Last week, Putin called Trump just before Zelensky visited the White House, and the two sides seemed to have a good conversation. According to media reports, Trump basically refused a request to give Ukraine Tomahawk cruise missiles, and once asked Ukraine to hand over the rest of Donetsk in exchange for a Russian ceasefire. Trump is also preparing to meet with Putin to further negotiate a ceasefire.
However, things have changed dramatically. White House officials said there was no chance of meeting with Russia, and Trump also publicly said that meeting with Putin did not make much sense. Obviously, the meeting between the two sides will be put on hold, and Lavrov may have screwed things up this time. While suspending his meeting with Putin, Trump also said that he wanted to be nicer to China.
What happened these days?
Earlier, Zelensky visited the White House, and the US media generally reported negatively on the meeting. It is said that Trump asked Zelensky to abandon the Donetsk region and threw aside the map of Ukraine. The atmosphere was very tense, and even there was a confrontation.
But after some European officials read the report, they thought the media's description was too exaggerated. From the current perspective, Zelensky, although not able to get to the cruise missile, has also achieved two goals: one is to persuade Trump to change the idea of asking Ukraine to abandon Donetsk, to negotiate on a real line between the two sides.
These two conditions are very important for Ukraine, the Ukrainian army remaining in the Donetsk region is small, but it is the core fortress of the Ukrainian army, once abandoned the center of Ukraine will lose the barrier.
After Trump determined to meet with Putin, he arranged for Rubio to meet Lavrov and arrange for specific work, but the two seemed not to agree, and after the meeting, Trump changed his attitude toward the meeting.
During the phone call, Rubio put forward two conditions for Ukraine, namely, to negotiate along the actual line of control, and to cease fire first and then negotiate. But Lavrov took a very tough attitude and refused Rubio's request. He proposed negotiations before a ceasefire, refused to freeze the current front, and demanded that Ukraine be neutralized.
Lavrov also said in an interview with reporters that the current ceasefire means that most areas of Ukraine are still under the control of the Nazi regime. This approach completely violates the consensus reached by Trump and Putin in Alaska, when they decided to focus on solving the underlying problem.
In fact, this is also Russia’s attitude. Putin has repeatedly publicly stated that if Ukraine does not accept Russia’s conditions, it will be achieved by military means. According to Reuters, Russia has also sent an informal communiqué to the United States, which also raises issues such as Donetsk and the rejection of NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine.
On the whole, Russia is unwilling to back down, and Lavrov's attitude is very tough, which may make rubio a little unhappy.Rubio sympathized with Ukraine before he took office, and repeatedly publicly criticized Russia.After taking office, he became a worker, and in public he could only say according to the boss's attitude, but in private he still had his own attitude.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that he exaggerated his reporting to Trump and angered Trump. Since Russia was unwilling to make concessions and obviously could not reach any results, it simply postponed the meeting. For Trump, he doesn't care who occupies more land and who occupies less land. What he demands is a ceasefire as soon as possible so that he can brag about his achievements. Now that Ukraine is willing to negotiate a ceasefire, but Russia does not agree, Trump naturally takes his anger on Russia.
Trump’s attitude toward China has also changed dramatically after delaying the meeting with Putin, who has previously threatened to impose a 100% tariff on China after November 1.
At yesterday's press conference, the reporter asked him if China also buys Russian oil. Is it considering imposing tariffs on China? Trump refused, arguing that China's tariffs were already too high to be sustained. So, I want to be kind to China. Although for many years, China has been rude to us.
It is clear that Trump is releasing a friendly signal to China, not wanting to disrupt the current situation. Of course, the fundamental reason for this is that Trump has not too much code in his hand against China, and does not want the conflict with China to escalate, otherwise the United States will be difficult to trick, and Trump will be more unfavorable. Wanting to do a little better with China, just afraid China suddenly takes the hand and disrupts its full deployment.
Through these two incidents, it is not difficult to find an interesting phenomenon. Once Russia makes good to Trump and relations between the two sides ease, Trump will be tough on China. On the contrary, if Russia becomes tough, Trump will make amends to China. This shows that the United States has realized that it is impossible to deal with the China-Russia alliance at all, and has racked its brains to win over one, suppress the other, and even provoke conflicts between the two sides to drive a wedge between them.
But obviously, it is far more difficult to solve the Russian-Ukrainian issue than the trade deal with China. Trump wants to calm Russia and thus open his hand to deal with China is basically not possible. Because there is not much time left to him, on the one hand, the US domestic shutdown cannot be solved; on the other hand, the opinion of the U.S. Bean Farm is great, demanding that Trump reach an agreement as soon as possible.
So, eventually, Trump will probably compromise with China first.