Transition 2025 Series: The Future of U.S.-Russia Relations

Panelists discuss how U.S. policy toward Russia may shift under a second Trump administration, including the use of sanctions, the continued war in Ukraine, Russia’s military capabilities, the political dynamics inside the Kremlin, and broader U.S. engagement with Moscow.

This meeting is part of CFR’s Transition 2025 series, which examines the major foreign policy issues confronting the Trump administration.

BREMMER: Hi. Hello, hello. I see a lot of familiar and friendly faces in the audience. I am not surprised by that. I’m sure I would. Online as well. And welcome to those of you that are not joining in person. 

I’m Ian Bremmer. And we are talking today about “The Future of U.S.-Russia Relations.” There is certainly no topic right now that is more impactful on the future of the global order in terms of what is happening in the news literally every day, every hour, as we speak. We just did a little bit of catching up on that so that, as of right now, everything that you will be hearing will be up to date until the end of the panel. (Laughter.) So we should feel good about that.  

Let’s see. A couple things I’m supposed to say. First is that this is a part of the CFR’s Transition 2025 Series, which is not about gender relations. (Laughter.) Is instead—because that’s not allowed anymore—is examining major foreign policy issues confronting the Trump-Vance administration. And we’re, of course, going to have time for questions. So think about those. We’ll have about half an hour towards the end, an hour fifteen total. So about forty-five minutes first to engage our panel.  

We have four incredible thinkers, the top thinkers in their institutions on these precise issues. There’s one, yes, over there on screen. So there are four. Three and a half, but I consider her four, absolutely. And so we’ve got Emma Ashford, who is senior fellow at the Stimson Center. We have Steve Sestanovich, known to everybody here as the George F. Kennan senior fellow for Russia-Eurasia studies at the Council. We’ve got Celeste Wallander, who is adjunct senior fellow Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS, Center for a New American Security. And then onscreen we have Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior fellow and director, Transatlantic Security Program for the Center for a New American Security. And lots of government background as well across the board from everybody here not me.  

So let’s—I want to start on the news of the moment, which is there is, in principle, an agreement between the Americans and the Ukrainians that will maybe align the countries more than, say, Trump and Zelensky were when he was calling Zelensky a dictator just a few days ago. Zelensky may be coming to the United States on Friday, but he has not confirmed that yet. How important is that—this is a good way to start in. Is there an actual near-term deal? Now, Steve, you’ve known about this for a bit now because originally this deal was the Ukrainians’ idea. So maybe give us a couple of minutes on background on what the hell was this, before we figure out what the hell is this.  

SESTANOVICH: OK. (Laughter.) The Ukrainians last spring got the idea that this would be a way—talking about such a deal would be a way of transforming their relationship with Donald Trump should he be elected. And I talked to a senior Ukrainian politician last fall who had actually, he claimed, traveled to Mar-a-Lago to pitch the idea of a special resources arrangement that would make Ukraine and the United States partners. And apparently, in this account, Donald Trump’s eyes lit up. You could see the Don Jr. possibilities sort of germinating in his mind. This got repeated in several encounters in the course of the year, but the Ukrainians had no idea what the terms would be when they were presented to them just a couple of weeks ago.  

Because their idea was this was going to be to establish Ukraine as a partner, not establish the United States as a predator. And that’s the way they read the terms that were put to them by the Treasury secretary a couple of weeks ago. That was enough of a shock, but that was compounded by the fact that it coincided with the call to Putin. So that it seemed as though the entire relationship and the—sort of the terms of the relationship were being overturned.  

BREMMER: So thank you for that. That’s great background. So then, Celeste, so we have Zelensky throwing up all over this deal publicly, leading Trump to say some fairly nasty things about Zelensky. And yet here we are today—I’m not sure they’re friends again, because I’m not sure they’re friends to begin with—but certainly they appear to patch things over. Are we in a materially better place today than we were, let’s say, a week ago? 

WALLANDER: Yeah. Thanks. Clearly, we’re in a better place, if what we’re aiming at is a professional, practical relationship between the leadership in the United States and Ukraine to figure out sort of where our common interests are and how you can have a partnership going forward that supports Ukraine’s future. The details, you know, still will be determinative about whether this is a predatory agreement, which I don’t think Zelensky could accept because, contrary to statements about him being a dictator, he’s actually—he’s actually an elected official and Ukraine is a pretty feisty democracy. And Ukrainians are known for going out in the streets and protesting when their leaders do things that they believe are contrary to the commitment that their leaders have made. So Zelensky— 

BREMMER: 2014, for example, yeah. 

WALLANDER: 2014 and 2003 and 2004, the Orange Revolution. I mean, Ukrainians know how to protest. And, you know, they will protest if they believe that their democratically elected leader is throwing the country under the bus. And I also don’t believe that Zelensky is inclined to throw the country under the bus, but he couldn’t even if he wanted to.  

So the terms really matter. If there is a meeting and there is something that is, again, less predatory, more in the common interest, being able to develop natural resource extraction in some way, if we’re getting away from the notion that somehow the Ukrainians owe the United States $500 billion—which is not—you know, our security assistance to Ukraine over three years was about $67 billion. And, by the way, we donated that, and Congress wanted us to donate that security assistance partly out of concern about Ukraine, partly out of self-interest. Then we’re in a better place, because that’s a—that’s a practical, professional kind of negotiation you would expect world leaders to have. 

BREMMER: Now, Emma, do you think—I mean, there are no security guarantees, that we know of as right now, that are connected to it. There’s certainly no willingness to backstop the Europeans, as of right now, coming out of the Macron meeting on Monday, despite the fact that Macron certainly gave it an effort to get Trump to go there. Again, if we’re—if we’re on a spectrum from the United States and Russia doing a deal over the heads of the Ukrainians and Europeans to bringing the Ukrainians in, where do you think we are along those lines given what we’ve seen in the last day?  

ASHFORD: I mean, look, I would say I’m not sure that the minerals deal really moves the button much in either direction, to be honest. You know, there were these differing conceptions of the deal, right? The Ukrainians clearly thought, this is a way to bind the U.S. to us, to get Trump interested, and then they’ll send more aid and we’ll all be fine. You know, it’ll keep going from Biden. The Trump administration then clearly went back to—you know, for those of you that remember, the 2016 campaign and Trump saying the war in Iraq was stupid we should have taken all the oil, right? That’s the kind of—that’s the kind of way he thinks about these things. So he just wants to pilfer Ukraine’s resources.  

And where we’ve landed in the middle is this empty piece of paper that basically says, going forward maybe we’ll negotiate something that will make this mean something. You know, I’m not really sure that tells us one way or the other whether the U.S., whether the Trump administration is going to sell the Ukrainians down the river entirely, or whether the Ukrainians will get some say. 

BREMMER: At a minimum, does it at least buy some time for the Ukraine—for the Europeans to get their act more together, for example? Do you buy that?  

ASHFORD: I think the Europeans would have needed to start getting their act together quite some time ago. A decade ago would have been great. Even three years ago would have been good. You know, if the Zeitenwende had actually happened we’d all be in a better place now. I think mostly what I see from Europe right now is just confusion. You know, no real understanding of what this minerals deal means, and a real hope, I think, that if they just string things out for time that the Trump administration will somehow come around. 

BREMMER: We’ll spend more time on Europe. Steve, you wanted to jump in, I could tell. 

SESTANOVICH: Yes. The immediate question is, what’s it going to do to the personal relationship between Trump and Zelensky? 

BREMMER: And Zelensky, of course. 

