Have Trump's Tactics Been Successful?

4.02.2025, 16:13
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Will the US President be able to speak the language of ultimatums with Russia?

The trade tariffs on Mexico and Canada that Donald Trump was going to impose have been postponed. Both countries have agreed to the terms of the new US President.

Have Trump's tactics been successful? Charter97.org spoke with the director of the Center for National Resilience Studies in Kyiv, former adviser to the Ukrainian embassy in Canada and Kenya Oleh Bilokolos:

— The result speaks for itself here. If we proceed from the point of view of the achieved results, then, probably, such assertive tactics are successful not in all, but in many cases. We must proceed from the real data that exists. Let's start with Canada. It is significantly dependent on the United States in terms of trade, economic, investment and financial relations.

I can't say exactly what the current statistics are, but I don't think they have changed much since the time when I worked at the Ukrainian embassy in this country. At that time, Canada exported to the United States somewhere around 70% of its exports, and received the same amount of imports from the United States. You can imagine how dependent the Canadian economy is on the American market.

Obviously, the points that Trump made in his statements about allowing American banks, about some trade and economic issues, will still be discussed. So we will watch the situation develop here.

With Mexico, everything is even more obvious. Everyone understands perfectly well that for Mexico, the United States is both an export market and an import market, and we also need to take into account the huge number of Mexicans who live in Mexico but work in the United States. We are talking about billions of dollars.

Here, Trump simply used his issue of admission/non-admission to the American market as a lever of influence in relations with his closest neighbors. How successful this tactic will be, let's see in a month, what agreements will be reached and whether they will be reached at all.

So far, we can say that such an offensive negotiating tactic has brought success, including with respect to Panama. Washington expressed dissatisfaction with China's excessive influence in the Panama Canal area, and this issue was obviously discussed as well. The United States' position in this region is very strong, and the Panamanian economy is apparently also very dependent on the United States.

There was also an example from Colombia recently, it turned out that the country earns several billion dollars just by exporting flowers to the United States. If any problems arise there, the billion-dollar export will collapse, and this will be a severe blow to the economy, finances, and social stability in Colombia.

That is why Trump may be acting so assertively here, it sometimes looks rude from the outside, but, frankly speaking, all large markets, all large countries use the lever of access to their market as a negotiating tool, a tool of influence. It is no secret that Russia acted this way in terms of access or non-access to its oil and gas resources, successfully manipulating Western (including American) companies.

— Will such aggressive negotiating tactics have an effect on Putin?

— It is necessary to understand that Russia and Mexico are different things, and economic issues are not in the foreground for Putin today. It is obvious that the United States has some options for influencing Russia, for example, tightening sanctions and further isolating the Russian Federation from the world market. These signals have already been heard, but so far Washington has not put forward any tough demands to the Kremlin — it has only made statements. Now Washington is still working out arguments and mechanisms that Moscow will have to listen to.

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Have Trump's Tactics Been Successful?

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