On the menu today: Up in Alaska on Friday, the B2 flyover was awesome. After that, it was all downhill.
Half-Baked in Alaska
Getting to peace often requires accepting an imperfect deal, or outcomes that are less than just. We’ve witnessed lots of deposed brutal dictators live out their final years in comfortable exile. And the United States has a long history of working with odious, brutal regimes to achieve a desired outcome — working with Joseph Stalin and the then-Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany, etc.
But right now, Vladimir Putin’s offer on the table is land-for-promises. (Everyone who’s paid attention to Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians over the past four decades is reacting, “Oh, I’ve seen this one before.”) For the entirety of the war, Russia has demanded that the Ukrainians effectively unilaterally disarm in return for a promise that Moscow will never invade the rest of the country. This is like handing your own gun to the mugger in exchange for a promise that he won’t keep mugging you.
This is the same Moscow that broke existing treaties when it occupied Crimea (at least four) and launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. This is the same Russian government that invaded Georgia in August 2008, occupying the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
And Russia is violating the extension of the New START treaty, the only nuclear-arms agreement between the United States and Moscow. Vladimir Putin violates treaties as easily as he breathes. His signature on a piece of paper means nothing. The Soviet regime accumulated a similar record of deliberate dishonesty and broken promises, spurring President Ronald Reagan’s doveryay, no proveryay, or the “trust, but verify” approach.
Putin’s other idea of a big concession is that he’s reportedly willing to allow Ukrainians to keep teaching the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. Sovereign countries don’t need anyone else’s permission to decide what languages they want to teach, speak, and read.
I’m not entirely opposed to metaphorically and literally rolling out the red carpet for one of the world’s most notorious war criminals if it can achieve an objective. But if you don’t achieve the objective, you end up looking like a fool. Putin got a big part of what he wanted in Alaska — an end to diplomatic isolation, and the suggestion that that American president will negotiate on behalf of Ukraine’s people, not the Ukrainian government. The United States and its allies came away with little, beyond an agreement to keep talking.
I was glad to see Trump saying after the summit to Sean Hannity, “Ukraine has to agree. I mean, you know, President Zelenskyy has to agree, but it’s a terrible war where he’s losing a lot and both of them are. And hopefully, it can get completed. That’ll be a great achievement for them.” The Ukrainians are the ones being invaded and attacked night and day; they’re not going to stop defending themselves against the invaders because the American president believes he’s gotten a great deal — particularly if that deal consists of promises from a pathological liar.
And while I would have preferred to see those “consequences” kicking in immediately after the summit, once Putin rejected the ceasefire, at least Trump has not taken them off the table.
Hannity: When you talked before coming here about the consequences for Vladimir Putin being severe, I found that interesting. Severe would be defined by me — India doesn’t buy your oil. The European Union won’t buy it. And why in the back of my head was I thinking, wait a minute, Donald Trump just delayed possible a possible increase in tariffs on China, why do I think that probably President Trump was thinking ahead that maybe if you had to, that would have been part of the consequences?
Trump: Well, because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now. I think the, you know, the meeting went very well.
The irony is that every now and then, Trump makes comments indicating that he does understand what kind of a man Putin is. In a press conference aboard Air Force One before the summit:
Q: Mr. President. . . We saw that Russia continued its violence into Ukraine last night launching even more drones. What did you make of that?
Donald Trump: I think they’re trying to negotiate. He’s trying to set a stage. I mean, in his mind that helps him make a better deal. It actually hurts him. But in his mind, that helps him make a better deal if they can continue the killing. Maybe it’s a part of the world, maybe it’s just his fabric, his genes, his genetics. But he thinks that makes him — gives him strength in negotiating. I think it hurts him, but I’ll be talking to him about it later.
Yes! Yes, Mr. President, you’re on the right track there. Putin sees the world through the lens of power and violence. He may like grandiose receptions at summits, flattery, and so on, but he doesn’t really need it. What he really wants to restore Russia to its Cold War-era geopolitical supremacy through territorial conquest, and what he really needs is to maintain his iron grip on power in Russia.
Trump likes to boast about what a great negotiator he is, and his fanbase keeps telling the rest of us how smart, strong, and tough he is. Well, now is the time to show it. Demonstrate that the “severe consequences” were not just bluster. Use the stick as well as the carrot. The only thing that will force Putin to stop the war and the daily and nightly bombardment of innocent civilians in Ukraine is the fear of losing something else he wants as badly as he wants more territory in Ukraine.