SESTANOVICH: Because by the end of Friday we could have had—we could have the resumption of dictator and disinformation talk between the two of them going back and forth, or we could have, you know, some version of best buds. And who knows. 

BREMMER: The latter is more likely, right? When they’re together they tend to do OK.  

SESTANOVICH: It’ll be better. It’ll be better.  

BREMMER: Yeah. Well, there you go. Well, you know—(inaudible). 

SESTANOVICH: But the question is, what does that do to the broader trajectory towards some kind of deal that Trump obviously wants to have with Putin? And on that one— 

BREMMER: So, on that one, I want to turn to Andrea. And we’re going to start with Putin, who we haven’t talked much about yet. First question for Andrea: Is Putin winning now, on the basis of what we’ve seen in the last couple weeks? Do you think so? Does he think so? Both of those. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: Yeah, well, he certainly thinks so. He thinks he’s winning both on the battlefield and in the kind of—on the global stage in the realm of politics. And he’s winning because the United States just keeps making concession after concession to Putin. I mean, it really is remarkable to think about all the things that the United States has done under the Trump administration before any legitimate negotiation has even started to take place.  

We’ve taken NATO off the table for Ukraine. We’ve basically acknowledged out loud that Ukraine will not—that it will lose large parts of its territory. We’ve said that the United States will not put boots on the ground in any kind of peacekeeping mission, nor will any peacekeeping mission have any sort of NATO backing. We’ve basically hinted at this idea that we’d be supportive of holding elections in Ukraine before you have a negotiated settlement to the deal. We’re talking about bringing Russia back into the G-7. The United States just voted with Russia against the resolution, you know, condemning Russia and asking Russia to withdraw its forces. We voted with Russia against that, which I think is something I never thought I would see.  

So it’s really—I think, yes— 

BREMMER: You have a list there that you’re just going through, Andrea? What’s going on here? 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: I mean, could keep—I could keep going. We’re talking about sanctions relief. We’re talking about drawing down U.S. forces in Europe. I mean, I think from Putin’s perspective, and objectively speaking, given—and meanwhile Russia keeps putting conditions on the table. You know, they’re not going to concede any territory. They won’t accept forces from a NATO member state as part of a peacekeeping mission. So I think at this point in time it would be fair to say that Putin thinks he’s winning, and that the winds are certainly blowing in Russia’s direction. 

BREMMER: OK, except, now we also know that occasionally Trump exaggerates—(laughter)—and—titters in the crowd. Sometimes he changes his mind. The Ukrainians are learning that. What happens if Putin learns that? What happened if it turns out that a bunch of the things that Trump has said over the course of the last couple weeks to Putin, turns out Trump’s actually not prepared to go ahead and do? What does that do to the U.S.-Russia relationship? What does it do to the war? What does it do with the Ukrainians? All of that. It’s got to be plausible, right? It’s at least possible that some of the stuff you just mentioned Trump is not going to be committed to in a day, right? 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: I don’t know. I mean, I— 

BREMMER: (Won’t discuss this in a day, as you see ?). I mean, it happens. (Laughter.) Go ahead, Andrea. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: OK, I mean, I think that it is clear that Trump wants an end to the war as quickly as possible. And so to me, I think we should take seriously what he’s saying. I think we—like this is a lesson we should learn, that sometimes when these leaders and these strongmen leaders at their hearts, when they say things they mean it. Like when Putin wrote the op-ed about Ukraine and amassed his forces on the border of Ukraine, we should hear what he’s saying. I think President Trump wants, above all, to end the war. And I think he’s very serious about normalizing relations with Russia.  

So I think the proposition that you laid out, that he doesn’t actually mean it, is a very low likelihood. And the real—the only real way that things go south, I think, is if Putin overplays his hand and Trump becomes frustrated with, you know, actually starting to look like he’s on the losing end of the deal, and that becomes, like, the public sentiment. I think that—in my mind, the only way that things really change in the U.S.-Russia relations is if Putin overplays his hand. And he has also been known to do that in the past. But, again— 

BREMMER: Emma, jump in.  

ASHFORD: No, I think that point is very—I think that is very on point, what Andrea is saying, right? I think there is a real risk in Moscow of euphoria, of this idea that Trump is on Russia’s side, that they’re going to get everything they want. And I don’t actually think that’s true. I think, to a large extent, we are in the posturing stage of opening of negotiations. We all know that Trump starts high, right? Was it two weeks ago he said we were going to have Canada as the fifty-first state. And then it came down to haggling over, like, small percentages of tariffs. So, you know— 

BREMMER: I think Gaza is the most dramatic piece of this, right, which has now completely given up on everything he discussed with Netanyahu and with King Abdullah of Jordan, yeah. 

ASHFORD: Yeah. So, I mean, I think Trump has some fairly clear positions that he will hold to. And I do think it’s things like security guarantees and NATO definitely off the table. He’s been very consistent. But I think a lot of the other stuff that’s going to have to be worked out at the negotiating table, the administration could go either way. 

BREMMER: Celese and then Steve. Go ahead. 

WALLANDER: So I agree that a lot of the things that President Trump and his team have laid out as no-goes are questionable that they can deliver them. But I want to come back to the question of what does Putin do when things don’t work out? Which is he could overplay his hand, but I don’t think he will. He’s too smart. And he’s winning. And he knows he’s winning. And I don’t just mean he’s winning in the terms of negotiation. He believes he’s winning in the war. He has—he believes—he may be wrong. He believes, all the signs are, that he has lots of time. The Russian military continues to take territory, in bits and drabs. And then Americans are, like, oh my god, at a terrible cost. He doesn’t care. The cost is worth it to him. Russian society is not rising up. Yes, the Russian economy is in a whole lot of trouble, but it’s not going to lead to Maidan protests, you know, in Russia.  

The Russian economy is on a war economy footing. Defense industries are churning out capabilities twenty-four/seven. A lot of the restrictions that the Biden administration put on the Russian economy have been upended or worked around by Russia’s relationship with North Korea, China, and Iran. And none of those countries look like they’re going to threaten to cut off security assistance to Putin if he doesn’t do what they want, because actually Putin’s doing what they want. (Laughs.) So I think Putin is smart enough to know that he’s in the driver’s seat. And he may not like it if the U.S. negotiating positions on the terms of peace in Ukraine become more fuzzy or Putin doesn’t sound like he’s getting everything. He’ll just say, well, that’s really regrettable. I guess the war continues. 

BREMMER: Now, Steve, I’m going to let you come in. But before—I want you to also answer, you’ve seen now a ninety-minute call between Trump and Putin. We’ve had the readouts from both Washington and from the Kremlin. We’ve now also seen the Riyadh meetings. Tell us what, if anything—and we know that Trump wants to end the war. We’ve known that for a long time. We know that he was going to engage directly. But has anything specifically surprised you, from either the Americans or the Russians coming, out of those so far? Plus whatever else you want to comment on. 

SESTANOVICH: (Laughs.) My favorite Putin quote of late is, “the entire system of Euro-Atlantic security relations is crumbling before our eyes.” So Celeste is right. He thinks he’s winning. (Laughs.) But the question is not so much does he overplay his hand as does he have in mind an outcome that is going to be, for the people around Trump, and for American public opinion, for allied governments, simply unacceptable? And I think the chances are you’re going to have a deadlock in the negotiations relatively early, because Putin has made clear that he has in mind—as he made clear in the positions that he sketched out before the war started—he has in mind really a restructuring of Euro-Atlantic security relations. And that is something that is going to be—for all of his light heartedness about the alliance—going to be very hard for Trump to push through in a way that does not make him look as though he has willfully subjected the United States to a major defeat.  

