the Russians U.S. has interests in Ukraine.” (politico.eu, Feb.15)

To further complicate matters, the majority of this undeveloped mineral wealth is in Luhansk and Donetsk, the break-away republics that are now part of Russia. 

So the meeting to end the war in Ukraine comes with new threats to extend the war. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump is coming to the meeting with Putin with threats of a new round of sanctions and direct U.S. military involvement to supposedly guard access to valuable mineral wealth. (Feb. 14)

All this recalls the words of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht: “When the politicians talk about peace, the common people know it means war.” (“A German War Primer,” 1937)