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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Aug 29

As the United States pushes to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, what’s next for the diplomatic negotiations?

Atlantic Council experts answer twenty burning questions.

THREAD 🧵
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1. What is the current state of the battlefield?

The battlefield needs to be understood broadly. Most of the commentary on “the battlefield” focuses on Moscow’s monthslong land offensive. The key point, well understood but incomplete, is that Moscow is making very slow, if painful, gains. There have been moments recently when Russian forces moved forward hundreds of meters, especially toward Pokrovsk, a key town in western Donetsk. Moscow has announced for weeks that it would “soon” take the town, but it has not, as Ukraine regained territory north of it and crack Ukrainian troops moved to the area to push the Russians back.

In the air, Moscow continues its savage war on Ukraine’s cities and civilians, which causes weekly casualties, but with little strategic impact. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s ever-growing drone capability—in both distance and explosive capacity—is wreaking havoc on Russian hydrocarbon installations, transportation hubs, bridges, railroads, weapons depots, and strategic industries. This is already having an impact on Russian oil supplies. Shortages are being felt throughout the country—even in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok—and are also magnifying the pressure on industrial production, which has been battered by high inflation and interest rates. Putin’s notion that he can inevitably take a good bit more territory—reflected in much Western media reporting—does not take into account Ukraine’s growing air campaign. Meanwhile, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is cowering in the eastern reaches of the Black Sea, far from its base in Sevastopol. Ukrainian drones have reduced the fleet’s role to shooting missiles from afar, and Ukraine’s ports remain open for commerce.

— @JohnEdHerbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACEurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

2. What’s next for diplomatic negotiations?

It is no surprise that negotiations with Russia are going nowhere fast. Putin does not want to end the war. His goal is not to lock in his gains or to take the rest of the Donetsk Oblast, but to take effective political control of Ukraine; and he thinks that he can continue to grind forward on the ground. We have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity this month for one reason: Trump had set a hard deadline of August 8 for Putin to stop shooting or to face massive sanctions, including secondary sanctions on his principal trading partners. To evade this, Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and hinted to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff that he could be flexible. This prospect persuaded Trump to let the August 8 deadline pass without new sanctions and to meet with Putin, which he did on August 15 in Anchorage.

While Trump and Witkoff said that Putin demonstrated a readiness to make concessions there, we have no public evidence of a new, more conciliatory Kremlin position. Moscow rejects Trump’s intermediate goal of a cease-fire and continues its intensive bombardment of Ukrainian cities and civilians. The attack the night of August 27 was one of the largest of the war, killing at least twenty-three people in Kyiv. It proved an embarrassment to the White House, which still insists Russia is now more flexible, even as it demands a solution to “the root causes” of the war. This means a peace deal that includes a commitment that a “neutral” Ukraine would never join NATO; would not host foreign troops; and would hand over to Russia the territories in Luhansk and Donetsk that Kyiv controls, including the easily defendable towns in the western Donbas (Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and Pokrovsk) that Moscow has been trying to seize for years.

Following the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders to the White House for talks on August 18, the focus has turned to a potential Putin-Zelenskyy meeting. But Russian statements suggest that any such meeting is far off. This is no surprise. Putin has consistently rejected meetings with Zelenskyy for years and, with the sanctions pressure off, has had no reason to change his mind.

Trump has expressed his frustration with the difficulty of arranging a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting and mentioned the possibility of placing massive sanctions on Russia; but he has also floated suspending his efforts to achieve peace. He has threatened to walk away in the past and did not actually do it. While Trump still says that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is former President Joe Biden’s war, not his, he likely understands that as president of the United States, it is now his responsibility.

— @JohnEdHerbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACEurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Jun 30

WATCH NOW | The Atlantic Council marks the launch of its new Romania office with a discussion on the future of transatlantic ties. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

“The transatlantic community is more resilient than people give it credit for,” @AmbDanFried tells @OlgaKhakova.