BREMMER: Now, Andrea, assuming that that is correct, are there things that you think that Putin and Trump can work out on a bilateral basis that will feel like a breakthrough that are unilateral, but are—from Trump’s perspective—but are short of breaking the NATO relationship? In other words, how much do you think is going to come out of just the bilaterals between the U.S. and Russia, which are happening pretty quickly, and which seem to be gaining momentum? And tell me if you think any of that is wrong, from me or Steve. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: I would—just on the surprising things. I’m surprised. So we all understood that Trump wanted to end the war. And in the earliest days of the administration there were some sounds that seem to be going in a somewhat positive direction, where Trump was talking about putting sanctions on Russia, saying we can do this the easy way or the hard way. So there—you know, to be very candid, there was a moment in time where I was slightly optimistic that Trump would look for opportunities to increase U.S. leverage in a negotiation with Putin. We totally veered from that trajectory at a very fast pace. And then, you know, enter the list of concessions that I rattled off a minute ago where we totally, I think, lowered our leverage in the negotiation. That was—that was very surprising to me.  

And so when it comes to the bilateral discussions, I don’t think that there’s anything that they can mutually work out that is to Ukraine’s benefit, but it’s very clear what the two leaders want to work out. I mean, I think Trump definitely wants a normalization of relations with Russia. I think he’s interested in economic opportunities, which is why, you know, at the meeting in Saudi Arabia the Russian delegation included the head of the Direct Investment Fund. It’s why you hear Trump—sorry—President Putin talking now about aluminum deals. Now they see that they’re interested in these minerals. And so now Putin is offering up Russian minerals. So there’s lots of things that can happen through the bilateral channel, but none that I would say add to Ukraine’s security or advance U.S. national security interests.  

BREMMER: I’m going to—Celeste as a follow up, but I want a quick question on response to what you just said. So when J.D. Vance—you know, who’s a bright guy, right? I mean, this is not Hegseth we’re talking about—(laughter)—is putting out, you know, a, look, what we are, quote/unquote, “offering”—everyone knows there’s no path for Ukraine in NATO. That’s been clear for a couple of years now. Everybody knows that—I mean some of this—that there’s going to have to be a partition, this isn’t a give. How do you respond to that?  

KENDALL-TAYLOR: I disagree. I actually think that there was a path in which President Trump could have come into office and done things to enhance our leverage in a future negotiation. So it would have been, in my view, very meaningful and a powerful signal of U.S. commitment if Trump could have gone to Congress and got a new supplemental, using the minerals that Zelensky put on the table as a way to say, look, America, we’re not doing this out of the goodness of our hearts. There’s something in this for all of us.  

And then I think eventually—and it maybe wouldn’t have been immediately—but you could get to a place where Putin would then recognize he could not sustain this war forever, given some of the economic challenges that Celeste mentioned, which maybe wouldn’t bite this year but maybe next year. To me, there was a path where you at least get a more genuine negotiation that puts Ukraine in a—where you could actually get to a durable and lasting peace. And right now, I don’t see—given this administration’s approach, I don’t see a path to anything that will be durable or lasting.  

BREMMER: OK. Steve is nodding affably but Emma’s wildly skeptical, so I’m going to get to her. But first, Celeste, you had a point.  

WALLANDER: So I just think—I want to highlight something that maybe isn’t articulated and isn’t talked about generally, that I think is really important that came out of this conversation among the four of us. Which is that it is, I think it’s fair to say—I’m going to assert it—it is extremely unlikely that you will get a peace agreement, certainly anytime soon, that the United States and Russia may agree to and that is implementable, that Ukraine and Europe will agree to implement. We could talk about peacekeeping forces and all that stuff later, if you want.  

Given that, though—given that President Trump clearly wants to have a strong relationship with Vladimir Putin and Putin clearly wants to escape the constraints which, while they are not forcing him to the table, certainly are unhelpful, unpleasant, if there is not a peace agreement, is there going to be a bilateral reconciliation and big deal between the United States and Russia, regardless of continuing fighting over the heads of, you know, sort of Ukraine and Europe? And I think that that is the key—that is the key question for thinking about the future.  

BREMMER: And that’s plausible, right? 

WALLANDER: I agree with the analysis we’ve heard here. And I actually think that’s the most likely future, which is the notion that this bilateral agreement will be our leverage over Putin to get him to concede, these are—as Andrea and Steve and Emma all referred to—these are longstanding Putin—these aren’t bargaining positions, in my view, from what we know of Putin. These are no kidding, this is what I need. He went to war to achieve these things. These were—these were not—and they’ve suffered a lot, even though it’s not enough to make him stop. So what we’re really facing is a prospect of an ongoing war, maybe lower—maybe fought at a lower level if the United States does cut off future security assistance. The Europeans are going to step in with what they can do. Ukrainians are producing a lot of their own defense capabilities, and aren’t going to give in, I believe, to Vladimir Putin. We could have both things happening at the same time—an ongoing war in Europe and this U.S.-Russia condominium based on something other than a peace settlement. 

BREMMER: Emma. 

ASHFORD: You know, I don’t think that’s how the administration is conceptualizing it right now. I’m not saying we couldn’t end up there, but I think what they are conceptualizing is ending the war in Ukraine and then, over the long term, build out to bigger negotiations. That, at least right now, appears to be where they are. But I want to come back to this notion that somehow there was a better deal out there, that Trump could have effectively continued Biden’s policies, and somehow things like NATO would still have stayed on the table. I am just, as you say, you know, wildly skeptical that’s the case. Even putting aside, you know, that it would have required a personality transplant for Donald Trump. 

BREMMER: Absolutely. 

ASHFORD: The fact is, right, what we have seen from U.S. sanctions, from arming Ukraine, you know, it has not been enough to help Ukraine push Russia all the way back. It’s certainly been enough to stop them losing this war. It’s probably enough to bring—as Celeste said, to start to bring Russia to the negotiating table with some interest right now. That’s what this was designed to do. And so from my point of view, I don’t see a particular problem in saying that things like, you know, Ukraine and NATO is off the table, that territorial issues aren’t as important as all that, because we all kind of acknowledge that, de facto, that’s going to be resolved on the battlefield.  

To me, these are things we all know. We know it. Moscow knows it. European capitals know it. Instead, the point is focusing in on the real issues. And I think the real issues here are the things we’re not talking about, right? Will Ukraine be allowed to join the European Union? How will this peace be enforced, if it actually happens? And questions like, what will Ukraine and Russia be allowed to retain in the way of arms across some kind of ceasefire? Like, right, how do you make a peace durable? That, for me, is the whole ball game. And all the stuff about NATO really is a pipe dream.  

BREMMER: So I want to go big picture now, before we go to questions. I’m really glad that you framed it that way, which is different than the way we’ve been discussing it, because if I were surprised by something it wasn’t by what the Americans were saying to Putin or the Russians. It was rather what Vance was saying to the Europeans. So it was the fact that—if anything, if there’s been a concession to Putin it’s been the Americans undermining the EU by attacking the democracies themselves, and the allies themselves, which has very little do with Ukraine, right? But it’s, like, support for AfD. It’s that kind of thing. Like, that’s really interesting.  

So from that perspective, I’d love to give the panel a chance to opine on, given where we are right now, what do we think about the future of the transatlantic relationship? What should the Europeans be doing—not for the last ten years, because we don’t have the last ten years—like right now. Do we think that the Europeans have any shot of maintaining NATO, of maintaining the transatlantic alliance? If not, what else, right? Who wants to go first on that? Everyone’s going to get a shot. Steve, go for it. Steve first, then Celeste. 

