{"id":1547133,"date":"2025-07-15T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1547133"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T20:00:00","slug":"trumps-major-statement-on-russia-is-a-clumsy-attempt-to-thread-the-needle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/trumps-major-statement-on-russia-is-a-clumsy-attempt-to-thread-the-needle\/1547133\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s “Major Statement” On Russia Is A Clumsy Attempt To Thread The Needle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump’s “Major Statement” On Russia Is A Clumsy Attempt To Thread The Needle<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

His threatened secondary sanctions could majorly backfire by harming the US\u2019 own interests.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cmajor statement<\/a>\u201d on Russia that Trump earlier hyped up turned out to be a clumsy attempt to thread the needle between\u00a0radically escalating US involvement<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Ukrainian Conflict<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0walking away<\/a>\u00a0from it. <\/strong>His new three-pronged approach includes:<\/p>\n

1) the rapid dispatch of\u00a0up to 17 Patriot missile systems<\/a>\u00a0to Ukraine; <\/em><\/p>\n

2) more arms sales to NATO countries\u00a0who\u2019ll in turn<\/a>\u00a0transfer them to Ukraine; and <\/em><\/p>\n

3)\u00a0up to 100% secondary sanctions<\/a>\u00a0on Russia\u2019s trading partners if a peace deal isn\u2019t reached in 50 days.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the order that they were mentioned, each corresponding move is aimed at:<\/p>\n

1) bolstering Ukraine\u2019s air defenses in order to decelerate the pace of Russia\u2019s continual on-the-ground gains; <\/em><\/p>\n

2) helping Ukraine reconquer some of its lost land; and <\/em><\/p>\n

3) coercing China and India into pressuring Russia into a ceasefire. <\/em><\/p>\n

The first two goals are self-explanatory, with the second being unrealistic given the failure of Ukraine\u2019s much more heavily armed\u00a0counteroffensive in summer 2023<\/a>, while the third requires some elaboration.<\/p>\n

China and India\u2019s large-scale imports of discounted Russian oil have served as crucial valves from Western sanctions pressure by helping to stabilize the ruble and thus Russia\u2019s economy in general. Even though these imports also help their own economies, Trump is wagering that they\u2019ll at the very least curtail them in order to avoid his threatened 100% secondary sanctions. He might make an exception for the Europeans and Turks, who also purchase Russian resources, on the pretext of them arming Ukraine.<\/p>\n

By focusing on Russia\u2019s two largest energy importers, Trump is trying to greatly reduce the budgetary revenue that the Kremlin receives from these sales while sowing further divisions within the RIC core of BRICS and the SCO, expecting as he is that at least China or India will partially comply at minimum. Prior to his deadline, he envisages that their leaders \u2013 who are years-long close friends with Putin \u2013 will try to pressure him into the ceasefire that the West wants, though it\u2019s unknown whether they\u2019d succeed.<\/p>\n

In any case, Trump is poised to place himself in a dilemma entirely of his own making if one of them doesn\u2019t comply with his demand to stop trading with Russia, or if one or both only do so in part. <\/strong>He\u2019d either have to delay the imposition of his threatened 100% secondary sanctions on all their imports, lower the level, or reduce the scale to only apply to their companies that still trade with Russia otherwise there could be serious blowback, especially if China is the one that doesn\u2019t fully comply.<\/p>\n

His preliminary trade agreement with China, which he described in early May as a \u201ctotal reset<\/a>\u201d in their ties, could collapse and thus raise prices across the board for Americans.<\/strong> As regards India, their ongoing trade talks could collapse too, which could create an opening for advancing the\u00a0nascent Sino-Indo rapprochement<\/a>\u00a0whose existence was\u00a0cautiously confirmed<\/a>\u00a0by its top diplomat on Monday. Each case of blowback, let alone both of them at the same time, could be very detrimental to American interests.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s attempt to thread the needle therefore isn\u2019t just clumsy, but it could also majorly backfire, thus raising the question of why he agreed to do so<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It looks like he was misled into thinking that Putin would agree to a ceasefire that doesn\u2019t resolve the root security-related causes of the conflict in exchange for a\u00a0resource-centric<\/a>\u00a0strategic partnership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Putin declined, Trump took it personally and\u00a0imagined that Putin was playing him<\/a>, which led to Trump\u2019s advisors manipulating him into this escalation as vengeance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 07\/15\/2025 – 12:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/trumps-major-statement-russia-clumsy-attempt-thread-needle<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump’s “Major Statement” On Russia Is A Clumsy Attempt To Thread The Needle Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, His threatened secondary sanctions could majorly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1547134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1547133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1547133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1547134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1547133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1547133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1547133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}