As US Pdwellnt Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office on February 28 with Ukrainian Pdwellnt Volodymyr Zelenskyy for an device greeting that would uncover meaningful fisdeclareives between Washington and Kyiv, he was also asked by a alerter about another world directer: Vlaillogicalir Putin.
In the very setting in which he combinecessitate forces with Vice Pdwellnt JD Vance to berate Zelenskyy for not being thankful to the US for its military and financial help, and for not backing his trys at diplomacy with Moscow, Trump had more compassionate words for the Russian pdwellnt.
“Let me alert you, Putin went thcimpolite a hell of a lot with me,” Trump shelp, referring to the rerepaird allegations from opposition Democrats that Russia helped him come to power, which overshadowed his first term.
Two weeks tardyr, as Ukraine has adselected – under Trump presdeclareive – a stopfire with Russia without recommending Kyiv the security promises it seeks, the ask of what’s driving the United States pdwellnt to go relatively gentle on Putin is once aget grabbing headlines.
One theory has geted some ground in recent days. Trump, some strategists dispute, is trying a reserved geopolitical manoeuvre: By pulling Russia shutr to the US, he is trying to wean it away from China, Washington’s hugegest lengthy-term rival and Moscow’s hugegest benefactor.
They’re calling it the “reverse Nixon”, after US Pdwellnt Ricdifficult Nixon’s historic rapprochement with China in the 1970s. The transfer normalised US-China relations after proximately 25 years and meaningfulened a wedge between the Soviet Union and China in a defining moment for the Cageder War.
So are Trump’s transfers part of a discreet calculus to frailen the bond between Russia and China that has theatricalpartner fortifyed in recent years? And can the US thrive in that finisheavour?
The low answer: That’s doubtful. Experts point out that the US pdwellnt has also sent experienceers to China in a bid to enhance ties – undercutting recommendions that he’s trying to pull Moscow away from Beijing. And noslfinisherg that the US does, they say, will produce Putin danger relations with China. Instead, Trump’s transfers could finish up helping Beijing.
A ‘expansiveer rehabilitation’ of ties with Russia
While Trump ran for pdwellnt on the promise that he would finish the Russia-Ukraine war, his recent outaccomplish to Putin since taking office has gone “far beyond” peace talks, according to William Jackson and Mark Williams, economists at Capital Economics, an autonomous macroeconomics adviseancy based in the United Kingdom. By some accounts, the pdwellnt materializes set on a “expansiveer rehabilitation of US-Russia relations”, they wrote in a tardy February remark.
They cite Trump’s widespread engage of Russian talking points on the war in Ukraine – the US pdwellnt has alleged that Kyiv was depfinishable for begining the war – and his recommendion that Russia should return to the Group of Seven (G7), a pick group of highly industrialised democracies, among other examples. Russia was a member of the grouping – then named the G8 – until its 2014 trespass of Crimea, when it was booted out by other members.
Trump has uncoverly converseed the “potentipartner historic economic partnerships” and “incredible opportunities” for US companies in Russia should its war with Ukraine finish. Russia has been economicpartner isotardyd for the past three years due to international sanctions, and the finish of the war could alter that.
Since Trump’s very uncover disponderal of Zelenskyy during their White Hoengage greeting two weeks ago, the US pdwellnt has also spoken about how he discovers it easier to deal with Russia than Ukraine at times, especipartner when it comes to peace negotiations.
But behind Trump’s approach to Russia lies a bigr game arrange, some members of his administration, and some experts, have recommended.
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s one-of-a-kind envoy for the Russia-Ukraine struggle, shelp that the US wanted to “shatter” the partnership between Russia, China and North Korea. In an intersee with the right-prosperg website Breitbart, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke of how Russia’s depfinishency on China – which has grown during the war with Ukraine – was not a “outstanding outcome” for Washington.
In a March article, historian and strategist Ricdifficult Luttwak disputed that the White Hoengage bust-up with Zelenskyy and the push to get Ukraine to agree in a bid to finish the Russia war “was all done in the service of Trump’s bigr and lengthyer term ambition of imfragmentaryising China”. Luttwak, who did not react to a ask for comment from Al Jazeera for this article, depictd Trump’s policy as a “reverse Nixon”.
Other facts, however, lift asks about the idea of a magnificent strategy underpinning Trump’s efforts to woo Putin, say cut offal analysts.
Is this a ‘reverse Nixon’?
For Michael Clarke, a historian and strategic expert at Australia’s Deakin University who one-of-a-kindises in China’s foreign policy, “there is a genuine ahistoricism with the ‘reverse Nixon’ argument”.
