--- title: Donald Trump: 5 Reasons the Russia Reset May Be Over description: Here are the top 5 reasons no one should expect a Russia-US rapprochement canonical: https://time.com/4709870/us-russia-rapprochment/ author: Ian Bremmer article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-24T16:35:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:30.774Z article:section: Politics og:title: These Five Facts Explain Why Trump's Russia Reset May Be Over og:description: You can’t always get what you want og:url: https://time.com/4709870/us-russia-rapprochment/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf1d9cd35fd3c683/6988bfca7cdbac7d3bd57995/donald-trump-putin-russia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4242 og:image:height: 2386 og:image:alt: President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House, January 28, 2017 in Washington, DC. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Five Facts Explain Why Trump's Russia Reset May Be Over twitter:description: You can’t always get what you want twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf1d9cd35fd3c683/6988bfca7cdbac7d3bd57995/donald-trump-putin-russia.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Five Facts Explain Why Trump's Russia Reset May Be Over > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=fe19ba6d-ea62-4528-baf7-19808a51a077&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: In His Words: Paul Manafort on Russian Ties [Watch (HLS stream): In His Words: Paul Manafort on Russian Ties](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/LdV4cOKm.m3u8) (1:22)  _Published 2017-03-22. Former Trump Campaign Aide Paul Manafort's mentions of his or the campaign's connections with Russia leading up to the election._  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Mar 24, 2017 4:35 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House, January 28, 2017 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House, January 28, 2017 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer—Getty Images  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Mar 24, 2017 4:35 PM UTC Russia wants better relations with the US; Donald Trump wants better relations with Russia, too. But as Trump’s campaign theme music continues to remind us, you can’t always get what you want. Here are the top 5 reasons no one should expect a Russia-US rapprochement. **1\. NATO** Getting NATO countries to pay more on defense has been one of Trump’s few consistent foreign policy proposals—and one of the least controversial, given that [just five of NATO’s 28 countries](http://www.nato.int/nato%5Fstatic%5Ffl2014/assets/pdf/pdf%5F2016%5F07/20160704%5F160704-pr2016-116.pdf) (US, Greece, the UK, Estonia and Poland) meet the 2-percent-of-GDP defense spending target. But here’s the thing—if you demand that other NATO members pay more money, and then those NATO countries agree, the alliance becomes stronger, not weaker. Russia doesn’t want a stronger NATO—as evidenced by Moscow sending a spy ship [30 miles off the US](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/politics/russian-ship-vessel-usa.html) eastern seaboard and Russian jets [buzzing an American warship](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/us/russia-us-ship-fly-by/) in the Black Sea, both in February. Provocative military actions don’t build good relations. **2\. Trump’s Cabinet** Defense establishment figures within the Trump administration also limit the potential for US-Russian security cooperation, the center of any potential warming of US-Russia relations, since there is already very little trade between the two countries. During his confirmation hearings, Defense Secretary James Mattis pointed to Russia and Vladimir Putin as one of the principal geopolitical threats facing the US today. Trump’s choice for CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, began his own confirmation hearings by decrying Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The resignation of pro-Russia National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month later ([at 24 days](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/14/flynn-sets-record-with-only-24-days-as-nsc-chief-the-average-tenure-is-about-2-6-years/?utm%5Fterm=.f840d7ea0e3f), the shortest tenure in history) only compounded the issue—his replacement, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, called Russia a “[hostile revisionist](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/politics/hr-mcmaster-national-security-adviser-statements/)” power during a talk he gave this past November at the Virginia Military Institute. And Trump’s interest in the Kremlin led the White House to appoint well-regarded Russia scholar and former intelligence officer Fiona Hill as White House Senior Director for Europe and Russia. Hill wrote a book on the Russian president titled “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” back in 2013. And as the White House lurches from one PR crisis to another, Trump is burning through the political capital he would need to override these widely-respected defense figures, making the prospect of US-Russia rapprochement that much more distant. **3\. Russian Domestic Politics** Aware of these issues, Russian official attitudes toward the White House are changing. Much was made of the early