Watch live:

@AmbDanFried @OlgaKhakova “The understanding between the two shores of the Atlantic is key and is the foundation to work on,” says @ColibasanuAnto.

Watch the full panel:

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Jun 22

Early on Sunday morning in the Middle East, US forces targeted Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Atlantic Council experts assess the significance of the strikes and what to expect next.

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The US ended one of its most serious foreign policy threats

I’ve worked for more than two decades on the Iranian nuclear crisis, and I have long forecasted that this issue would and should end in a US strike on Iran’s nuclear program. That is what happened tonight.

Every president since George W. Bush has stated correctly that acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable. Others held out hope that this issue could be resolved at the negotiating table. But for more than two decades, Iran’s leaders have been unwilling to voluntarily give up their nuclear program. We were out of time. Experts estimated that Iran’s dash time to one bomb of weapons-grade uranium had shrunk to two to five days.

Others hoped that Israel would take care of the problem, but only the United States had the ability to destroy Iran’s deeply buried and hardened nuclear facilities.

Others fret about a wider regional war and even World War III. That won’t happen. Iran has few good retaliatory options, and it is afraid of a major war with the United States. Iran may launch token missile strikes, but expect this crisis to quickly de-escalate, like Trump’s strikes on Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

Others worry that Iran will be enraged and redouble its efforts to rebuild a bomb. With what? Their nuclear facilities are a smoking pile of rubble. They probably won’t rebuild. They just spent billions of dollars and decades only to invite sanctions and a devastating war with the most powerful country in the world. Why hit replay on that tape?

If Iran rebuilds, we can hit them again.

Iran’s nuclear program has been one of the most serious threats to US foreign policy for more than two decades. It no longer exists. This may be the biggest US foreign policy accomplishment since the end of the Cold War.

— @MatthewKroenig is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACScowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Council’s director of studies.

The two potential paths Iran’s response could take

It’s now Iran’s move, and Tehran has two pathways. It can choose to undertake a strike in which it attacks US bases in the region but with the intention of having a limited impact. Doing so would enable the Iranian regime to claim that it retaliated, defended its country, and stood up to the United States, which in turn might prompt the resumption of diplomatic engagement.

The president’s speech this evening is more likely to be viewed by the Iranian regime as another threat rather than as an opening for diplomacy. Iran is unlikely to believe it can simply capitulate to the United States—given that hardliners in the Iranian regime might view such a decision as inappropriate. Hopefully, Washington is also working through backchannels to provide Iran a face-saving diplomatic off-ramp for Tehran. Without something to be able to claim a reason for a lesser response, hardliners in the Iranian regime may ultimately win the day, which could lead to a much more dangerous outcome.

The other possible pathway is that the Iranian regime determines the US strikes—and continued threats Trump levied at Iran during his speech—compel the regime to undertake a significant attack against US personnel and interests. That would potentially prompt an escalatory spiral of attacks and counterattacks, which could lead to a regional war.

Iran’s military capabilities are degraded but far from extinguished. And if Iran worries that the regime is at risk either from the United States or Israel—or that if it doesn’t respond strongly enough, then it will lose the backing of those who generally support it—it could take this latter path. In doing so, it could seek to not only to leverage proxies in the Middle East to attack US interests and personnel, but also potentially undertake asymmetric attacks and terrorist attacks against global Israeli, Jewish, or US targets.

The other question that remains unanswered: Is Iran’s nuclear program truly destroyed? If it has been, then no further strikes will be required against sites related to Iran’s nuclear program, as the president seems to prefer. But if it turns out the strikes were not completely effective, that Iran moved portions of its nuclear weapons program, or that it has secret nuclear sites, then it is unlikely this will be the end of these strikes as Trump has sought.

The president made a decision this weekend that will create a new Middle East and potentially a better one—but it all depends on how Iran responds.

— @jpanikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

May 13

🇺🇸 @POTUS announced on Tuesday that Washington will remove all US sanctions on Syria.