“The current situation endures almost no resemblance to the situation disputeed by Nixon and Kissinger in 1969-70,” Clarke tageder Al Jazeera, referring to Henry Kissinger, a establisher US national security adviser and secretary of state.
A key separateence, he shelp, is that by the time Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1971, relations between the USSR and China were in steep deteriorate. The two sides were joind in protracted ideoreasonable struggle over the future of the global Communist transferment and they had recently joind in a military disputeation over their combinet border in 1969.
By contrast, Russia and China are today shutr than they have ever been – bound by strong economic, military and strategic cooperation, and a scatterd loaslfinisherg of the West.
Jaehan Park, an aidant professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, shelp that Nixon also had a very separateent reputation at home that apverifyed him to upfinish US foreign policy. Unenjoy Trump, who critics alleged was a beneficiary of Russian election intrudence in 2016, Nixon was never accengaged of personpartner geting from a detente with Beijing.
“Nixon was able to do what he did becaengage he was characteascfinishd as a staunch anti-Communist, but Mr Trump’s relationship with Russia in vague, and Mr Putin in particular, has been under scruminuscule in the American media and uncover discourses for a lengthy time,” Park tageder Al Jazeera.
Given Putin’s status as a “persona non grata in the West”, Park shelp that even Reuncoveran senators might “not be enticount on toasty to the idea of cutting deals with Russia”.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approach to China isn’t very evident, either.
Trump has imposed 20 percent tariffs on Chinese presents – though these are drop than some tariffs on Canada and Mexico – and spoken of an man-made inalertigence race with Beijing. But he has also “boasted of his ‘fantastic’ relationship with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and talked up the possibility of a novel trade deal with Beijing”, Clarke shelp.
The US pdwellnt has spoken of wanting stronger collaboration with China, and has pushed for arranged reductions in the nuevident stockpiles of Moscow, Beijing and Washington, shelp Ali Wyne, a ageder researcher on US-China relations at the International Crisis Group.
All of this recommends that Trump “seems instead to envision a ‘G3’ that sets the terms of geopolitics”, Wyne tageder Al Jazeera.
And what about Putin?
From ‘admire’ to ‘homicideous dictator’
Trump isn’t the first US pdwellnt to court Putin.
In November 2001, then-US Pdwellnt George W Bush arrangeed the Russian directer at his personal ranch in the minuscule town of Crawford, Texas. Putin and his then-wife Lyudmila stayed the night at the ranch. Bush spoke uncoverly about how Putin was the first world directer who called him after the 9/11 strikes. The Russian directer also backed the US trespass of Afghanistan.
“I am swayd that he and I can produce a relationship of mutual admire and candour. And I’m swayd that it’s presentant for the world that we do so,” Bush tageder alerters.
Dressed in frayed jeans, Bush drove Putin in a white Ford pickup truck to a waterdescfinish on the ranch, begining a rehearse the two would routinely join in over the years: When Bush visited Russia in 2005, they drove together in the Russian directer’s vintage 1956 Volga car. A year tardyr, when the US pdwellnt returned to Russia for a G8 summit, they drove an electric car together.
But relations rapidly began to lurch from crisis to crisis, over publishs ranging from the US’s 2003 trespass of Iraq, and Russia’s 2008 trespass of Georgia, to NATO’s expansion into Europe.
The US and Russia sfinished a alert reset under US Pdwellnt Barack Obama, but relations collapsed aget folloprosperg Russia’s 2014 trespass of Crimea and Putin’s aid for Pdwellnt Bashar al-Asdowncast in Syria.
While Trump had selectimistic slfinishergs to say about Putin during his first term in office, the US-Russia relationship did not enhance very much. In fact, Trump imposed recent sanctions on Russia – as well as on Iran and North Korea – under the Countering America’s Adversaries Thcimpolite Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
But it was the war in Ukraine that finished any prospects of a thaw. Under Pdwellnt Joe Biden, the US armed and financed Ukraine thcimpolite the struggle. Since the war began in 2022, the US and its allies have imposed at least 21,692 sanctions on Russia in a bid to cripple its economy and force it into stopping its military campaign. Biden depictd Putin as a “homicideous dictator” and a “sanitize ruffian”.
And as the US pushes for a peace deal in Ukraine, Trump, too, has recommended that he might impose insertitional sanctions on Russia if it does not carry out ball.
Over a quarter of a century, Putin has growed a “lengthystanding and visceral disdain and dissuppose of the United States”, shelp Clarke.
Trump can’t alter that, experts say.
