Arkady Moshes: Europe Turned Out To Be Much More "toothy" Than Moscow And Washington Had Thought
- 14.12.2025, 15:42
Lifting U.S. sanctions on Belarusian potash won't help Lukashenko.
The US lifts sanctions on Belarusian potash, while EU restrictions and Lithuania's national sanctions remain in place. Does this mean that the allies are getting further apart on the Belarus issue?"
"Filin" asked political scientist Arkady Moshes who can benefit from the next series of negotiations between Minsk and Washington.
- To ask whether this is another test of the strength of transatlantic cooperation is, frankly, no longer necessary," said Arkady Moshes, director of the Eastern Neighborhood and Russia research programs at the Finnish Institute of International Relations, "because there is little left of this unity.
Trump has been behaving all this year in such a way as to emphasize that his relations with Europe are no longer based on the unity of views, they are relations including commercial ones. In my opinion, he doesn't think much about unity and security cooperation with Europe. This is not new, although one can only regret it.
There is another interesting thing. Trump's goal-setting and inconsistency is absolutely incomprehensible. Why should he simultaneously take Moscow's side in negotiations with Ukraine - put pressure on Ukraine and personally on Zelensky, making Putin feel good, and at the same time make Putin angry by flirting with Lukashenko (not necessarily over his head, but still behind Putin's back)?
How this can work, I do not understand.
As a result, the political scientist states, Trump has both intensified the conflict with Europe and complicated relations with Putin, primarily psychologically. Arkady Moshes sees only one explanation for this:
- Europe has turned out to be much more "toothy", more subjective than Moscow and Washington thought. Trump is obviously annoyed and irritated by Europe's stance on the Ukrainian conflict. That's why he doesn't think about it and in order to spite Europe, he goes for such actions, which will have, though not strategic, but negative consequences in America's relations with Russia.
In practice, says the expert, it is possible that the lifting of American sanctions on Belarusian potash will not lead to any significant consequences - because it is Europe's position that plays a role here. And if it doesn't want to let fertilizers from Belarus pass through its territory, it won't do it.
- At the same time, I don't expect the Trump administration to put serious pressure on Europe in this matter," he adds. - From the point of view of getting beautiful PR and new beautiful photos, the Americans are quite satisfied with this exchange: the release of some real number of political prisoners for an absolutely formal and meaningless in practice procedure of lifting the sanctions on fertilizer exports.