According to the latest vote in the Senate, we see that in American politics the tendency to strengthen sanctions against Russia has been fixed, writes political scientist Sergei Taran.
In the US there are no parties openly sympathetic to Russia. When we talk about the European Union, we know that there are certain politicians that have always been pro-Russian: they have common interests, including the collapse of the EU. We are talking about Le Pen and other marginals. So in the US, there are obviously no pro-Russian parties.
Americans can not be positive about Russia. And there are many reasons for this: the history of the Cold War, ideology (in the US, many things inherent in the Russian Federation do not like, for example, authoritarianism, patronage of power). In addition, the interests of these two powers in some regions intersect so sharply that it is almost impossible to reach a compromise there. For example, Syria or Ukraine. Therefore, any politician who showed sympathy for Russia in the US is at great risk. And this is well confirmed by investigations into the environment of Trump.
Moscow itself gave a good excuse for the Americans to oppose it by their interference in the American elections. So now any politician who has said something positive about Russia gets a serious share of criticism. At the same time, of course, there are those in the United States who believe that it is worth negotiating with the Kremlin, since it is important for solving certain tasks, for example, in the Middle East. For this, you can try not to increase sanctions against the Russian Federation. This is what Tillerson points out. But this is not a trend. According to the latest vote in the Senate, we see that the trend is just different: in order to strengthen sanctions against Russia.
The US is playing good and bad cop.. Some believe that Americans should press on Russia, others - that the country should act gently, but achieve the same results. It's not about solving problems together with Russia. Although Putin wants Washington to perceive Moscow as an equal party, with which it is necessary to agree on a redivision of the world. Politicians ready to support this, there is no US. Simply there are those who are softer about how to get from Russia the necessary. First of all, we are talking about the surroundings of Trump.
Trump himself, as is known, was loyal to Moscow. But he met with serious resistance from American institutions, and as a result tries to hide this loyalty.
In addition, during the election campaign, Trump gave many promises that now need to be carried out. Coming to power in a wave of populism, he faced the fact that people now expect from him rapid results. But their expectations to move, for example, production from China and Mexico to the US, it is impossible to fulfill. Therefore, Trump begins to lose popularity. So, the only chance to achieve something is to achieve success in international politics. It's always been like this. Reagan was also not popular at the beginning of the term, but later he began to make progress in international politics, like Bush before the September 11 attack, when his popularity increased sharply, because the international factor. And for Trump, international politics can become a bailout in order to protect its rating within the country.
Therefore, I think that it is fatal for Trump to surrender to Russia, he will lose his last chance to save the rating.
Tillerson will try to find ways to settle the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, and will express the US's readiness for more active action in this matter. I'm not sure that this will work, not because Trump or Ukraine will not want it, but because Russia is unlikely to make concessions: it will mean the collapse of Putin. Therefore, there will be attempts, but I doubt that they will prove to be productive.