How will the removal of sanctions affect Syria’s economy and future US-Syria relations?

Atlantic Council experts share their insights below.

THREAD 🧵
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

This is an opportunity to secure a long-term US strategic victory in the region

Trump’s decision to lift US sanctions on Syria is a pivotal shift that could define his legacy in the Middle East. The move signals an opportunity to secure a long-term US victory in Syria by stabilizing the region, countering rivals such as Russia and China, and opening economic opportunities for US businesses.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a dealmaker, and his record on Syria supports that image. Unlike the Obama and Biden administrations, Trump responded decisively to al-Assad’s chemical weapon attacks in 2017 and 2018, launched airstrikes to deter further atrocities, and cooperated with Turkey in 2020 to halt the Assad regime’s and Russia’s assault on Idlib. He also signed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which crippled the Assad regime financially, leading to its fall last December. Now, however, those same sanctions are undermining the prospects of Syria’s new post-Assad regime government, which is attempting to rebuild and distance itself from Iranian and Russian influence.

The current sanctions are weakening a new government that seeks US and Gulf support. If these sanctions were to stay in place, Syria’s economy would remain in free fall, making it increasingly reliant on Russia, China, and Iran. This would open the door to renewed extremism, regional instability, and the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Lifting sanctions will allow US companies to compete with Chinese firms for contracts in Syria’s expected $400 billion reconstruction effort. It will also enable Trump to leverage Gulf funding, create jobs in both Syria and the United States, and demonstrate Washington’s role as a stabilizing force. A prosperous Syria would reduce refugee flows, weaken Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and eliminate Syria as a threat to Israel—a country with which the new Syrian leadership seeks peaceful relations.

The new Syrian government is not without flaws, but it has made pragmatic moves. It started reintegrating territories with the Syrian Democratic Forces, cracked down on drug trafficking, made efforts aimed at protecting minorities, and distanced itself from Hezbollah and Iranian forces. These steps show a willingness to cooperate with the West and align with its goal of regional stability. If Trump follows through, he could secure a rare bipartisan win, outmaneuver Russia, and reshape the future of Syria in a way that serves US interests and regional peace.

— @Qidlbi is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs where he leads the Council’s work on Syria.

Trump is making a smart gamble

Trump’s announcement that he will provide sanctions relief to Syria is a gamble, but it is the right one. The collapse of the Assad regime, whose brutality, misrule, and collaboration with malevolent regional actors destroyed Syria, has given long-suffering Syrians a chance to build a different future.

The road to recovery will not be an easy one. Many are rightly suspicious of Syria’s new acting president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and others in his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement, due to their violent jihadist past. As one cannot look inside another’s soul, it is unknown if they have truly shed their extremist ideology amid a rebranding since coming to power in December.

What can be judged are actions. So far, al-Sharaa has said and done many of things Western and Arab nations have called for. He is making efforts to be inclusive, including appointing women and minorities into his cabinet. He says strict Sharia law will not be imposed. He has begun negotiations with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces on their peaceful integration into Syrian national institutions. He claims to want Syria to pose no threat to any of its neighbors, including Israel, and he wants to keep Iran from re-establishing influence in Syria. He is aligning himself with moderate Arab states and US partners like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

These words and actions must be tested and verified over time. But to have any chance to succeed in stabilizing Syria, the new government needs resources to make the economy function. Reconstruction and resettlement of refugees, not to mention restoring services disrupted by years of civil war, will be expensive. Without a significant measure of US sanctions relief, none of this is possible. It would nearly guarantee Syria’s descent back into chaos and provide fertile ground for extremists.

Congress should work with Trump on crafting sanctions relief such that, if necessary, sanctions can be restored. But Trump is right to seize this opportunity.

— @DanielBShapiro is a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. From 2022 to 2023, he was the Director of the N7 Initiative. He has previously served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and as US ambassador to Israel.

