The Economist

The EconomistJuly 21 st 2018 37

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1

I

F GEORGE W. BUSH once famously

looked VladimirPutin in the eye and saw

his soul Donald Trump when he met the

Russian president in Helsinki on July 1 6th

sawhis own reflection: an alpha male who

made his country “great again”; a fellow

populist and disrupter who disdains the

politically correct and hypocritical liberal

elite and the institutions they inhabit; a

man guided by interests who likes doing

deals while trustingnobody and who uses

the media to create his own reality show.

Vladimir Putin saw in Mr Trump a confir-

mation of a long-held belief that Western

leaders operate in exactly the same way as

he does and onlypretend to have “values”.

Appropriately enough the meeting

tookplace in the Hall ofMirrorsatthe pres-

idential palace in Helsinki. It was both an

imitation and a reversal of traditional for-

eign-policyengagements. Stylistically it re-

sembled cold-war summitry. But unlike

past summits it lacked a clear agenda or

substance. There waslittle change in the of-

ficial position of the two countries on

Ukraine Iran or Syria and no break-

through on nuclear-arms reduction.

The main happening took place with-

out any officials other than interpreters

behind closed doors. The sinister explana-

tion for that was that Mr Trump had some-

thing to hide and made secret promises

and deals. The cynical one is that the secre-

cy concealed a dearth of meaning. Unlike

he meant “wouldn’t be”.

Mr Putin for his part admitted that he

had rooted for Mr Trump to win the 2016

election while also denying that he or-

dered any meddlingin it. As though mock-

ingMrMueller he invited FBIinvestigators

to visit Russia to interview the 12 GRU offi-

cers in exchange for the GRU questioning

its own targets including a former Ameri-

can ambassador Michael McFaul. (“An in-

credible offer” Mr Trump said.) As a sym-

bol ofappreciation Mr Putin presented Mr

Trump with a football brought from his

othershow—the World Cup.

This was not meant as a challenge but

as a friendlypass forMr Trump and Mr Pu-

tin play on the same side. They are united

against a common enemy: the liberal glo-

balistestablishmentpersonified byHillary

Clinton and her supposed sponsor George

Soros who tried to subvertthe presidential

campaign ofboth men as theysee it.

The summitwas less about foreign poli-

cy than the internal politics of both coun-

tries. Mr Putin thrives on the idea that he is

restoring Russia’s status as a great geopolit-

ical power. Nothing irked him more than

BarackObama deeming Russia a “regional

power” and likeninghim to a “bored kid in

the backofthe classroom”.

To sustain his legitimacy at home Mr

Putin needs America not as a friend but as

an adversary that accepts Russia as an

equal. In his state-of-the-nation address in

March he showed off cartoons of intercep-

tion-proof nuclear missiles and accompa-

nied it with a comment addressed to

America but meant for Russian ears:

“[They] did not want to talk to us then. Lis-

ten to us now!”

The summit was billed in Russia as a

confirmation that the message got

through. As a good stage partner Mr

Trump delivered a much-needed line: “We

previous summits where an event is

turned into a spectacle by the media this

time the spectacle itself was the event

staged for the benefit ofthe press.

As an experienced actor Mr Putin stole

the show. An hourlate he made a dramatic

entrance arriving in his new Russian-

made Kortezh limousine which looked

bigger and heavier that Mr Trump’s

“Beast”. But it was Mr Trump in his sup-

porting role who introduced the first note

of the absurd. In a morning tweet he

blamed the dismal state ofRussia-America

relations not on the Kremlin—even though

it has annexed Crimea shot down a pas-

senger airliner and interfered in America’s

presidential election—but on America’s

past foolishness and stupidity and now on

“the Rigged Witch Hunt”. The Russian for-

eign ministry promptly answered with a

retweet: “We agree.”

It was not the only thing on which Mr

Putin and MrTrump agreed. The distortion

of reality became more striking as the two

men emerged from the Hall of Mirrors and

into a press conference. Mr Trump laid into

the FBIand the investigation led by Robert

Mueller a “ridiculous” probe which on

July 1 3th indicted 12 Russian GRU(military-

intelligence) officers for cyber-attacks and

interference in the American election. Mr

Trump said that he saw no reason “why it

would be” Russia’s interference—by

which the president clarified a day later

The Trump-Putin summit

In the Hall of Mirrors

HELSINKI

Two depressinglysimilarpresidents meet

Europe

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