{"id":2241,"date":"2025-08-15T15:36:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/can-putin-sway-trump-with-economic-offers-in-alaska\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T15:36:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:36:04","slug":"can-putin-sway-trump-with-economic-offers-in-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/can-putin-sway-trump-with-economic-offers-in-alaska\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Putin sway Trump with economic offers in Alaska?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday in a bid to try and end Russia\u2019s\u00a0three-year assault on Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to the meeting, Trump said that he believes Putin is ready to agree to a ceasefire. But his suggestion that Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could \u201cdivvy things up\u201d has alarmed<\/a> observers in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

For their part, remarks from top Russian officials suggest that Moscow has tried to water down discussions about the war by linking them with other bilateral issues, particularly restoring economic ties with the US.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Putin\u00a0sat down with\u00a0top officials at the Kremlin to discuss the Alaska meeting. He said<\/a> that he believed the US was making \u201csincere efforts to stop the fighting, end the crisis and reach agreements of interest to all parties involved in this conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin\u2019s top foreign policy aides, told reporters about Russia\u2019s preparations for the talks. He said it was \u201cobvious to everyone that the central topic will be the settlement of the Ukraine crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn exchange of views is expected on the further development of bilateral cooperation, including in the trade and economic sphere,\u201d he said, pointing out that: \u201cI would like to note that this cooperation has a huge and, unfortunately, untapped potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ushakov also announced that in addition to Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia\u2019s delegation in Alaska would also include the country\u2019s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, and Kirill Dmitriev, Putin\u2019s envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation.<\/p>\n

The inclusion of Siluanov and Dmitriev is another sign that the Kremlin hoped to discuss economic matters at the summit.<\/p>\n

What does Russia-US trade look like?<\/h2>\n

In 2021, before Russia\u2019s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, total trade between Russia and the US amounted to $36.1bn<\/a>. This included $6.4bn in US exports to Russia, and $29.7bn in US imports from Russia \u2013 amounting to a US trade deficit of $23.3bn.<\/p>\n

For context, Russia was America\u2019s 30th largest trade partner in 2021. Since then, after numerous rounds of American sanctions, trade between Russia and the US has fallen roughly 90 percent.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, Russia\u2019s overall trade balance \u2013 leaving the US \u2013 declined significantly following its decision to invade Ukraine. From 2022 to 2023, its international balance of payments fell by a whopping 70 percent, to just $86.3bn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But back in 2021, Russia\u2019s trade surplus with the US was concentrated almost exclusively in commodities. Oil, minerals and base metals like iron and steel made up roughly 75 percent of Russia\u2019s exports. Meanwhile, US exports to Russia were concentrated in manufactured goods.<\/p>\n

Were Russian exports to the US vital?<\/h2>\n

The short answer is no.<\/p>\n

By the time Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022<\/a>, the US \u2013 whose energy sector was transformed by hydraulic fracturing<\/a> and horizontal drilling in the early 2000s \u2013 was already the world\u2019s largest oil producer, at 11.9 million<\/a> barrels of oil per day.<\/p>\n

One area where Russia did hold limited significance was in certain types of energy products. Russia supplied\u00a0certain grades of crude oil\u00a0\u2013 notably\u00a0Urals \u2013 as well as\u00a0refined products like vacuum gas oil (VGO),\u00a0residual fuel oil and\u00a0naphtha.<\/p>\n

Russian VGO was especially important for making gasoline and diesel products in US refineries, which lacked enough domestic feedstock with the optimal chemical and physical properties.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the US continues to import limited quantities of uranium hexafluoride, a chemical important in uranium processing, from Russia. Some US utility companies still have supply contracts with Russia, which accounted for about one-third of America\u2019s enriched uranium needs when war broke out.<\/p>\n

As with energy products, however, American firms exposed to Russian uranium supplies have readjusted their supply chains in response to sanctions. What\u2019s more, US companies like X-energy and Orano have invested heavily in domestic production in recent years.<\/p>\n

Does Russia have any other leverage?<\/h2>\n

In the wake of sanctions after February 2022, most Russian commodity shipments were rerouted from Western countries to China at discounted prices, including for energy products and uranium.<\/p>\n

