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President Trump set a low bar for his summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, saying he was ready to walk away if no deal was forthcoming.
David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents and writes often on the changing nature of competition among the great powers, the subject of his latest book.
Aug. 11, 2025, 7:30 p.m. ET
President Trump set the lowest possible bar for his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday, declaring that “probably in the first two minutes I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can get done,” and insisting he was ready to walk away from the talks and let the two sides continue to fight it out.
In a rambling news conference, Mr. Trump reiterated that he planned to negotiate what he called “land swaps” and batted away the statements over the weekend by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that his country’s Constitution prohibited him from giving away land to an invader.
In describing the meeting, Mr. Trump told reporters that “I’m going to Russia on Friday,” and repeated a version of the same statement several minutes later. In fact, the meeting is set to take place in Alaska, which has not been part of Russia since 1867, when it was sold to the United States for $7.2 million.
“I’m going to see what he has in mind,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin, whom he has talked to over secure lines at least five times since he took office in January. He said he would judge “if it’s a fair deal.”
He added, “I may leave and say good luck, and that’ll be the end.”
But Mr. Trump’s own description of his goals for the negotiation on Friday, the most high-stakes international meeting yet in his second term, were telling — as much for what he omitted as for what he included. And that is what worries both the Ukrainians and Washington’s European allies, who have committed to keep arming Ukraine no matter the outcome in Anchorage.
Mr. Zelensky, who so far has not been invited to join the talks in Alaska, has said that any agreement must start with a some kind of truce or cease-fire so that negotiations were not being conducted amid continued air attacks and territorial grabs. Mr. Trump has not stipulated that a truce must come first.
During his hourlong news conference, he never once mentioned security guarantees for Ukraine, intended to assure that Mr. Putin does not exploit a break in the fighting or new territorial gains as his moment to regroup, rearm and resume his effort to seize the whole country.
Nor did Mr. Trump commit to making sure that Ukraine has the arms, intelligence and cooperation it needs to defend its territory and deter Russia from future attacks. His vice president, JD Vance, a longtime critic of American aid to Kyiv, was quite explicit during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “We’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,” he said, insisting that the only way American arms would make it into Ukrainian hands would be if European allies bought and transferred them.
Mr. Trump’s comments came as the White House scrambled to make arrangements for one of the most hastily assembled summits of recent times. Usually such sessions are preceded by detailed advance negotiations, with prearranged agreements and communiqués. Mr. Trump seemed to suggest that he was walking into this discussion with none of those, though European officials say they have seen evidence that, at lower levels, Russian and American officials are talking.
Adding to the sense of haste, the White House has still not said where, exactly, the meeting will be held, how long it is expected to last or whether at the end Mr. Trump will preside over a meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky, two avowed enemies.
The risk now, as even some of Mr. Trump’s Republican allies have conceded, is that Mr. Putin will see an opportunity to flatter Mr. Trump, play for time and perhaps win him over to the Russian leader’s own interpretation of events.
Recent history suggests that Mr. Trump is inclined to accept Mr. Putin’s version of reality: This year he suggested that Ukraine was responsible for the invasion of its own territory, and he refused to join America’s traditional Western allies in voting for a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s aggression. On Sunday evening, Mr. Zelensky worried aloud that Mr. Trump could be easily “deceived.”
For that reason, European and NATO officials — who mollified Mr. Trump at the alliance’s summit in the Netherlands in June by pledging to spend 3.5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense over the next decade — are now carefully trying to hedge him in. They arranged a Wednesday video call with Mr. Trump, aware that they will not be in the room in Alaska, so their power is limited to persuading him beforehand and risking his wrath by dissenting later.
One of the most explicit warnings to Mr. Trump came from the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, a former Netherlands prime minister who has invested heavily in developing a relationship with the president and devised the NATO summit to minimize the chances he would disrupt it. His bet paid off, and Mr. Trump sang the alliance’s praises, rather than declare that it was “obsolete,” as he did in his first term.
But on Sunday, Mr. Rutte was clearly drawing some guardrails for the coming negotiation.
“Next Friday will be important because it will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end,” Mr. Rutte said on ABC’s “This Week.” “When it comes to full-scale negotiations, and let’s hope that Friday will be an important step in that process,” territory will be only one issue, he said.
“It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future — of course having no limitations to its own military troop levels,” Mr. Rutte said. “And for NATO, to have no limitations on our presence on the eastern flank.”
Mr. Trump said none of that in his comments in the White House briefing room on Monday. But he made clear that striking an agreement was the key.
“I make deals,” he said.
Mr. Trump has made no secret of his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and has claimed that he was the driving force in recent cease-fires or peace accords in disputes between India and Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and other regional conflicts.
“What’s the definition of a good deal?” Mr. Trump asked reporters. “I’ll tell you after I hear what the deal is, because there could be many definitions.”
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