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

May 8

🌟 Tonight in Washington, five exceptional leaders will be honored at the Atlantic Council Distinguished Leadership Awards—known as the “Oscars of Washington.” #DLA2025 #ACAwards

Follow the thread for live updates. 🧵
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We are dedicated to an alliance of democracies and galvanizing US leadership alongside our partners to advance the broader cause of democracy across the world, says Atlantic Council Board Chairman John F.W. Rogers.

Register to watch the broadcast:
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“For more than six decades, Judy’s voice has carried the hopes, dreams, and stories of generations,” says Atlantic Council Executive Vice Chair Adrienne Arsht about #DLA2025 honoree @TheJudyCollins.

Register to watch the broadcast: ➡️ #ACAwards bit.ly/4iYkjJM

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Atlantic Council

@AtlanticCouncil

Apr 3

How is the world responding to President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs?

Atlantic Council experts tour the world to take stock of how US trading partners are reacting.

THREAD 🧵
atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atla…

Immediately below, the head of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center explains the scope of the new tariffs.

The United States breaks away from the global trading system it helped create

Ever since Trump’s first election, and especially during his first-term trade war of 2018, a thought has rippled across Washington and capitals across the world: What if the president of the United States doesn’t see the world solely in terms of allies and adversaries, but as countries that run trade deficits with the United States versus countries that run trade surpluses? Watching the president on Wednesday in the Rose Garden hold up a table featuring nearly every country in the world ranked by a calculation whose methodology is seemingly derived from trade imbalances proved that the theory may be, in fact, correct. Why would Japan be tariffed at 24 percent while Iran is at 10 percent? The reason is that these decisions are not based on systems of government, military alliances, or historical relationships. They are based on a new formula—in which trade is a driving principle behind Trump’s engagement with the world.

At this moment, finance and trade ministers are trying to prepare both counterarguments to the White House and retaliation packages if those arguments fail. In two weeks they will come to Washington during the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings and make their case. Some may be successful. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent essentially extended a hand to negotiate immediately after the Rose Garden ceremony and surely many will try (especially those among the sixty countries with tariffs higher than 10 percent). But many won’t succeed. In one week’s time the United States will likely have the highest tariff rates it has had in over a century.

The biggest question—and one that is causing such a negative market reaction—is China. The additional tariffs Trump announced on Wednesday, combined with previously announced tariffs on China, means that next week, the tariff rate on China will reach close to 60 percent, and even higher in some sectors. There was a level of tariff China could manage through currency maneuvers, but this goes above and beyond that. And because Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, were hit so hard as well, there is no alternative trading partner in the region in the near or medium term. From your Airpods to your Air Jordans, hundreds of products Americans use every day are set to get more expensive.

Perhaps it is because it has been a century since US tariffs have been so high that we in the United States have forgotten the painful costs of protectionism and are willing to risk breaking a flawed system whose problems have been raised by the United States for decades. But make no mistake about the significance of what happened this week: The United States said that the global trading system it helped create no longer works.

— @joshualipsky is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACGeoEcon Center and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

🇪🇺 EUROPE

Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs will have a dual shock for the European Union (EU)—an economic and a further political one. Economically, the sweeping, across-the-board imposition of a 20 percent “reciprocal” (even though economists agree about the inaccurate framing of this) tariff will impact around two trillion dollars’ worth of US-EU trade in goods and services, wiping out up to 0.3 percent of the eurozone’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecasts over the next two years, according to early estimates. Politically, the Trump tariffs add to a growing list of this administration’s policy actions that seem to challenge and undercut the credibility of and trust in the United States as the continent’s oldest ally—from claims on Greenland and challenges to European digital regulations to the questions raised by the temporary freeze of US intelligence and military support for Ukraine. What is more, Washington erecting its highest tariff wall since 1933 risks severely disrupting, if not devastating, the rules-based multilateral trade order that the EU has built its geoeconomic strategy on and modeled itself after in many ways. At the back of European decision makers’ heads will also be the anti-European comments revealed in the Signal-gate chat and the more fundamental question on whether the tariffs present not just a trade but an ideological challenge to the EU.

