President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the Group of 20 meeting in Miami in December is a brilliant tactical move that furthers the vital national interests of the United States by creating an opportunity for Washington and Moscow to craft a modus vivendi.
It’s certainly time for a strategic reset — after all, 35 years have elapsed since the demise of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and, after a brief unipolar decade of American global hegemony, a neomercantilist multipolar world is rapidly emerging as symbolized by the G20.
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So, how can the White House and Kremlin get to “yes” on a hitherto elusive glidepath for peaceful coexistence?
The opening wedge must be a unilateral declaration of an end to America’s proxy war with Russia with respect to Ukraine.
Trump should acknowledge that sanctions have not deterred Moscow from safeguarding what it considers to be Russian vital national interests. At best, the sanctions regime has been leaky (EU imports of Russian gas) and laced with carveouts (U.S. imports of Russian uranium). In fact, the unintended consequences of sanctions have been damaging to America’s economic security (such as inflationary pressures with respect to energy and fertilizers), and no other vital national interest of the U.S. has been furthered by the sanctions regime.
Accordingly, in the interests of U.S. national security, Trump should suspend and waive all sanctions against Russia.
Trump must also reiterate and reconfirm his position that, from the perspective of the U.S., Ukraine should not be admitted to membership in NATO or fall within the military alliance’s security umbrella. To extricate the U.S. from indirect military involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump should issue an executive order terminating the sale or transfer of U.S. military equipment, including related advisory, technical, and production support.
Trump, however, should also reaffirm the intention of his administration to support existing U.S. government financial commitments (about $95 billion) to Ukraine with respect to nonmilitary operations and activities within the areas that are currently under Kyiv’s effective administrative control. All outstanding loans would be converted to grants so that current and future Ukrainian governments would not be burdened with unsustainable repayment obligations.
Trump is the quintessential businessman and understands the wisdom of cutting one’s losses rather than draining the exchequer, sustaining commitments that do not serve vital national interests.
As far back as 2014, then-President Barack Obama conceded that Ukraine was not a vital American interest: “Our economy is not deeply integrated with Ukraine’s. Our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of Crimea. Our own borders are not threatened by Russia’s annexation.” Trump, in his 2025 National Security Strategy, is equally clear about keeping the focus on core interests: “Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.”
Trump’s olive branch to Moscow would have collateral benefits.
TRUMP THINKS HE’S NEGOTIATING PEACE. PUTIN IS BUILDING UNDERGROUND DRONE CITIES
The European members of NATO would have clarity that the U.S. could not be pressured to support their further military involvement in the Russia—Ukraine war. Of course, outside the NATO framework, countries such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, that insist that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a threat to their national security, could escalate their involvement in the war — but they would be on their own. Trump would be providing them an opportunity to reassess and recalibrate their vital national interests.
Beyond a group of European countries that are currently American security dependencies, however, Trump’s de-escalatory move would be welcomed. Certainly, Turkey, a non-European member of NATO with the second-largest army of the alliance (and which is heavily dependent on Russian energy imports), would support such an initiative. India (a major counterweight to China), which is heavily dependent on imported oil and gas, including from Russia, to sustain the fastest-growing economy in Asia, would welcome the removal of the threat of secondary sanctions, such as a punitory 100% tariff on Indian exports to America.
Samir Tata is the founder and president of International Political Risk Analytics, an advisory firm based in Reston, Virginia, and author of the book Reflections on Grand Strategy: The Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century.
