The great state of Alaska is an eerily appropriate backdrop for the Trump-Putin meeting to end the Ukraine war.
For the land itself is a symbol one of the most dramatic turning points in world history.
Now, it may host another.
In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million because Tsar Alexander II was desperate.
The Russians approached President Andrew Johnson—America’s first populist president—with an offer to sell 600,000 square miles for a minimal price, as the empire struggled with debts from their first Crimean War.
That war, between Russia and the Ottoman Turks supported by the British and French, primarily took place in southern Ukraine, which is now under Putin’s control.
The land deal would have made Trump The Developer drool.
By selling Alaska, Russia forfeited the benefits of the 1896 gold rush and subsequent oil discoveries, ultimately making Alaska, the 49th state, one of the US’s most profitable assets.
The state of Alaska provides an apt setting for the Trump-Putin meeting to conclude the Ukraine conflict (Pictured: Trump and Putin in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018).
In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million because Tsar Alexander II (pictured) was desperate.
The state’s natural resources turned the US into a top energy producer globally, and its proximity to the Arctic positions it as a prime location for launching spacecraft and satellites into polar orbit.
This is now Trump’s chance for another great deal.
Putting the symbolic significance of Alaska aside, the president comes into these talks with tremendous leverage.
Under President Joe Biden, American appeasement policies kept the Russian economy running hot, even as Biden refused to talk.
Putin’s military operations consumed about 40 percent of GDP on defense spending, boosting Russia’s national industrial activity. However, basic necessities cannot be met with tanks and missiles, and now Putin’s citizens are expressing that they can only handle the economic strain for a limited time.
The Russian Central Bank is forecasting zero GDP growth by the end of 2025 – and, in a rare admission of reality, Russia’s Central Bank Governor said last month that the economy had reached ‘the edge of capacity.’ Even Putin’s Economic Minister Maxim Reshetnikov confessed in June that the country was ‘on the verge of a transition to recession.’
Trump’s approach cannot be more different than Biden’s avoid and appease strategy.
Trump’s plan is engage and squeeze – and it has been proven to work.
The Russians approached President Andrew Johnson with the offer to sell Alaska, as the empire drowned in debts incurred from their first Crimean War. (Pictured: Illustration of soldiers in Sevastopol during the Crimean War)
Pictured: Massive fire after a suspected Ukrainian drone attack on a fuel depot in the heart of Russian-controlled Sevastopol on April 29, 2023
Putin’s war machine funnelled roughly 40 percent of its GDP into military expenditures, juicing Russia’s national industrial activity (Pictured: Russian TV reveals drone factory)
During his first term, Trump used the same tactic to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero within just 90 days, working with allies like India to wean them off Iranian energy by providing alternative US energy exports and additional production from the Saudi-controlled Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Now, Trump has levelled a 25 percent tariff on India, which increased its imports of Russian energy from 3 percent to 40 percent during the Biden administration, coinciding with the outbreak of the Ukraine war.
Rather than permitting these sales, the US can work with India to replace Putin’s energy exports. India can be fueled by Alaska, not Russia.
Trump has also slapped an average effective tariff as high as 55 percent on Russia’s most important patron—China.
Chairman Xi Jinping has surely profited from bankrolling Putin’s slaughter in Ukraine. But given their own looming economic challenges, Beijing may also lose its appetite for sponsoring Russia’s aggression.
Then, there is the military leverage.
Naysayers have long insisted that President Trump would withdraw from NATO and abandon Ukraine. He has done the opposite.
At the NATO summit in the Hague in April, member nations committed to more than doubling their spending on collective defense, from 2 percent of their respective national GDPs to 5 percent by 2035.
This pledge must still be met, but if it is, Putin knows he cannot compete with the combined military power of Europe and the United States.
Even getting Putin to the table for an in-person meeting is proof of the advantage that Trump is bringing to bear after a Biden administration blackout.
Will Alaska mark the end of Putin’s dreams to remake the Russian empire?
Time will tell.
But, perhaps more than anyone else, President Trump has the opportunity to force a concession and finally end the Ukraine war.
Victoria Coates is Vice President of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.