Unlike during Trump 1.0, this shock effect will be swiftly cast aside for Brussels’ firm response. Europe’s reaction will most likely be two-staged: first, the reinstatement of previously suspended tariffs on steel and aluminum and retaliatory tariffs on sector-specific, politically sensitive US exports. This could include bourbon, jeans, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, soybeans, and peanut butter, amounting up to twenty-eight billion dollars of US exports. Expect movement on these actions by mid-April. Second, by the end of April most likely, the European Commission will respond with another package that may target digital and financial services, an area in which the United States has a trade surplus. If the retaliation hits US tech firms, expect further entrenchment on both sides.

EU cohesion among twenty-seven different member states will be an important factor, as always. Combine the high level and broad scope of the US tariffs with the domestic political dynamics, and the European Commission can probably rely on relatively strong “unity,” balancing demands for more drastic and immediate responses to the “reciprocal tariffs” with more cautious member states’ positions. Notably, even Trump-friendly governments, such as in Rome, oppose the White House’s decision. Among trade policy circles, calls have also been growing to invoke Europe’s anti-coercion instrument, a new policy tool that could give the European Commission sweeping powers to impose regulatory, procurement, investment, and even intellectual property restrictions. However, it seems unlikely that the Commission will resort to this so-called “nuclear option,” and it is unclear whether it would pass a qualified majority of 55 percent of the EU’s twenty-seven member states representing 65 percent of the union’s population.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made clear that the EU will act “from a position of strength,” but it prefers to find a negotiated solution. At the same time, Europe’s strategy will be to diversify its trade and investment relationships around the world while doubling down on integrating and investing in the European Single Market.

Overlooked in the chaos, von der Leyen acknowledged Trump’s concerns about those exploiting the global trading system and nonmarket practices as well as the need to address overcapacities and tackle unfair subsidies and intellectual property theft. It seems like a long shot right now that the United States and the European Union could find an off-ramp from this massive US tariff escalation through joint action on nonmarket economies. But for von der Leyen and the EU, it’s worth a try.

— @JornFleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s @ACEurope Center.

— @J_A_Pastorelli is a program assistant at the Europe Center.

Brussels’ response to Trump’s announcement of a 20 percent blanket tariff on the EU—coupled with a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum and on autos—has been sharp and clear, but only rhetorical to date. Von der Leyen strongly criticized the imposition of tariffs and pledged that Europe would remain united. She offered negotiations but also made clear that the EU was preparing retaliation. French President Emmanuel Macron has called on EU businesses to stop investing in the United States. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, often portrayed as an ally of Trump, called the tariffs “wrong” and called for efforts to avoid a trade war. Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, said, “We see no justification for this.” Many other European leaders have also criticized the tariffs during this first twenty-four hours—although a few, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or Slovak President Robert Fico, have remained silent.

But the EU has not yet been specific about how it might retaliate, and there probably will not be much clarity for a week or two. As a first step, the EU is likely to lift the suspension of its earlier retaliatory tariffs on US steel and aluminum. (Legally, the suspension already expired on March 31.) The European Commission has already pledged to add to those retaliatory measures, since the Trump administration increased the duty on aluminum from 10 percent to 25 percent and expanded the scope of products covered. The EU will also consider how to respond to the 25 percent car tariff and the blanket 20 percent tariff on all EU exports to the United States.

The EU could potentially respond using its new anti-coercion instrument, which allows for a broader range of retaliatory measures, including restrictions on intellectual property and procurement. But whatever it chooses to do, the EU process requires consultations between the European Commission and EU member states, and also with stakeholders. Even though this decision will not require unanimity, but rather a qualified majority vote, it is likely to require a week or two for a consensus to develop among the member states on specific actions, and then another week or two to formalize the decision, before it can be implemented.

— @FranBurwell is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

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