Indeed, trade between China and Russia has grown in parallel with sanctions on Russia. A common border, shared geopolitical perspectives and joint opposition to the US have deepened bilateral relations.<\/p>\n

Russia-China trade saw annual growth of nearly 30 percent in both 2022 and 2023, when it hit $240.1bn, according to the Centre for European Policy Analysis. In 2024, Russia climbed to 7th place among China\u2019s trading partners, up from 13th place in 2020.<\/p>\n

During that time, China has supplied Russia with more high-end products \u2013 like advanced electronics and industrial machinery \u2013 while Moscow has solidified its position as a top supplier of oil and gas to Beijing.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the two countries conduct regular naval exercises and strategic bomber patrols together. The US has consistently expressed concerns over joint military drills and views the China-Russia alignment as a threat to its global leadership role.<\/p>\n

Putin will be aware of these dynamics heading into Friday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

What else could Putin offer Trump?<\/h2>\n

In March, Putin\u2019s investment envoy \u2013 Kirill Dmitriev\u00a0\u2013 claimed that Russia and the US had started talks on rare earth metals projects in Russia, and that some American companies had already expressed an interest in them.<\/p>\n

\u201cRare earth metals are an important area for cooperation, and, of course, we have begun discussions on various rare earth metals and (other) projects in Russia,\u201d Dmitriev told the Izvestia newspaper.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s almost total global control<\/a> over the production of critical minerals \u2013 used in everything from defence equipment to consumer electronics \u2013 has focused Washington\u2019s attention on developing its own supplies.<\/p>\n

The US Geological Survey estimates Russia\u2019s reserves of rare earth metals at 3.8 million tonnes, but Moscow has far higher estimates.<\/p>\n

According to the Natural Resources Ministry, Russia has reserves of 15 rare earth metals totalling 28.7 million tonnes, as of January 2023.<\/p>\n

But even accounting for the margin of error hanging over Russia\u2019s potential rare earth supplies, it would still only account for a tiny fraction of global stockpiles.<\/p>\n

As such, the US has been pursuing minerals-for-security deals with the Democratic Republic of the Congo<\/a> and Ukraine<\/a> in recent months, in an effort to wrestle control of the global supply chain away from China.<\/p>\n

It may try and do the same with Russia.<\/p>\n

What does Russia want from these meetings?<\/h2>\n

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western countries have imposed 21,692<\/a> sanctions on Russia, mostly against individuals.<\/p>\n

Key sanctions on Moscow include import\u00a0bans on Russian oil<\/a>, a\u00a0price cap on Russian fuel<\/a>, and the freezing of Russian central bank assets held in European financial institutions.<\/p>\n

But on July 14, Trump threatened to impose so-called secondary sanctions<\/a>, that if carried out, would mark a notable shift.<\/p>\n

Since then, he has targeted India \u2013 the second biggest buyer of Russian oil \u2013 by doubling a 25 percent tariff on its goods to 50 percent, as a penalty for that trade with Moscow. So far, Trump has not imposed similar secondary tariffs on China, the largest consumer of Russian oil.<\/p>\n

But he has suggested that Beijing could face such tariffs in the future, as the US tries to pressure countries to stop buying Russian crude, and thereby corner Putin into accepting a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Members of Trump\u2019s administration have also indicated that if the Trump-Putin talks in Alaska don\u2019t go well, the tariffs on India could be increased further.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, lawmakers from both US political parties are pushing for a bill \u2013 the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 \u2013 that would also target countries buying Russian oil and gas.<\/p>\n

The bill would give Trump the authority to impose 500 percent tariffs on any country that helps Russia. US senators are reportedly waiting on Trump\u2019s OK to move the bill forward.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, Putin is expected to demand that Western sanctions on Russia be eased in exchange for Moscow\u00a0agreeing to any peace deal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday in a bid to try and end Russia\u2019s\u00a0three-year assault on Ukraine. In the run-up to the meeting, Trump said that he believes Putin is ready to agree to a ceasefire. But his suggestion that Putin … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}