Dear Reader,
When President Trump entered the Oval Office he entered the china shop.
And the old bovine has been shattering porcelain at rates truly prodigious.
Executive order succeeds executive order.
Termination succeeds termination.
Bombshell declaration succeeds bombshell declaration.
I do not know if the business is sustainable. Yet it has offered vast entertainment.
I do fear — however — that one of the president’s cardinal ambitions will come to grief.
Here I refer to Ukraine… and the war that rages therein.
Trump Threatens Putin
The president claims he will end the conflagration. Yet I am not half so convinced that he can.
What is more, I fear he may dump high-octane gasoline upon the roaring fire.
That is, I fear he may plunge the United States deeper into the conflict.
Claimed the president recently:
- If a deal is not reached, I will have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and other participating countries. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is always better…
- I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR.
I do not believe Mr. Putin will appreciate the gesture.
Putin’s no Fool
The Russian is a shrewd, shrewd fox. He is likewise a very resolute fellow.
I do not believe he will quail before the American’s threats.
Nor do I believe President Trump wields the leverage over Russia he believes he wields.
Tariffs on Russian wares? What wares does the United States import from Mr. Putin’s Russia?
Very few presently. Thus greater tariffs will not diminish impactfully Russian coffers.
Tariffs will prove a dull blade.
Meantime, the United States and its European allies have sanctioned Russia to kingdom come.
Yet these sanctions have failed to starve the Russian bear. They have instead fattened it.
Sanctions Have Backfired, Hugely
National Public Radio’s Charles Maynes:
- After an initial sputter, Russia’s economy grew in 2023 and surged to become one of the world’s fastest growing last year…
- Nations like China and India continued to purchase Russia’s key exports – oil and gas – filling government coffers just as Moscow’s energy business with much of Europe was drying up.
- Illicit imports from other countries – often former Soviet Republics – provided an avenue for trade in otherwise banned Western goods – everything from airplane engines to the latest iPhones. Meanwhile, many Russian businesses flourished with the exit of high-profile Western companies, grabbing essentially abandoned market share.
Mr. Market is a highly resourceful fellow.
Slam the front door and he will smuggle his goods through the rear door.
Bar the rear door and he will slip through a window.
Seal the windows and he will tunnel his way into the basement.
Not even a president of the United States will cow him.
A Russian Construction Boom
Meantime, my overseas agents report that Russian cityscapes are strewn with construction cranes.
If sanctions deny Russian oligarchs opportunity abroad — after all — they may as well pursue opportunity at home.
Thus I do not believe additional sanctions will force Mr. Putin to terms.
What is more, I believe President Trump vastly underestimates the Russian’s negotiating position.
The president evidently believes Russia has sustained ghastly losses in Ukraine’s killing fields.
He claims 600,000 Russians have gone beneath the sod.
Yet my agents — who seldom lead me off course — inform me Russian fatalities are but a slight fraction of 600,000.
They find vindication in Russian independent media outlet Mediazona.
88,726 Dead Russians?
The anti-Putin organization scours the Russian landscape for obituarial announcements, social media postings of deaths and the like.
Yet Mediazona can confirm 88,726 Russian war fatalities… through mid-January at least.
They concede the possibility their mathematics may come in low.
Their upper estimate exceeds 120,000 war fatalities.
120,000 is plenty handsome — the United States endured some 7,000 fatalities in nearly two decades of its war on terror, so-called.
Russia has endured at least 88,726 in three years of special military operation… and likely more.
Yet all available evidence weighs heavily against the 600,000 figure.
Russia’s Winning
Meantime, my agents report that Russian battlefield advances accelerate by the day, by the week, by the month.
The Ukrainian position — highly to the contrary — is vastly diminishing.
Its forces lack equipment and reel from severe shortages in men.
All the while, my agents claim Mr. Putin enjoys exceedingly high popularity among Russians.
What is their primary grievance against him?
That he has battled Ukraine with inadequate aggression.
They would have him remove his boxing gloves… and strike with bare knuckles.
Yet they are very pleased with him in the altogether.
Thus I do not believe Mr. Putin is pleading for peace.
Nor do I believe he will yield to President Trump’s terms.
Putin Holds All the Cards
Why would Mr. Putin fold his winning hand of cards… and yield to President Trump’s terms?
After all: He believes he is winning the conflict — and he is very likely correct.
He has also seen off the fantastic sanctions regime imposed upon him.
Russia thrives despite it.
Where then is President Trump’s negotiating leverage? It is not visible to these eyes.
Yet the president is a very boastful and prideful fellow. He fears greatly for his appearance.
He has promised peace. He believes he must therefore deliver peace.
He does not wish to be made a monkey of — not before the world’s judging eyes.
Thus he is out to “win.”
Would Trump Double Down?
Here is my concern: That the president may “double down” to get a handshake from the implacable Russian.
I fear the president will not decrease United States assistance to Ukraine — but increase United States assistance to Ukraine.
Here I refer to both financial and martial assistance.
I fear the president may likewise bless Ukrainian missile assaults deep within the Russian landmass.
These missile assaults are not possible absent direct American assistance.
The Russians know it. And Mr. Putin has stated, publicly, that he considers it an American war act against Russia.
Up the escalation ladder the two men would go… rung by perilous rung.
Who will jump down first? I do not believe either man will jump down first.
And so I fear President Trump may be vacuumed into the dismal quagmire.
Trump’s Vietnam?
Former Trump advisor Steven Bannon shares my worry:
- If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not Lyndon Johnson’s.
I harbor little doubt that the president’s political foes would like to bog him down in the Ukrainian steppes.
In the morass he would wallow… as his support among the American people would wallow.
I do not know if the president will bite the bait dangled before him.
I hope sincerely he will not.
One Vietnam was one Vietnam too many. We do not need another.
Nor does President Trump.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News