Great power

Following an Oct. 9 call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a license easing sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027. A bipartisan group of senators called the move "a gift to our adversary," and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned it could embolden further Russian attacks. The decision appears to soften a Russia sanctions law Trump signed weeks earlier, though the administration frames it as a way to lower fuel prices.

The debate centers on whether engaging Russia can weaken its deepening cooperation with China, Iran and North Korea, echoing Nixon-era efforts to exploit splits among adversaries. Analysts note strains between Moscow and Beijing, including stalled Power of Siberia 2 pipeline talks, but caution that sanctions relief alone proves little without verifiable Russian concessions on Ukraine and military cooperation with Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's Washington meeting with US President Donald Trump centered on a shared framework the two sides call "constructive strategic stability," first floated during Trump's May visit to China and given more substance in this summit. Xi described the goal as a relationship marked by cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition and manageable differences, arguing that stability requires both expanding areas of cooperation and shrinking the list of disputes rather than resolving every disagreement first.

Trade talks produced a new joint arrangement, with Trump calling for continued negotiation toward a fuller agreement. The leaders also agreed to pursue dialogue on artificial intelligence risks, misuse and human control, and pledged mutual support for hosting the 2026 APEC summit and G20 leaders' meeting. Discussions additionally touched on the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula. Analysts note the summit's real test will be whether these commitments translate into predictable economic ties and sustained working-level engagement rather than remaining symbolic diplomatic language.

Tensions between Washington and Seoul have grown after President Trump publicly criticized South Korea for declining to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran standoff, prompting his administration to scale back joint military exercises that have underpinned the decades-old alliance. Trump has said he would "remember" the perceived slight, while the State Department has sought to reassure Seoul the remarks were not meant to single Korea out.

Polling shows the fallout: trust in Trump among Koreans has fallen sharply since his return to office, a majority now hold an unfavorable view of the United States for the first time in two decades of surveys, and large majorities oppose his tariffs and Iran policy. Critics note Korea has funded U.S. troop presence under cost-sharing deals since 1991 and pledged roughly $350 billion in investment under a recent tariff agreement. Despite the friction, most Koreans still call the U.S. their most important ally, underscoring a gap between public frustration with Trump personally and continued support for the alliance itself.

Recent visits by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv, where they met with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, produced no breakthrough on the war in Ukraine, according to analysis in Foreign Policy. The piece argues that high-level shuttle diplomacy cannot substitute for sustained, institutionalized U.S.-Russia channels, which Washington has allowed to atrophy over a decade of sanctions and isolation following 2014.

The analysis draws on historical precedents, from Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet exchanges to the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission and Obama-Medvedev working groups, to argue that durable engagement requires institutional infrastructure beyond individual negotiators. It contends that any eventual Ukraine settlement will require deep U.S. involvement, and that Washington must rebuild negotiating capacity now to prepare for multiple possible Russian futures, whether continued confrontation under Putin, a narrow post-settlement opening, or an unpredictable leadership transition.