SESTANOVICH: One sentence about how the administration conceptualizes this next phase, to use Emma’s word. I mean, I think we are much more likely to end up with a ceasefire in place/frozen conflict than a settlement, even though all governments have said they wanted a settlement. And the Russians have especially said, we’re not interested in a ceasefire. We want a settlement. We want the whole arrangement to be nailed down and agreed by all sides. My prediction is you’re not going to get there.  

BREMMER: Everyone seems to agree on that. 

SESTANOVICH: Now, on— 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: And then— 

BREMMER: Go ahead. You can jump in. 

SESTANOVICH: No, no— 

BREMMER: I’m going to let—since she’s not here, especially, it’s hard. Andrea jump in on that.  

SESTANOVICH: OK. 

BREMMER: Just to add to, Steve, your point, which—and then forcing the Ukrainians to hold an election, which then Putin and the Russians will pull every lever to manipulate and then just try to advance their objectives through the political process, as they’ve meddled in Moldova, Romania, et cetera. So that might also be part of the ceasefire, if we force elections on the Ukrainians also. 

SESTANOVICH: The Ukrainians want to have elections, really. And a ceasefire could make the issue of martial law be re-examined. That’s not impossible to imagine. Very hard to conduct elections under these circumstances, but not impossible. 

Ian— 

BREMMER: And, I have to imagine, very hard to steal elections if you’re the Russians, given the general feeling about Russia in non-occupied Ukraine. So that one strikes me as hard to pull off. 

SESTANOVICH: There’s not going to be a lot of pro-Russian parties waging these elections.  

You asked a bigger question.  

BREMMER: I asked a bigger question. 

SESTANOVICH: Where you’re going to get. And, you know, my view of this is the future of international relations depends on the integrity and strength of the American bloc. And what Trump seems to envision is something much more like what Putin likes, which is multipolarity. The Chinese and the Russians talk about multipolarity all the time. The big advantage that the United States has is that it has big allies who represent way beyond 50 percent of global GDP. Do you want to squander that, or not? Do you want to just pursue American interests in the world, as one of—as Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon might have said—one of five power centers, or do you want to be the biggest power center? To my mind, it’s surprising that Donald Trump doesn’t want to be the biggest power center.  

BREMMER: You really think he doesn’t want to be?  

SESTANOVICH: I think— 

BREMMER: I mean, you really think he doesn’t want to be more unipolar than multipolar? 

SESTANOVICH: I think doesn’t understand what it takes to be the biggest power center.  

BREMMER: Celeste. 

WALLANDER: Yeah, I agree with Steve. I think that—the challenge is, is that we’re all explaining this, but it’s not clear the Trump administration understands it. But let’s do the best we can to explain it. (Laughter.) Let’s go back to the foundation of NATO and the creation of the transatlantic relationship. This was not altruism on the part of the United States. The reason why the United States helped to create—you know, along with other allies—created the NATO alliance and sustained it over seventy-five years was self-interest and national interest, not altruism. There’s values. There’s, you know, the whole accoutrement of the transatlantic relationship. But the core reason was the United States was worried about another war in Europe—having come to the rescue of Europe—I know Europeans don’t like that frame, but that’s—I’m speaking as an American, from an American frame—coming to the rescue of Europe again to prevent a conflict in Europe which is more painful, more awful, more costly, more destructive than deterring a conflict in the first place.  

That’s what NATO was and is about. NATO, I believe the Europeans are going to step up. They already are. Twenty-three countries are already spending 2 percent of GDP, and more will spend more. And many are heading and already are spending more than that. The European Union is changing its rules on defense procurement and on deficit spending for defense. They will spend more. And they will and are acquiring a lot of very excellent, high-end conventional military capabilities. The United States leads only one of the nine forward battle groups in Europe. All the rest are led by European countries. I could go on forever. I won’t. But what Europe cannot do, without the United States, is deter Russian aggression, at the end. And not just because of our nuclear deterrent, but because the Russian plan for invading Europe beyond Ukraine counts on still, even after their bad experience, thank God, in 2022, lightning conventional military operations and creating a fait accompli, winning facts, creating facts on the ground. 

Even if Europe spends 5 percent of GDP on all these advanced conventional capabilities, a credible deterrent requires American enablers, American airpower, American integrated air and missile defense and, most important, American logistics and resupply to make it clear to the Kremlin that it’s not a short fight. It’s a long fight, and the United States wins these kinds of fights globally, because of our conventional high-end superiority. And that has deterred the Kremlin for the last three years from striking at NATO territory, NATO territory that was being used to deliver weapons to kill Russian soldiers in Donetsk and Luhansk. They never stepped over that line, because that is a credible deterrent. And if that deterrent goes away, then you get the risk of that kind of war in Europe with the largest economic power in the world after the United States and maybe China these days, but that bloc.  

And the impact on global prosperity, global security, and global—and American reach and credibility across the globe, including in INDOPACOM, which the Trump administration is so worried about, is at risk. Are they going to hear people like me saying this? I don’t know. But I do think that we need to reframe the transatlantic relationship as somehow being a favor of the United States to Europe, and instead understand that this is in our national interest. And we’ve lost the ability to do that for— 

BREMMER: Emma, is that right? The Europeans can’t deter the Russians? I mean, they barely—they barely were able to get into Ukraine, and they certainly couldn’t take it over. That was before the Americans did much to help. They do have nukes. The Germans are asking for sharing. I mean, isn’t there a European deterrent here?  

ASHFORD: I mean, look, I think what Celeste is saying, that Europe can’t do without the United States, is a pretty good description of where we are on the ground right now. They absolutely could. Europeans could come together in a variety of forms. You know, a Europe-wide defense, minilaterals, to deter Russia, to substitute the capabilities that the United States provides now. But they need to actually take that step and do it. And that, I think, is the debate. That is the push and pull that the U.S. has been having with its European allies since at least the Obama administration. You can go back as far as Eisenhower, if you really want, on this. 

Look, I mean, I think we are, in many ways—I can’t believe I’m defending the Trump administration here—I think we are in many ways doing a disservice saying that they don’t understand these things. I think this is not the first Trump administration. Trump is himself a little erratic, et cetera, but he is surrounded not, this time, by grifters and random people. He is surrounded by a fairly coherent policy apparatus that wants to see him achieve his foreign policy goals. And they have ideas. Now, we might not agree with them. We might not agree with them. But they have theories of how the world works. And they are pursuing those theories. And I think this is the mistake—you know, I think official Washington made this mistake last time. I think the Europeans are making it right now, is saying, if we can just explain to Trump that he’s wrong, then it’ll all go back to normal. So for me, that’s really problematic.  

And I do think there is something to this idea, right, the idea that Trump is just going to snap back and pursue the Biden strategy of we’ll have the world as two big blocs, right, and we’ll control the biggest bloc, that is certainly one strategy with which we can approach an increasingly multipolar world. There are drawbacks to it, right? One, you know, not everybody’s on board with it. We’ve seen that in the Indo-Pacific. The big one, I think, is it suppresses the capabilities of U.S. allies. It stops the Europeans being able to deter Russia, because the U.S. is there like a security blanket to do it for them. So, you know, the Trumpian strategy, again, don’t necessarily agree with all the details, but the direction they’re pushing could end up in a better place.  

