Before President Trump’s tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was already downplaying the stakes.
Wednesday morning, she described the summit as a “listening exercise” — which is, frankly, a relief. After all, when you’re a time-poor autocrat juggling a Monday invasion, a midweek labor camp opening, and a weekend of jailing political opponents, it’s easy to feel unheard.
Sure, Putin invaded Ukraine. And yes, countless people have suffered ... on both sides. But perhaps — and I think we can all agree this is the real tragedy here — no one has taken the time to validate his feelings.
So it was heartening, then, to see Vlad and Donald touch down on Alaskan soil midday Friday and greet each other with warmth: a smattering of applause from Trump, a weirdly prolonged handshake, and then the two friends sliding into the same back seat — a notable break in protocol — for the drive to their meeting.
Waiting for them on the tarmac was a stage emblazoned “ALASKA 2025,” festival-style, primed for the photo-op. Meanwhile, at least seven civilians had just been killed in Ukraine by Russian missiles.
When they emerged again for a post-meeting press conference, earlier than expected, it was clear a good time had been had by all. They had agreed on “most points,” said Trump. He was going to “call up NATO,” he added, saying, “I will, of course, call up President Zelensky and tell him about today's meeting." Very good of him.
They should meet, Putin added, but “next time in Moscow.”
Trump laughed at that point, calling his suggestion “an interesting one.”
“I’ll get a little heat on that one,” the American president added, “but I could see it possibly happening.” The two men leaned in toward each other and smiled, like they were sharing an inside joke.
The bottom line: a nebulous amount of “progress” made, some “headway,” stuff to talk about, but “there's no deal until there's a deal.”
Ah well. Maybe Vlad just needs more time. I’m pretty sure, however, that he already got what he came for — and that the joke is on America.
Contrast the kid-gloves treatment of everybody’s favorite dictator with the treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky a few months ago, when he visited the White House. Indeed, it is hard to recall another Oval Office meeting where an allied head of state was treated quite like the Ukrainian president was in February.
Lest we forget, Zelensky had arrived to discuss a minerals deal that might have bolstered his country’s three-year fight for survival. He left having been publicly chided, mid-meeting, for “disrespect” and insufficient gratitude. Trump accused him of “gambling with World War III”, while JD Vance, in full Wormtail mode, jumped in to ask: “Have you even said thank-you once?” It was both difficult and embarrassing to watch.
This is the asymmetry at the heart of Trump-era foreign policy: allies get the tongue-lashing, rivals get the literal red carpet.
Zelensky’s reward for resisting an existential threat was a televised scolding. Putin’s reward for creating it has been years of deference and flattery. Recall the Helsinki summit, where Trump sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies, or the warm praise for Putin’s “genius”. Too self-satisfied to realize he’s been manipulated, The Donald simply keeps walking into the same trap, over and over again.
Trump himself seems to have realized how poor his own negotiating skills are in the past few weeks. Putin’s not a blowhard like his American counterpart; he just does what he feels like, and everyone else be damned.
Indeed, it was Donald himself who put it best in a press conference earlier in July where he described his ongoing efforts to help broker an end to the war in Ukraine thus: “I get home, I say to the First Lady, ‘I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we are finished,’” to which Melania will apparently respond in kind: “That’s funny, because they just bombed a nursing home.”
Therein lies the entire issue. Trump is brittle and easily manipulated; Putin talks him round again and again. Trump leaves those conversations utterly convinced of both Putin’s integrity and his own genius. Then Putin goes on dropping bombs and killing people. It’s a familiar story that’s played out not just in Russia, and that we can expect to play out anywhere where there’s a strongman leader with a penchant for basic flattery.
And really, where better to stage this utterly redundant spectacle than Alaska — the state Trump accidentally referred to as Russia earlier this week, and which, of course, once belonged to the Russian Empire.
After all, isn’t the whole point to start returning old territories to their former owners? Alaska, a place that is currently arranging citizen evacuations because of an uncontrolled glacier flood due to the effects of climate change, where water is thundering toward a dam called Suicide Basin. (Anchorage is on the other end of the state to where all that is happening in Juneau, meaning that Trump was able to fly right over Suicide Basin and shutter his Qatari-gifted Air Force One windows to the sight of climate catastrophe before he landed at a military base to meet with the man who started a war to talk about ending it.)
Alaska, the perfect place to propose — as leaks have suggested — that Russia has a “West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine,” since all available geopolitical sources suggest that solution has already played out so well for everyone involved.
And so the dance goes on, and tangible progress is not made but cameras and microphones and spotlights are perpetually trained on two geriatric egomaniacs. This kind of time-wasting theater always works in Russia’s favor.
The war will rumble on in Ukraine. The deal will never be made. Trump will get a few nice words, Putin will get his headlines.
And the rest of us are left with just the images of Donald and his little band of spray-tanned comrades marching about in the Alaskan summer, isolated together in a cold state in the middle of nowhere, with only a friendly dictator to keep them warm.