The Unsteady Stutter of US Negotiations
Following the death of Pope Francis earlier today and the Conclave proceedings that must follow it, the three main events of global importance that we can anticipate for the week ahead, at this moment of writing around midday of April 21, California time, appear to align with the three fronts opened up by Obama, Trump 1 and Biden in the USA’s fateful and delusionary bid to perpetuate its reign as global hegemon: against Russia over Ukraine, againat Iran over Israel, and against China over Taiwan and the contested South China Sea Islands.
I will pick up first on Ukraine. Following the visit of an American delegation led by Marc Rubio to Paris on Thursday of last week to participate in a European meeting about Ukraine, and in the light of succeeding articles about this event in Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, we know that the US is close to presenting Russia and Ukraine with its first specific peace proposal and this will be the subject of meetings to start this week between US and Russian representatives. We also know that this proposal aligns closely with ideas advanced by Trump peace envoy General Kellogg this time last year.
These ideas are certain to be rejected by Russia.
While they are prepared to acknowledge Crimea as Russian, they essentially:
propose to “freeze” the conflict along the current front lines;
advocate the entry of NATO troops (as enthusiastically entertained by the UK and France, in particular) as “peace keepers” into Western Ukraine following a ceasefire;
have nothing to say about capping the size and strength of Ukrainian military forces or the forces of other powers invited into the territory of Ukraine;
or about denazification (on this topic, incidentally, there are two useful background articles to be found on Consortium News - an interview by Natylie Baldwin with Marta Havryshko (Baldwin), and a historical background by Joe Lauria (Lauria);
although they indicate opposition to Ukraine ever joining NATO, offer no mechanism or other form of guarantee that could ensure that the trajectory of Ukraine towards NATO will not be resumed some time in the future;
they indicate the possibility of a lifting of sanctions, or at least of some sanctions, but Russia is now immune to the game of sanctions/no sanctions and, like China, is existentially opposed to a global order that Washington presumes to discipline with sanctions at its imperial whim. The same goes for its vassals.
There is some talk about the US taking over management of the Zapporizhzhia nuclear power plant, an idea that is equally certain to invite Russia’s private derision. It remains to be seen whether any dicussions based on Kellogg’s thinking can bring themselves to deal with the Zelenskiy problem, and the need for the calling of elections and probably for the removal of Zelenskiy, whether by elections or through some other means, before there can be any conversation with the Kremlin about anything to do with Ukraine.
Further, these proposals are made in a context within Washington of extraordinary and possibly unprecedented levels of discombobulation and division at the most senior levels of government, confusion as to policy aims, turbulence within the current international order following Trump’s announcement of increased basic tariffs and of “retaliatory” tariffs to punish practically the whole world for not grovelling before Trump, and threats to the very foundations of the US policital system in the light of emerging rifts between the executive and judicial arms of a “separation of powers” system and of executive attacks on constitutionality.
The negotiating credibility of two parties to this four-party conversation, in short, are irredemably shot. The US/Europe/Ukraine have reneged, big time, on “not one step further westwards” for NATO membership; they have torn up the very infrastructure that protected the world against nuclear annihilation; they gamed Russia over the Minsk accords of 2014-2015; and again over the draft agreement that was reached in Istanbul in March-April 0f 2022; they deceived Russia into withdrawing its troops from around Ukraine prior to those negotiations; and they spun a vicious web of lies over Bucha that could be used to fool the world into supporting the breakdown of the Istanbul agreement.
In this climate it is difficult to imagine that any interlocutor in conversation with Washington, whether over Ukraine or tariffs or virtually anything else, could entertain any confidence in the good faith, meaningfulness or stability of any proposals put forward or agreements considered. Agreements with Washington are either best avoided or entered into for the merest short-term gain, or as a desperate prayer for divine intervention and a Damascene conversion of the damned.
Russia will probably want to keep the doors open to future negotiations as part of a more general interest in normalization of relations between Russia and the US, and as part of a more gradual educational process whose aim will be to move Trump’s teams towards a more appreciative understanding of what Russia means when it says that there can be no settlement of the conflict until the parties to it can agree to talk about its fundamental causes, a theme that goes right back to the settlement with Gorbachev in the period 1989-91, Soviet acceptance of the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the remorseless western advance of NATO.
And in the meantime, Europe’s outrageous sabotaging of a renewal of the Black Sea Grain Deal and of the US-Russian attempt to establish a partial ceasefire that would govern commercial shipping, together with Ukraine’s far more egregious misbehavior than anything that Russia did with respect both to the 30-day partial ceasefire on attacks on energy infrastructure (dead so far as Russia is concerned as of two days ago), and on the 30-hour ceasefire initiated by Putin and reluctantly agreed by Zelenskiy for the Easter period, will have demonstrated to Putin quite conclusively that while US negotiating capability and credibility is severely impaired, Ukraine and its European sponsors are utterly untrustworthy, lacking in integrity as much as they are suffering a deficit of intelligence.