BREMMER: Well, let me—for example, I mean, you see that Trump—I mean, he gave a full ten minutes to President Duda of Poland, which wasn’t very nice. But he did say that he’s prepared to continue to maintain U.S. troops and presence, support for Poland. Why? Well, Poland, in addition to being nice to Trump, is also getting the 5 percent of GDP spent on defense. I mean, could you argue, would you argue that the point here is not that America is leaving NATO, the point is he’s been telling you guys for years that you’ve got to get up to speed. Most of them aren’t. And if they now do, then actually NATO is going to be much stronger?  

SESTANOVICH: Ian, European defense spending has increased more since the war started than U.S. defense spending.  

BREMMER: That’s right. 

SESTANOVICH: OK. 

BREMMER: Yeah, sure. 

WALLANDER: Not because Donald Trump was yelling at them, because they’re responding to the threat environment.  

BREMMER: Of course, that’s true. But both, to be fair. They’re both happening.  

ASHFORD: They’re a lot closer to the threat.  

BREMMER: Yeah. 

ASHFORD: I mean, I think it’s very notable. If you actually go through, again, policy proposals from think tanks and people aligned with the Trump foreign policy universe, right, they are advocating for hollow NATO—U.S. troops out of the continent, but not to get rid of the alliance. Not even to pull the U.S. out. I mean, I think there are, again, issues, that they assume you can maintain extended deterrence in that situation, which I think is questionable. But they’re not saying kill the alliance. They’re saying, make the Europeans carry their own burden. And so, you know, I don’t hear many people, outside maybe some French media, calling for the U.S. to actually exit NATO. 

BREMMER: Andrea. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: Yeah, I think the big fallacy of that thinking is that we can’t simply hand security over to a Europe that’s not ready to take it on. And as Celeste described, it will take some time for the Europeans to develop the capabilities to be able to fight independently. So developing and acquiring all of the logistics and the air defenses and the munitions—like, that doesn’t happen overnight. And so I fully agree that it is important in national security to prioritize, and that China is our clear priority. But sequencing also matters. And so we can’t just hastily withdraw and not expect it to create problems, because I think perhaps the other fallacy that the administration is making is to think that this is just about Ukraine, where, for Putin, it’s about—it’s about much more than Ukraine. They really do want the United States out.  

And so if we’re talking about, you know, just hastily withdrawing, handing security over to Europeans that aren’t yet ready to take it on, while at the same time removing sanctions on Russia that will enable them to reconstitute their military more quickly—and they are talking about withdrawing U.S. forces. I’ve heard back to the 1990 line. I don’t know what—you know, maybe he’s told the Poles something else. But they are at least contemplating pulling back U.S. forces from parts of Europe. I worry very much then that that creates a ripe environment for Putin to maintain aggression not just in Ukraine, but also potentially against a NATO member on the eastern flank. 

BREMMER: Celeste, you look like you have a last point you wanted to make. 

WALLANDER: Yeah, no, I just think that I—well, what—I agree with what Andrea said. What I wanted to speak to was something Emma pointed out, that I think is—I just think is fundamentally wrong, that there is a coherent strategy. I was at Munich. Ian, you were at Munich. 

BREMMER: Sadly, yes. 

WALLANDER: (Laughs.) And the incoherence of what we were hearing from the different parts of the Trump administration on European security was striking. Part of the striking was the J.D. Vance speech, of course. But the fact that they sent their special envoy, General Kellogg, to Munich to brief on the plan, and then the minute he got there everyone was buzzing in the hallways about he’s not even going to Saudi Arabia. And they’re throwing him under the bus. And they’re undermining all of his talking points. We were sitting there listening to his talking points going, but the people in Washington are saying the exact opposite. So there are all kinds of—there are battles between the, you know, Asia first Trump team and the Middle East team. There are battles within the Middle East team about do you stay and deter Iran or do you get out of the Middle East tomorrow so that you just do the INDOPACOM challenge?  

And that’s OK. Lots of administrations have fights within them. But I just want to say I do not see a coherent strategy. And I think you’ve seen that in the last two weeks with President Trump coming out and calling Zelensky a dictator, and now all of a sudden he invited him to the White House. And that’s not some brilliant tactic. That is— 

BREMMER: Well, Trump does invite dictators to the White House, to be fair. So, I mean, that’s— 

WALLANDER: Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.  

BREMMER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

WALLANDER: He’s going to give him an award or something. (Laughter.) But I think there is a lot of internal contradiction, a lot of battles. And, again, lots of administrations have these internal battles. But let’s—so I’m not criticizing that. In the Biden administration, we had lots of fights—(inaudible). But let’s not, in our desire to make sense of the world, create a structure of strategy and reasonableness that actually is ignoring what’s really going on, and what will affect what we’re trying to talk about. I’m sorry to disagree with you, but that’s my take, for good or ill.  

BREMMER: Well, I mean, Kellogg is probably not the center of where you want to go for coherence in the administration. But, I mean, I take the point that there is a different worldview that is being proffered here, right? I mean, broadly speaking, at least by Trump, right? I think that’s what you were going for.  

ASHFORD: Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think you are correct. There are multiple world views in the administration, right? And they are contesting, although, to be honest, it does seem like we’re trending one way, more of the J.D. Vance way than we are the Keith Kellogg way these days. We’ll just have to see, right? The Trump administration first time around everything changed six months in. But I think both those visions are, if not entirely internally coherent, then at the very least they are differing worldviews that contest against each other. That doesn’t mean it’s incoherent, just because the administration itself is undecided about which way it’s going.  

BREMMER: So I want I want to ask you follow up, and then final Steve, and then we’ll go to questions. So think about them. Is, let’s assume that that world view wins, the Trump and J.D., and it is executed. Do you think we are in a world in two and five years’ time that feels more favorable for U.S. interests globally as a consequence of the execution of that view? Yes or no, and why?  

ASHFORD: I do actually think that we would be in a better world for U.S. interests. 

BREMMER: Why? 

ASHFORD: Assuming that it were coherently and appropriately executed. So that’s the huge caveat. 

BREMMER: Yeah, but why? Explain to everybody why.  

ASHFORD: Because genuinely I think the U.S. would benefit from bolstering the capabilities of its allies, from burden shifting, from focusing more on the Indo-Pacific, and then from finding ways to be more flexible with other states, so we’re not always locked in this large confrontation. So I actually do think this is moving in the right direction, but, again, with this administration who knows whether it will keep going that way. 

BREMMER: Steve, I suspect you disagree with that. 

SESTANOVICH: I do. There’s a big difference between pushing your allies, and I think in many ways, very successfully, to bolster their contributions to the common defense, and hectoring them and alienating them in such a way that there is no longer a common defense, and we end up with a more splintered world. That will be chaotic for the United States and for many, many other people as well.  

BREMMER: I also think it is useful for the United States to be seen as a country that can follow through on its worldview over the course of more than one administration. But that, of course, is something we’re not going to fix.  

So we have lots of questions, I’m sure, from this audience. I don’t know if we’re allowed to get them from people online. If we are, you’ll tell me about that. The answer is yes. I see several already. I would like you to stand up and tell me who you are when you want to ask a question. I’m going to start with you, with the burnt sienna outfit right there. (Laughter.)  

Q: You know your fashion. (Laughs.) Thank you. I’m Alexandra Starr with International Crisis Group.  

I just wanted to see if you could elaborate on a point that came up several times, which is Putin might overplay an excellent hand. How do you think that would happen?  

SESTANOVICH: I’m sorry, is that for me or for Celeste?  

