It appears the sanctions exemptions are back on:
Trump throws another lifeline to Russia and Bessent under the bus.
Fug. I thought we were done. And I guess bessent did too, lol. So I feel a little better.
My guess is the US is getting ready for more Spicy Times at the Straight of Homoz.
On one hand it is to keep oil prices from going up more than it already is worldwide. On the other it is a FU to Europe and leftist Ukrainian supporters in the United States. Frankly if Zelensky and Ukraine really want to get off of Trump's shit list. They need to start with delivering the heads of Hunter Biden and the people in charge of Burisma, while Hunter was on the board to Trump.
Honestly they need to deliver him kompromat on Winnie the Xi.
I'm beginning to think that there really isn't anything Zelenskyi can personally do to win Trump over, and it's simply because Trump just adores Putin, views him as a strongman, and that position has never changed despite how hard Putin has been trying to provoke Trump (helping Iran for an example). Zelenskyi could deliver Hunter Biden, tell he's never working with Democrats again, and literally blow off Trump, and it still matters fuck all because "I have a good relationship with Putin, I trust him".
It's best for Zelenskyi to just not piss Trump off at this point, but it's futile to expect a sudden change in his or his admins view of the war in Ukraine. It is what it is. For Trump, the war in Ukraine is simply an annoying obstacle between him and Russia doing business. It matters fuck all what Ukraine's fate is, or how the security climate of Europe will be defined for years and decades to come. As soon as he gets his hand on Russian resources and Americans business back into Russia, that's the #1 priority for him.
Trump seems to want a Russia able to counterweight China.
(Note: This is a pipedream. We all know its a pipe dream. And even if it wasn't, if yale-educated Georgemtri Washingtonski launches a successful campaign, unseats Putin, and declares Russia's new foreign policy is now "MAGA & Fuck China", 4 years and a dozen small towns have pretty well demonstrated Russia is useless would get mauled by even a paper tiger.)
I figure there is a plan, but I can't make sense of Trump's schizophrenic tsundere act with Russia. when they aren't paused he's put in place more and harsher sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions as well, and is authorizing sales to Ukraine of anything they want to buy that's available to a "2nd Tier" ally, and unlike Biden isn't holding up things like the Dutch F-16 transfers, so he's far from a zigger.
But then he's slap fighitng with Z-man, acknowledging Putin's talking points, letting Putin clown on him by just ignoring ceasefires, and feeding intel (and weapons) to Iran.
You can argue not sending Ukraine Desert Storm hand-me-downs is an "America First" position of not directing American tax dollars to benefit a foreign nation, but continuing to act like Putin is anything other than deceitful snake doesn't save the US taxpayer a penny. So he's also not slapping Putin around like he would be any other leader, so there's a touch of ziggerism in there.
And zelensky, who is a difficult figure to work with, has clearly learned the lesson of who is in charge of this relationship; he's been wearing suits and saying thank you. So even ignoring Ukraine's aid to the GCC, Ukraine has been doing everything asked so you'd think it'd be time to apply the carrot instead of just the stick.
(though Just Trust Me Bro wonk says despite Trump's coolness, Ukraine's drone teams being sent to the gulf was coordinated/brokered by the US. But other than orders for Ukraine's drone defense system, Ukraine hasn't gotten any immediate, tangible benefit from that.)
I've seen it suggested Trump wants Russia to spook NATO in continuing to rearm, and I figure some of that factors in, but that doesn't cover the whole picture either. There is no point in letting Russia gain strength and izzat when even throttled to max Europe won't have turned the ship around on their defense industries until after he's out of office. There aren't any new massive US MIC contracts/joint ventures floating around or even proposed so its not like he's trying to get red tape cut for LockMart's latest venture.
I've seen people suggesting that Russia, and Iran, is supposed to fully illuminate the absolute levels of European incompetence and the depths of just how rotted out their forces and preparedness are.
Which would make sense when you are Trump 45 but makes much less sense for Trump 47; the average voter isn't watching nor do they care. "Europe = Faggots" helps undermine Democrats pushing socialism, but minimally, and again Europe course-correction doesn't happen on his watch. (and more importantly: once he's no longer whipping them into shape, very high odds they stop and go back to previous course out of spite; and Trump definitely understands spite)
Someone had suggested its "Daddy Trump" waiting for Europe to see how bad things truly are before begging the US to fix it... but that's pretty much already happened. NATO were spooked enough to give him his 3.5+1.5. It would make sense if Trump was asking for specifics instead of a generalized "Western Europe to stop sucking and stop pretending war isn't coming", but he's pretty much already got what he wanted that can be delivered during his time in office. So like above, you'd think it'd be time for the carrot and saying how great Macron is or something.
But I guess it goes back to something I was saying last year: we can't make the mistake of assuming Ukraine is any sort of priority for Trump.
Hell, taking my own advice it could be as simple Trump being a petty bish; he wants European leaders to stop pushing Orange Man Bad as a narrative and passing anti-free speech laws, and is attempting to buck break them via Russia. "The Russia advance continues at 50cm and 5000 dead mobliks per day until the Trump glazing improves".