Is Putin playing Trump or is Trump playing us?

The biggest winner

Business will back Trump toughening up

Who commits suicide

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is the Lester Crown Professor in Management Practice and Senior Associate Dean at Yale School of Management.

Steven Tian is the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.

With this week’s Russian missile and drone onslaught across Ukraine, which included the largest bombardment of Kyiv since February 2022 — it’s clear that despite President Donald Trump’s claims that he would be able to end the conflict quickly, we are still far away from an end to Vladimir Putin’s. A cease-fire remains elusive, despite Trump signaling one in Alaska last month — and threatening Putin with vague “severe consequences” if it failed to take place.

Russian sanctions under President Biden were substantial, but they were insufficient and underenforced, and military supply deliveries were often tardy. Still, that Administration’s rhetoric and actions were consistent in support for Ukraine. Disturbingly, despite occasional tough talk from Trump which we have saluted over the past eight months, it seems he is unwilling to exert any actual leverage on Putin. Trump has had all the cards and dropped the deck as Putin’s imploding economy leaves Russia far from being an economic superpower. Other world leaders now wonder if he is all bark and no bite.

Once again, top Trump officials are denouncing the attacks as “egregious” and that they “threaten the peace” Trump is pursuing, yet Trump refuses to take any substantive action to pressure Putin to stop or to punish Putin for his transgression. Trump must surely know that a verbal wrist slap is unlikely to stop the Russian dictator. Similarly, before the Alaska Summit, Trump had threatened new sanctions and tariffs on Russia if Putin did not agree to end the war in Ukraine, but no such sanctions and tariffs have been imposed since. Where are those long-promised sanctions and tariffs?

Likewise, sometimes Trump verbally muses about strengthening support for Ukraine — such as when he posted to Truth Social, speculating about whether Ukraine should be allowed to strike deep within Russia — but his actions consistently fail to match his rhetoric, as U.S. aid to Ukraine draws down and Europe increasingly foots the bill.

There is a striking disconnect between what Trump is saying and what he is doing — and every time, Trump does not match his rhetorical bellicosity with any actual action or pressure on Putin, as Putin continues unabated.

Is Putin playing Trump, promising progress in a peace deal which will never come to buy more time to batter Ukraine? Or is Trump playing us, dangling vague assurances while letting Putin get away with it?

Regardless, it’s clear who the biggest winner is from Trump’s inability to deliver the peace deal he has long promised: Putin wins, and everyone else loses. Each and every single day the war goes on, Russia continues to gain more land and kill more Ukrainians, helped

There is much that Trump can do to pressure Putin if he chooses to do so — much of which he himself has threatened or mused about, but failed to act upon. Perhaps the most potent leverage would be tightening economic pressure on Putin through sanctions and tariffs. While the secondary tariffs recently levied on India for buying Russian oil is a good first step, that is just the tip of the iceberg, with countries such as China, Turkey, and others continuing to buy ample Russian oil providing windfall revenues for Putin.

Trump will find that American businesses stand united behind him, with zero major US businesses eager to return to Russia after pulling out in the largest stampede in history in 2022, with 1,200+ companies leaving overnight. We helped to spark those mass exits and continue to hear that from CEOs that none are interested in returning given the unstable collapsing nature of Russia economy, the difficulty of doing business there, the risk to executive lives, Putin’s impulsive expropriation of private businesses, the ease of substitutability of Russia’s raw materials at comparable commodity prices, elsewhere, and the former minuscule 1% to 2% prewar revenues Russia represented for most multinationals while doing business there. Some were alarmed

The reality is, as Exxon insiders have confirmed to me, Exxon has little appetite for unreliable Russian oil. Exxon has no incentive to become hostage to Putin’s mercurial whims while incurring massive global reputational risk holds little appeal. It is plainly uneconomic to drill in the Russian Arctic Circle, with a much higher marginal cost of production than far cheaper and more reliable oilfields in Guyana, the Middle East, and the Permian Basin in the U.S.

The U.S. business contingent to Alaska was cosmetic Trump appeasement for Russian talks to tantalize Putin — or fool the public. In reality, they have no need for that added supply and cannot afford the drilling in the Arctic Circle anymore. It proved uneconomic under Rex Tillerson, but the Ukrainian invasion gave them an excuse to withdraw — along with BP and Shell. Russia has periodically threatened litigation and even sued its former partner Exxon as US technology is vital to assist the anachronistic inefficient Russian extraction systems which cost twice as much as for other OPEC+ nations.

Exxon produces roughly 4.5 million barrels a day with 1.5 million (a third of their production) coming very efficiently from Guyana, where it’s not even at half capacity yet. Another third of output is from the Mideast (Aramco) and the final third from the U.S., where it also has undertapped proven reserves. With crude oil prices plunging to $63 per barrel (WTI)/$66 per barrel (Brent), there is little interest in expanding supply from inefficient Russian

As an added kicker, it is plain disorienting, if not dizzying, to have to deal with a constantly changing cast of interlocutors, with successive waves of top executives at Russian energy firms somehow committing suicide during Putin’s term. This includes figures at Gazprom, Lukoil, Transneft and Rosneft who have mysteriously fallen out of windows, somehow committed suicide

Simultaneously, Trump has to fortify military assistance for Ukraine. Already, there is growing momentum in Congress, including from Trump’s GOP allies, for another major military aid package to help Ukraine, despite the misguided cries of outnumbered, outgunned isolationists such as JD Vance not to support Ukraine anymore. Already, there is a bipartisan proposal in the Senate for a new $54.6 billion package in new aid to Ukraine, which would be the largest aid package for Ukraine yet.

Despite Trump’s tough talk, he constantly fails to match his rhetorical bluster with genuine action to squeeze Putin. Trump, who normally enjoys creating maximum leverage for himself, seems bizarrely unwilling or unable to challenge Putin beyond verbal wordplay. Where are the “severe consequences” against Putin that Trump has often threatened, but never implemented?

It’s not too late to change that — if things continue at this rate, it will be hard to say whether Putin is playing Trump, or Trump is playing us. Either way, the U.S., the EU, and Ukraine are all worse off under Trump’s confusing cowardice.

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