WALLANDER: I don’t think he will overplay. I actually—I’ve seen him in negotiations and in meetings enough. He is so smart. And he has a talent that many—too many of us don’t, which is he listens a lot. And he lets other people put all their cards on the table. By the way, you shouldn’t negotiate in public about what your headlines are. That’s why he’s not negotiating. Those really are his headlines, I believe. But anyway, I actually think he’s going to sit back and watch, and figure it out and see, can the U.S. deliver? And the—and if some things work, he’ll say, great, I’ll take that one. You got that? Good. No NATO? Great. And, by the way, there’s a difference between saying Ukraine will never be a member of NATO, which is now what we’ve been saying as a government, and saying they’re not ready now. So, but that’s a—we can talk about NATO at a different—in a different meeting. So I think he’s going to play us. I think he—that’s what I mean. He has the advantage. He does not need an agreement right now. He has not expressed a desire to get one by May 9. Guess who has? 

 

SESTANOVICH: The only thing I’d add to this is the Russians, I think, in some ways reflecting their dizzy with success outlook, are routinely now, I mean, in a daily way, batting down American ideas, you know? You’re going to have European peacekeeping forces? Lavrov said today, absolutely out of the question. You’re going to have an accelerated association between Ukraine and the EU? No. You know, we don’t like that one either. They’re not just sitting back and watching. They’re rejecting, so as to make clear to the Trump administration how high the price will be.  

ASHFORD: I will just say, again, I don’t think Putin is necessarily going to overplay his hand here. I do think the possibility exists, though. I think, you know, if they get into negotiations and they find that the door is fairly open on moderate concessions, things—again, things that we know the Trump administration is willing to talk about, right? Ending the war, pulling some troops out of Eastern Europe. They may think that if they get success in those they can keep pushing. And I think what they may find instead is that that might collapse any prospective deal and probably turn Trump against Putin over the long term. So I think that possibility is there. I think the Russians are probably aware of it. But the pressure, you know, if you hear folks from Moscow talking, some of the pressure that is coming on Putin and those around him from some of the business elites, et cetera, to negotiate now, I think there are folks in Moscow who are very aware that this is a window of opportunity. And they don’t want to blow it. So the possibility of blowing it exists.  

BREMMER: Andrea, did you want to jump in? 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: I just—I think I was the one who said he might overplay his hand. And I agree with Celeste that Putin is incredibly wise and savvy and skilled at this. So I think it’s not a high probability. But I just keep coming back to, like, the North Korea episode, where Trump goes in with lofty expectations of what he can accomplish, and when he actually truly internalizes that he doesn’t have a willing partner on the other side, may grow frustrated and try a different course. Low probability, but I think it exists.  

BREMMER: But we didn’t end up doing very much to Kim Jong-un when the deal fell apart. So from that perspective, it wasn’t so horrible.  

Yes, please. Stand up. We’ll get you a mic. 

Q: Thanks. Elmira Bayrasli with Bard College. 

What’s China’s role in this? 

BREMMER: Trump’s mentioned a couple times it might be nice to get China involved. I haven’t seen that in the readout of the Riyadh conversation. Anyone? 

WALLANDER: Well, and now, you know, it’s sort of publicly being talked about, previously was privately being talked about, that what is going to be asked of Putin, his big concession for this peace agreement is not concessions on his terms, that he’s been very public about, but that he ends the—it’s not an alliance, but the relationships with China, North Korea, and Iran.  

BREMMER: You mean the Kellogg comments from Munich? 

WALLANDER: And now other administration folks has been kind of laying this out and saying this, which I find highly unlikely given how dependent right now Russian defense industry and economy are on China. Now, if all the sanctions get lifted, all the technology restrictions get lifted, if everything gets lifted, and Russia can again pursue dual use capabilities from American manufacturers, you know, maybe the value of China is reduced. But the degree to which Russian defense industries now are dependent on cooperation with Iran in developing the most important military capability for conventional military operations at this point in the 21st century, UAVs, is significant. And the Iranians are very good at producing high-end, medium-end, and basically throw-away UAVs. And the Russians have learned a lot from them and are gaining from them.  

So maybe that’ll happen. So what is the—what is the role of China in all of this is it’s to back—I think, in the end, it’s the backstop Putin in not backing off from his maximalist requirements because he has, you know, all these shadow fleets helping the Russian economy stay—not afloat, but continue to benefit, yeah, from revenue, from energy revenue. Dual use technologies that are all kinds of workarounds, banking workarounds. That Russian companies are escaping sanctions scrutiny every day because of all kinds of workarounds coming from interesting bank arrangements that don’t have names on them, but they come from that part of the world. So maybe, but—and then in the U.N. vote we’ve seen the political support that they are able to create and not let Putin be isolated is not insignificant, and I actually think is an asset for him in not—I agree with Andrea, he could make—and I agree with Emma—he could make a mistake. He could overplay his hand. I just think it’s highly unlikely, given all these advantages he has in seeing through pushing for his maximum goal.  

BREMMER: Steve, jump in and then we’ll take another question.  

SESTANOVICH: The Chinese abstained on the U.N. vote instead of voting with the Russians, and North Koreans, and the United States. 

BREMMER: Territorial integrity issue for them, actually. Yeah. 

SESTANOVICH: Yeah. (Laughs.) You know, everybody always uses the word “transactional” to talk about Trump these days, but I give you this for transactionalism in thinking about China’s role. Where do all those Ukrainian drone engines come from? China. And they know it. And the Russians know it. And they haven’t been able to get the Chinese to stop it.  

BREMMER: It’s business.  

SESTANOVICH: Sorry? 

BREMMER: It’s business. (Laughter.) 

SESTANOVICH: It’s nothing personal. 

BREMMER: It’s business. Right there, yeah. 

Q: Hi. Jonathan Guyer, Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group. Thank you all. 

Wonder if you could talk about the nuclear dimension. It has to come up. It seems to be a kind of trump card that Putin often uses at points of weakness or maybe points of strength. And then also, Ian, you mentioned this in your newsletter this week. What is the meaning of this Russia-U.S. meeting happening in Riyadh, of all places? Not Finland. Role of gulf states as a mediator.  

BREMMER: The Eurasia person does not get to ask Ian a question. (Laughter.) But you can definitely do the nuclear thing. 

WALLANDER: I mean, nuclear weapons play a particular role in Russian military doctrine. They’re first and foremost the strategic security, but they also play a role in Russian doctrine when Russia is losing conventionally, as they expect they might if, you know, there’s a war against NATO and the United States is still in Europe and is able to bring to bear its strategic non-nuclear advantages to thwart Russian operations. And so Russian military doctrine provides for using nuclear weapons when the Russian conventional military is about to fail. Which is exactly why there were rumors of Russia using conventional military weapons in the fall of 2022, when it looked like the Ukrainians might break through Russian lines—not just break through those lines, but break through them in a way— 

BREMMER: You mean tactical nuclear weapons. 

WALLANDER: —that it would have been a rout. Yeah, nuclear weapons. So we’ve not heard those threats, largely because Russia’s, you know, succeeding in conventional forces. And so the framework in which nuclear weapons play a role in a conventional military conflict anywhere, but especially in Europe, has not come to bear.  

Could that change if there’s ongoing fighting? Maybe. But, again, I don’t think the Kremlin thinks it needs to do that, because it really thinks it has a staying power. And its defensive lines are so much stronger now than they were in 2022 that I don’t see a significant role in that. And the nuclear saber rattling did get them in some trouble in their relationship with China. There are, you know, pretty credible reports that the Chinese leadership reached out and said, we don’t like that world that you’re kind of maybe getting us into. We’re not quite ready for that kind of confrontation with the United States. Could you hold off on that world right now, while we keep building up our strategic nuclear capabilities to be able to deter the United States globally as well? So that was a little bit of a point of friction between Xi and Putin on those threats.  

