The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board warned that President Donald Trump’s openness to a three-way summit with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping “could blow up alliances at home and abroad,” in a Tuesday editorial titled “Trump’s New Global Triumvirate?”
“It’s hard to know what President Trump is up to at any one moment because he operates so much on tactical impulse," wrote the board. "But he has long coveted grand bargains with Russia and China, and that may be his motivation now as he hardens his hostility to Ukraine and Europe and courts a Yalta 2 summit with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.”
The board conceded the analogy isn’t exact, since “Russia and China are now adversaries.” But “the trio did try to carve up the globe, and that’s the danger with what Mr. Trump says he’s open to now.”
On Putin’s overture, the board noted the Russian leader floated a summit to settle the Ukraine war. Trump said he’s open: “Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not, whatever I can do to end the war.” The board said Trump has recently waived new oil tariffs and sanctions on Russia and “offered Mr. Putin’s war machine a cash infusion by letting Russian diesel flow into global markets.”
The board's reading: “Mr. Trump’s new policy looks less like opportunistic pressure on Ukraine and more like a larger attempt to produce a false peace by appeasing Mr. Putin.” A meeting trying to dictate Ukraine’s fate “would be a mistake that could plant the seeds for a larger conflict.”
“A new triumvirate that divided the world into spheres of influence would blow up America’s global credibility as a reliable ally,” the board warned. Moreover, a coerced peace “would divide NATO and broadcast to America’s Pacific allies that the U.S. is a dangerous friend.”
The board also warned that Xi “wants Taiwan in his strategic soul” and would “exploit any opening with Mr. Trump to push the U.S. out of the Pacific.” On nuclear talks, it said “Beijing doesn’t want to talk about nukes until it’s on equal footing with the U.S.”
Politically, the board said GOP lawmakers are already uneasy about Trump’s approach to Putin. “Handing over Europe to Russia, and the Pacific to China, would open a major party division.”
“A second Yalta is arguably the worst idea of the second Trump term, and the President would be betting far more than his own legacy,” the board concluded darkly.