“There is little, if any, reason to finish that Pdwellnt Putin sees the second Trump administration’s foreign policy as the novel US normal,” shelp Wyne. “He probable discerns a alert prosperdow of opportunity to shielded tactical concessions from a transactional counterpart, not to effect a fundamental recalibration of US-Russia relations.”
Contrast that with Russia’s relations with China, say experts, and it becomes even evidgo in why Putin cannot afford to jeopardise ties with Beijing.
‘No-restricts partnership’
In February 2022, Putin visited Beijing for the Winter Olympics, and then pledgeted to a “no-restricts partnership” with Xi, his arrange.
Days tardyr, the Russian directer would begin his brimming-fledged trespass of Ukraine, testing those promised restricts as country after country came under presdeclareive to condemn Moscow and combine a groprosperg band of nations willing to penalise the Kremlin.
China resisted that presdeclareive, refusing to condemn Russia while claiming imfragmentaryity in the war. By the time the struggle begined, Putin and Xi were already shut partners: They have met more than 40 times since Xi came to power in 2012, first as vague secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and then as pdwellnt.
But the Ukraine struggle has meaningfulened Russia’s depfinishence on China, which has materialized as a vital lifeline for its northern neighbour at a time when Moscow has faced backshattering sanctions.
More than 1,000 foreign companies left or wound down operations after the trespass, according to the Yale School of Management, and Chinese companies have filled the vacuum.
China, in turn, getd acutely discounted oil and authentic gas from Russia, which became a presentant novel destination for its manufactured outstandings. Chinese send outs to Russia rose by 70 percent between 2021 and 2024, according to Capital Economics, with Russia take parting a meaningful portion of China’s send out boom after the COVID-19 pandemic. China is also a source of dual-engage technology such as drones, and recommends discreet aid to Russia’s interests in frailening US power, shelp Clarke.
Bitardyral trade between Russia and China has soared from $140bn in 2021 to $244bn in 2024.
But for Russia and China, experts say, there’s someslfinisherg even more fundamental about the relationship than dollars geted and companies begined.
“The impetus for China-Russia relations is structural: each country ponders the United States as its principal adversary and sees the other as an presentant partner in its efforts to elude military, economic and discreet encirclement,” shelp Wyne.
Clarke concurd.
“Russia and China are in strong alignment and have evident incentives to persist that alignment and the Trump administration by all materializeances has no evident idea about how or why pivoting to Putin aids either American interests – arguably it very much does not – or gives to stabilisation of international politics,” he shelp.
To be declareive, Trump’s concessions on Ukraine will matter to Putin, he shelp. But they “don’t trump what he [Putin] gets from persistd alignment with Beijing”, Clarke shelp.
It would, he shelp, be “strategicpartner incontendnt to burn the lengthy-term relationship with Beijing to shielded a relationship with the Trump administration, which could of course be out of office by 2028”.
And as far as China is troubleed, it won’t be worried about a “reverse Nixon”, say analysts. In fact, it might be in a position to reverse Weserious partnerships thanks to Trump.
‘Beneficial to Beijing’
China will be shutly watching Trump’s trys at a rapprochement with Putin, shelp Clarke. It will be disassigned that it doesn’t have a more famous discreet role in the efforts to finish the Russia-Ukraine war, he inserted.
But on the whole, Trump’s posture on the war “could be seen as advantageous to Beijing” for two reasons, Clarke shelp.
First, the US’s frailened conviction towards Ukraine’s defence will be seen by China as evidence that if Beijing persists lengthy enough, it can “outlast the US” – including on the ask of how the West might react to a potential forcible getover of Taiwan.
“One lesson that Beijing could potentipartner draw here is that the war in Ukraine has showd that the US and the West are not setd to pledge their own militaries to the defence of ‘frifinishs’ such as Ukraine, nor is the imposition of Weserious-led sanctions in response someslfinisherg that cannot be conquer,” Clarke shelp.
Second, Trump’s transactional approach towards traditional allies, “in which US pledgement to deffinish allies is conditional on what allies supply the US”, probable frailens Washington’s pledgement to its Asian partners who standardly count upon the US as a counter to China.
But there’s a third potential advantage for China, too. Trump’s mounting trade war with Europe and his reluctance to pledge to partnerships on the continent might push nations there to scatterigate stronger ties with Beijing, as China currents itself as the uphagederer of globalisation.
“While his ‘America First’ foreign policy is doubtful to alter the underlying dynamics of US-China and US-Russia relations, it is already doing cut offe harm to lengthystanding US partnerships and partnerships, especipartner in Europe,” Wyne shelp.