BREMMER: And I think we have a question—a good question from online. And then— 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: Can I—Ian, can add just—can I add one really quickly?  

BREMMER: I’m sorry, Andrea. Go for it, please. Please. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: Yeah. The one way I think it could enter into the dialog now is through the arms control piece. And so Putin is talking about and dangling new—you know, finding a follow-on agreement to New START. So that is something that—you know, that might—that he’s trying to link into all of these negotiations. And then I think—just to pick up on the funny question about why Riyadh. I mean, one funny way to answer it is, you know, the number of cities that are now neutral are shrinking. So if Putin and U.S. presidents used to meet in Helsinki and Stockholm, well now those countries are in NATO and are no longer acceptable. So I think the Venn diagram of the number of cities that both leaders would find acceptable has oddly shrunken also.  

BREMMER: Thank you. A quick one. Go for it. Sure, I don’t mind. 

ASHFORD: Can I just add to that, though, and say the number of cities that are neutral in Europe is shrinking, right? So Geneva is off the table. Helsinki is off the table. But the Gulf, this is—this gets back to this point about the bloc strategy. There are countries that are with the U.S. There are a few countries that are with Russia. And a lot of the rest of the world is in this middle zone, including the gulf states. 

BREMMER: Completely. Completely. I mean, no one’s better positioned right now than the gulf, geopolitically. If you were going to create Davos from scratch it would be in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, right? There’s no question.  

So we had a question from online, and then we’ll take a couple here. Go ahead.  

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Eileen O’Connor. 

Q: Hi. I this is really—thank you for such an informative discussion.  

I wanted to ask you, given the fact—I’m not surprised, actually, that, as Andrea said, you know, that Trump has removed all of his leverage, because he did the same thing in Afghanistan. We know that. He just basically, you know, essentially had bilateral negotiations with the Taliban in order to just withdraw troops. So given that, how do you think a lopsided deal and undermining the U.S. NATO relationship is going to affect the Baltics and Moldova? You’ve touched on it a little bit. How long would it take for the Europeans to essentially gain the strength they would need for any incursions into those countries? And also, coupled with that, how much strength is Russia and China gaining in other continents, like Africa and Latin America, given the withdrawal of USAID, and also just even the incoherent strategy as I do think, as Celeste has accurately described, of its foreign policy.  

BREMMER: Thank you. I think I want Emma to answer that first, because I suspect you’re going to be less concerned about it. So I want to know how. 

ASHFORD: You know, I mean, at the risk of—well, I’m already the panel crank, so let’s just go all in here.  

BREMMER: Right, let’s do it. No, I like it.  

ASHFORD: I mean, at the risk of drawing what is not a very good direct comparison, a lot of arguments that were made in the run up to the withdrawal from Afghanistan—whether it was Trump entering these negotiations, whether it was Biden following through on it—they were about how this was going to doom U.S. foreign policy and national interests, that we were going to be in such a worse place because we withdrew from Afghanistan. Now, put aside the chaos of withdrawal, the process itself, we’ve barely talked about Afghanistan since. It turns out it really wasn’t all that central to U.S. national interests. But there was an assumption, particularly in Washington, that it was absolutely essential. And, you know, again, not a perfect comparison, but one wonders if perhaps we are just relying too much on conventional wisdom in saying that the U.S. must be intimately involved in European security in this way. 

BREMMER: One person should respond to that.  

WALLANDER: I don’t think Europe is Afghanistan. I think that America’s interest in Afghanistan was in eliminating al-Qaida. And, clumsy and poorly negotiated as the withdrawal was, it was right and it should have been done earlier. So I just think it’s a completely different frame. I mean Europe—the European economy is important to the global economy, and that’s important to the United States, and to American prosperity. American businesses are in Europe. If Europe—and I think they will, and I think it’s good, Europe will begin to procure from European defense companies now because of concern about American reliability.  

That’s going to hurt American defense companies because up till now U.S. defense purchases have been much the leading choice of most countries. I mean, a lot of countries are buying F-35s, you know, not European made advanced fighter aircraft, and so on and so on. So I think U.S. interests, economic interests as well as national security interests, are—and I just will float this one too for those who don’t understand this. If you think it’s important for the United States—and not everyone may think that it’s important to help Israel defend itself against Iran. If you think a war in the Middle East between Iran and Israel would be a bad thing, America’s ability to deploy forces to CENTCOM to support Israel since October 7, 2023, was dependent on EUCOM. EUCOM assets have been shooting down Iranian strike vehicles, Yemeni strike vehicles against Israel.  

So, again, maybe not everyone thinks that’s a good idea. I do. And it’s actually official U S military national security policy. Europe is important, I believe the evidence is there, for American global economic security and political interests. That doesn’t mean we should pay any price. Europe absolutely can and should produce and contribute to its interest in European and global security. But I do think that fundamentally, if America either leaves or is ejected from Europe, and is unable to cooperate with Europe, our global security interests will suffer. 

BREMMER: No, and since Israel is the stated exception to America First policy by Trump, you might want to get the Israelis to lobby on that if you want to get Trump to pay attention. So we have a question right here. Please. Go ahead. 

Q: Cynthia Roberts. Hunter and Columbia. Thank you all.  

You guys have given a great statement, assessment of the near term, which is frozen conflict, a ceasefire—a ceasefire, frozen conflict, not likely peace deal materializing, and Trump cutting deals in the bilat with Putin. But my question is, in the intermediate term I’m not sure where these deals are going to go. The Russians are talking everything—energy, oil, bring back American firms. We never had as much invested as the Europeans. So one question is, will Trump get tired of this and it won’t materialize, and he won’t get some of the other things maybe some in his administration want, like reducing the linkages. Putin, I agree with you, Celeste, is going to pocket all of the gains we give him and give nothing in return. So in the medium run, it’s the U.S. that may get tired of this.  

And the second part of that question is, the Europeans at some point—I think they do get it. They are—this is the shock. It isn’t Ukraine. It’s the bilateral relationship over their heads that’s going to motivate them to do more. And the Merz selection, I think, will show us this most clearly. But then why shouldn’t they go this route as well? Germany, for example, needs to build up its industry. Its economy is in trouble. It’s stagnating. It needs military industry. And to do all those things, it needs cheaper energy. Not expensive LNG from the U.S. So will Europe also cut deals with Russia to bring it back? And will they cut a deal on the frozen assets as well? I’ve heard from Russia that there are some willing to consider using the frozen Russian assets for reconstruction, as long as it’s divided between the Russian occupied zone—maybe one quarter or one third—and the Ukrainian zone. And I wonder if you’ve heard anything along those lines. Thank you. 

BREMMER: Andrea—do you want to jump in first, Andrea? Since I’ve been a little remiss on the last two for you. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: No, not at all. I mean, I agree that the actual dollar amount of business opportunity in Russia, I think, is very small. And you just look at the state of Russia’s economy. So, first of all, with all of the corruption, all of the red tape, you know, the state of Russian labor. You know, I had actually seen reports where they’re bringing in North Korean workers to fill jobs in the civilian sectors, like in construction and other things, because they have such labor shortages. Inflation is through the roof. I mean, there’s all sorts of economic problems that make Russia a highly unattractive destination for U.S. business deals. I mean, I recognize we’re talking about aluminum and other things. There are some things, oil deals in the Arctic, et cetera. But I think—by and large, I think President Trump has an unrealistic assessment of just how lucrative and how much opportunity exists.  