For even as the US is trying to make progress along some kind of path to a peace settlement, we have the British and French waffle on about their COW (coalition of the willing) in Ukraine (though their armies are too small to do anything very much and their weapons stockpiles significantly depleted) and about their intention to dispatch a French contingent to Romania (whose free elections have been cancelled until a COW-candidate can be made to “win” them) whose purpose is to pounce on Odessa (on the silly pretence that Russia, victorious on the battlefield, is “too weak” to respond), while Germany’s next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, threatens to send Taurus missiles (which probably cannot be fired without US permission and data) to Ukraine and to destroy the Kerch bridge (which, being essentially bunker-buster weapons, Taurus missiles are not actually designed to do), the tiny Baltic state of Estonia has seized an empty oil-tanker, part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that was on course for Saint Petersburgm and passed a law that gives Estonia the right, it thinks, to seize, divert and even sink Russian commercial vessels in the Baltic.
To tiny little Estonia goes the power to start World War Three and the end of the human species.
In the meantime, we should also take note of the collapse of British Steel, even under Chinese ownership (which it was hoped would prove more competent than the British in trying to make it profitable). While in Germany the largest steel companies, Thyssenkrupp and Steel Europe (TKSE) are radically downsizing in the light of German deindustrialization and Germany’s voluntary decoupling from Russian pipeline supplies of cheap energy. Trump’s tariff policy is already reducing the demand for steel by the hitherto powerful German auto industry). The anticipated deluge of cheap steel from China as Trump’s economic war against China unfolds is s further looming anxiety.
In short, Europe, currently boasting about how it can make Russia cower before the might of Ursula the Great, who has no troops, or Merz-the-Great (who first must borrow $800 billion), or Starmer-the-Great (another great British joke, judging from his plummeting poll ratings) seems not to have the steel it needs to keep producing the missiles and the tanks and the shells that have proven so insufficient these past three years, unless of course Europe can buy it all from Russia’s best friend, China.
Zelenskiy will have almost as little regard for the terms of the Kellogg solution as Russia, but may be inclined to go along with talks to secure short term advantage. Zelenskiy still likely believes that he can keep the US entrapped in this imbroglio of its own making, especially if Russia can be said to have violated some element of the agreement, and that at some point the US can be enticed back into giving away its taxpayer wealth to Ukraine and Zel’s Mediterranean properties; that maybe a minerals deal can be twisted in such a way as to make these outcomes more likely.
On the Iranian front, we have now had two rounds of talks, in Oman, and in Rome (where last Saturday the talks continued to be mediated by Oman) and, next Saturday, back in Oman, its capital city Muscat.
I reported on these in a recent post. It does seem that progress on talk about a framework for future talks is ongoing, amidst the deepest skepticism on the part of Iran (and its partner, Russia) about the dependability and stability of US interlocuters.
There is some hope, therefore, that Israeli agression or, rather Netanyahu’s desperate need for a major diversion away from his own vulnerability to criminal proceedings at home, criminal proceedings for genocide abroad, Israeli’s actual ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s war crimes in southern Syria and southern Lebanon, and the imminent collapse of the state of Israel itself (where Alastair Crooke today reports thst 60% of its citizens anticipate civil war), may be insufficient to persuade Trump to provide backup support for an Israeli strike on Iran.
And should that occur, many competent analysts assure us ,(including Crooke, former British intelligence, and Lt Col. Macgregor, former defense advisor to Trump), Iran is far from being weak, has sophisticated and functioning air-defense capability and hypersonic missiles.
If Israel does not collapse under its own weight therefore, Iran might just do the job anyway.
Finally, on the China front, and in particular that important part of the front that is armed with Trump-the-Chump tariff schemes, we find that Japan and Europe are selling Treasuries, perhaps with the purpose of derailing the Trump administration, and China’s state-backed funds are pulling back from new investments in US private equity, pulling billions from the likes of Blackstone and Carlyle.
As second holder of Treasuries, China’s finger is hovering over the “sell” button. US tariffs on Chinese exports to the US now hover around 145% while Chinese tariffs on US exports to China hover around 125%. But the US needs Chinese imports (for example, rare earths) much more than China needs US imports. China has already ceased to import US LNG.
In response to US pressure on what the Trump administration claims to be 70 nations anxious to do a deal which involves being assigned lower tariffs in exchange for them ceasing to trade with China, Beijing says it will retaliate against countries that negotiate with the US at the expense of China. As Trump attacks Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell (for daring to speak truth), and rumors swirl of a US pullout from the IMF and the World Bank, there is a little doubt as which party has the least credibility and promise at the moment: the US or China? The dollar sinks and the dollar stinks.
In Asia, the USA’ firmest ally, itself dangerously split between pro-China and pro-Western factions, the Philippines, is preparing for the first “full battle test,” in readiness to “protect” Taiwan (i.e. provoke a war against China over Taiwan) and contested South China Sea islands. Amongst other US allies, South Korea is recovering from a disastrous attempt to disrupt democratic governance, possibly with a view to securing South Korean involvement in the war against Russia over Ukraine, and Japan is busily selling Treasuries to bring down Trump.