Like the Broken Clock, Peter Navarro Is Right Once So Far Today
Don’t blink, kids. I’m about to say something you almost never hear me say. . .
President Trump’s adviser for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro is right about something.
Mr. Navarro, if you’d like to print out today’s newsletter and frame it on your wall, that’s understandable.
Specifically, he’s right in his op-ed in today’s Financial Times, calling out India’s oil industry for helping finance Putin’s war machine.
The refining trade is large — India exports more than a million barrels per day in refined petroleum products, equivalent to over half the volume of crude it imports from Russia. The proceeds flow to India’s politically connected energy titans, and in turn, into Vladimir Putin’s war chest.
India’s dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy. In effect, India acts as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, converting embargoed crude into high-value exports while giving Moscow the dollars it needs.
Now, here’s the problem: While the U.S and India have quite a few shared interests, India likes having access to cheap crude oil from Russia and making money on exporting refined gasoline. A little while ago, Dominic Pino wrote in this space that Trump and his administration have less leverage over India than they think. And like any proud nation, India hates the idea of any other country telling it what it can and can’t do.
Shilan Shah, deputy chief emerging marketing economist at Capital Economics, August 5:
India could in principle find suppliers other than Russia to meet its energy needs relatively easily with little economic impact. Indeed, Indian oil refiners are reportedly reducing their purchases from Russia. But we doubt that India would make a wholehearted effort to wean itself off Russian oil. Domestically, it would not play well to be seen caving to Trump’s demands. In addition, Indian policymakers would be reluctant to upend generally cordial (and long-standing) relations with Russia.
Also note, from Fox News Channel Bret Baier interviewing President Trump en route to Alaska:
Bret Baier: But don’t you sense that Putin comes to this table maybe in an economic pinch, and that maybe the things you’ve already done have put him in an economic pitch? Is there an economic side to this as Russia hoping to open up, um, to the world?
Donald Trump: Well, he lost a- an oil client, so to speak, which is India, which was doing about 40 percent of the oil.
Except Putin hasn’t lost a client, at least not yet:
“Russian crude imports into India have so far remained resilient in August, even after the Trump administration’s tariff announcement in late July 2025,” said Sumit Ritolia, Lead Research Analyst (Refining & Modeling) at Kpler.
“But the stability we’re seeing now is mostly a result of timing — August cargoes were locked in back in June and early July, well before any policy shifts.”
What’s showing up in the data today reflects decisions made weeks ago, he said, adding any real adjustment in flows — whether due to tariffs, payment issues, or shipping friction — will only start becoming visible from late September through October arrivals.
Maybe in the autumn, we’ll see signs India is buying less Russian oil. But at least for now, India appears comfortable doing business with Russia.
Addenda: Some people have the stature to give the Trump administration grief for being too acquiescent to Vladimir Putin, but any cheerleader for former President Barack “the 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back” Obama should sit down and be quiet.
. . . I found Ross Douthat’s interview with the New Republic contributing editor Osita Nwanevu useful and revealing because Douthat got Nwanevu to lay out that his vision is, as the headline puts it, “Abolish the Senate. End the Electoral College. Pack the Court.” It is helpful to everyone for the modern American left to come out and openly acknowledge what has been obvious, but denied, for a long time: Their objective is to repeal and replace the existing U.S. Constitution.
(Much of Nwanevu’s objection is that our current system of government is not, in his eyes, democratic. The response from much of the right would be, “Indeed, we are not a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. We are not supposed to be a pure democracy, because our Founding Fathers worried about the tyranny of the majority and meant to impose checks and balances upon the will of the majority.” Kevin Williamson once described the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution as “America’s great big list of stuff you idiots don’t get to vote on.”)
Now, it’s one thing for some schmuck to run around arguing for these things; it’s a free country, and the First Amendment protects your right to say a whole lot of stuff, including the idea that we shouldn’t have a Constitution like the one we currently have.
It is a bigger deal if any federal elected official runs around arguing that America needs to scrap its current Constitution and make wholesale changes, as every member of Congress takes the oath: “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” I don’t think you can say that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic when you’re one of the folks who wants to scrap it.
. . . and finally, my streak of people complaining, “why didn’t you mention Y” when my column explicitly mentioned Y continues. I know that not everyone who disagrees with me is illiterate; it just seems that way sometimes.