And I think, you know, the question on Europe, won’t they go this direction, I think absolutely not. In large part because they have experienced firsthand the costs of an over-reliance on Russia. I think the Germans really have learned a lesson from the Nord Stream 2 deal and are highly unlikely, especially under Merz, as you said, and aren’t going to go back in that direction. So, you know, really what the Europeans will be concerned about is how to make themselves less vulnerable to Russian aggression, because if the United States has normalized relations, cut sanctions, my assessment is Russia will remain a threat to Europe. And they’re going to have to prepare for that reality.  

BREMMER: Thanks, Andrea. Steve. 

SESTANOVICH: You know, one thing we haven’t talked about at all is sanctions relief as a Russian goal. And of all the bonkers things that the Trump administration people have said, they’ve hardly said anything about sanctions. So this is going to emerge in some way that we can’t predict right now in the course of these discussions—over what period, and with what kinds of conditions the Russians might be able to accept some kind of sanctions relief. This is an issue that, as far as I know, has not been addressed between the United States and Europe.  

But on a couple of other points that you mentioned, Cynthia, you know, the Russians are in the phase of nationalizing a lot of companies. So they’re not making investment in Russia seem like a super attractive prospect. And in many ways they’re not eager for it. A lot of companies don’t want the Western competitors to come back in. They’re pretty happy with the relationship that they’ve developed with the Russian state as their principal supporter, without competition.  

A last thing. Where did you hear about the Russians possibly being willing to have their frozen assets used for reconstruction in occupied Ukraine? From Putin. He said that publicly. 

BREMMER: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Celeste, you said you had a quick point. And then I think we have time for one final question. I’ll try to let everybody on the panel respond. Please, Celeste. 

WALLANDER: Sure. I agree. So I don’t think the Europeans are going to go whole over, although, again, in quiet conversations there is concern that why should European companies be at a disadvantage if the United States starts lifting sanctions and American companies can start selling—maybe not investing, totally agree—but selling to Russia? There could be a push. What I’m more worried about is that, while I don’t think Germany will change, I don’t think, you know, a lot of the northern European countries will change, it will create friction within the EU. And that may make it harder for the kind of cooperation on defense spending, in defense industrial base investment that would be required. So I think there would be, like, a second or a third order effect that could complicate Europe’s unity in being focused and deliberate. I don’t think it’ll completely scupper it, but it would be a matter to watch carefully, and a matter of concern.  

BREMMER: OK, there’s last question back there. Sir, yes, please.  

Q: Thanks. Michael Oppenheimer at NYU. 

The one subject you haven’t addressed, understandably because it’s not on the agenda, is American domestic politics. Right now Trump seems to have an unusual amount of running room, given his performance, but it’s deteriorating. And I wonder how patient especially the Republicans are going to be as they see Ukraine either being sold down the river in Putin-Trump negotiations, or as this kind of hypothetical bilateral continues and the war continues, but Ukraine continues to lose. How much patience is there for this? And how do you—how do you see this unfolding domestically? 

BREMMER: Go ahead, Emma. Yeah, sure. 

ASHFORD: I mean, I think where we have seen opposition from within the Republican Party to Trump’s approach to Ukraine it has been primarily either rhetorical or behind the scenes, right? Efforts to place people in specific roles in the administration, contestation over that, or things like Roger Wicker’s comments last week after, you know, Putin called—sorry—after Trump called Zelinsky a dictator. So there’s been some pushback, but I would genuinely question whether those folks in the Republican Party would be willing to publicly push back on Trump over this in any meaningful way.  

Ironically, actually, to the last question, I think sanctions relief could end up being the one area where, if it is offered in a deal, Trump will almost certainly need some congressional authorization because the Biden administration pushed every sanctions—every existing sanction under CAATSA, requiring congressional notification, in the last few weeks of the administration. So, you know, they have a razor-thin margin in the House, in particular, so you could potentially see some congressional contestation there. But again, I just don’t see this as the area where, you know, congressional Republicans are going to die on that hill in regards to Trump. 

BREMMER: I’m going to give everyone, like, forty-five seconds to offer a final thought on this topic for the audience, you think we really need as a reminder. Emma, you get to go first. 

ASHFORD: You know, again, to reiterate, that I think we are getting distracted by these big, big picture issues. You know, is Trump going to sell Ukraine down the river? Is NATO completely off the table? Are we trying to do a reverse Kissinger with Russia, chip them away from China? We’re getting distracted by that. The actual issues that are under discussion are staffing up the embassies, reopening communication with Moscow, talking about ceasefire dynamics, talking about Ukraine’s future strategic orientation. So, again, I just don’t think we’re talking about the issues that are actually on the table at the moment. 

BREMMER: Steve. 

SESTANOVICH: We’re going to see something of the domestic resonance of all of this when Zelensky comes to town this week, because the Ukrainians have multiple constituencies that they want to speak to. And in particular, they want to speak to Congress. They want to speak to influential media commentators. They want to get back in the game influencing American domestic politics. They have, in three years, been extremely skillful at that. And the question is, can they show the same kind of ability to, you know, Churchill-ize Zelensky in American—in American debate? 

There are signs that there’s a vulnerability for the administration on this. I don’t know how many of you saw the Twitter clip of Senator Kelly interrogating the nominee to be deputy secretary of defense. Who was asked—who was asked: Did Russia invade Ukraine? And the painful—I mean, talk about not having good talking points. He just said, blub-blub-blub. You know, he didn’t know what to say. He said, maybe I answered that in our closed-door session. (Laughter.)  

WALLANDER: Classified. Classified. 

SESTANOVICH: But it was—there is that kind—there’s that kind of mishandling of public opinion, and of the optics of individual policies, that will get the administration into trouble. 

BREMMER: Yeah, could anger Trump if he does that, though. So that is a risk. 

Celeste. 

WALLANDER: Yeah. I don’t—I think those are all great points. And I would just add to something that—a point Steve made earlier. Which is, if President Trump starts looking weak in talking Putin, I think it creates the space for at least voices to, not oppose him, but to start offering ideas about how to look strong, would be the way to frame it if you’re a—if you’re a Republican who, you know, wants to go back to voting for security assistance to Ukraine, for example. 

SESTANOVICH: Call Susie Wiles. 

WALLANDER: (Laughs.) So I think that that—it wouldn’t be a direct opposition, so much as a space created for making America great again—(laughs)—and helping President Trump look strong, if it looks like that’s crumbling a bit.  

BREMMER: Andrea, you get the last word on the panel. 

KENDALL-TAYLOR: Very quickly. I just think it’s remarkable to step back and think just how much power Trump has over the Republican Party, and the way that he’s personalized politics such that now you have leaders who are—officials around him who are afraid of voicing facts and opinions that differ from Trump, because they’re afraid of losing their jobs. So that’s a pretty remarkable development. And I think it’s a whole different paradigm with which we have to understand U.S. politics.  

Last point is, I just—just to drive home, any deal to end the war in Ukraine is not in U.S. interests. A bad deal is not going to be in the interest of the United States because it will just mean that Russia will be at this again. And it might not be on Trump’s watch. It might come later. But Russia will take the opportunity to rearm and retry. And any concessions that the United States is using Russia is going to pocket to just strengthen its position for future aggression in Europe. So I think we can’t lose sight of those facts. 

BREMMER: Thank you all for that. I also—on that last point, I want to recognize our supreme leader, Mike Froman. (Laughter.) Appreciate his joining us today. I tried not to, you know, sort of undermine any of the institutional orthodoxies of the Council here with our panel. It’s wonderful to see everyone today. You can watch the entire thing. It’s available, a transcript and the video, on the Council’s website. Would you please all join me in thanking Andrea, Steve, Celeste, and Emma? (Applause.) 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.