positive press Trump received from Russian TV stations, from which [80 percent](https://www.ft.com/content/0cd42702-f789-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65) of Russians get their news. For a moment, Trump seemed to be getting better press coverage than Putin—in January, [Trump was mentioned 202,000 times](http://www.newsweek.com/trump-putin-most-mentioned-russian-press-media-553661) in Russian mainstream media news coverage compared to Putin’s 147,7000\. It was the first time [in six years](http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/17/politics/russia-trump-relationship-analysis-chance/) that anybody surpassed Putin for that honor. But things began to sour in February on the heels of Flynn’s resignation, coupled with damage-control comments from the White House that [Trump expected](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-ukraine-idUSKBN15T2IY) “the Russian government to de-escalate violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea.” Flynn resigned on February 13th; between February 5th and February 19th, Trump mentions fell by [88 percent](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/silent-treatment) on those all-important Russian Sunday news shows. It wouldn’t be surprising [if the cutback in Trump](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/silent-treatment) coverage was ordered directly from the Kremlin, which can’t continue to praise Trump and raise public expectations for better relations if they aren’t actually going to improve. **4\. Oil** Donald Trump is a pro-oil president, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with Russia but impact its government just the same. Trump’s bid to eliminate Obama’s environmental rules and push for more production is close to the last thing that oil-export-dependent Russia needs right now. The Russian economy relied on oil and natural gas to fund [nearly 50 percent of its fiscal revenues](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/how-cheap-oil-is-squeezing-russia-s-economy) last year. Given that level of exposure, even small fluctuations in oil prices have big implications for the Russian economy—one that’s been reeling since 2013 and that’s lost more than [40 percent of its GDP](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=26&pr.y=18&sy=2010&ey=2021&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=922&s=NGDPD&grp=0&a=) as oil has tumbled from its [mid-2014 high of $115 per barrel](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-4) to [$50 today](https://www.bloomberg.com/energy). The world is already facing an oversupply of oil, and though market factors are driving production decisions for US oil companies, Trump’s oil-friendly environmental policies could boost production at the margins and help push prices lower. This is a good reminder that, though Trump and Putin may admire one another and want warmer relations, divergent national interests still matter. **5\. The Elephant in the Room** Questions about Russia’s role in the US election aren’t going away. FBI Director James Comey confirmed this week that the FBI is investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as possible cooperation between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign. The White House maintains that there’s no fire, only smoke generated by illegal leaks and a biased mainstream media. That’s certainly possible—but it’s worth remembering that most fire deaths aren’t caused by burns, but by smoke inhalation. \*\*\* The good news for Trump? Better relations with Putin would probably drag his already [historically-low approval ratings](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the%5Fslatest/2017/03/19/donald%5Ftrump%5Fs%5Fapproval%5Frating%5Fhits%5Fnew%5Frecord%5Flow%5Faccording%5Fto%5Fgallup.html) down even further. You can’t always get what you want—but sometimes you get what you need. For Trump in this case, whether he knows it or not, that’s greater distance from Russia and Putin. ## Transcript Agreement that I negotiated for Ukraine. And there's no basis to it. I'm always careful of the clients I take. Now you got Trump who's saying nice things about Putin, and he brings in a guy who was helping someone who is connected to Russian bad guys? We can sit down and talk foreign policy if you want any time cuz it's a very complex thing. But at the end of the day, the agreement that the current president, who I also helped get in power, signed was an agreement that I negotiated for Ukraine with the European Union. And that's the reason that there was a document for Poroshenko to sign. The work that I was doing in Ukraine was to help Ukraine get into Europe, and we succeeded. But I'm not working for any clients right now other than Mr. Trump. And are you going to make a promise in the future that if he's president, you'll be careful what clients you take? I'm always careful what clients I take. Are there any ties between Mr. Trump, you or your campaign, and Putin and his regime? No there are not. It's absurd, and there's no basis to it. We have no relationship. This is an absurd attempt by the Clinton campaign to try to get the focus off of what the real issue is. The real issue isn't even the Democratic National Committee server being hacked. The real issue is her server. The Republican Party's views when it comes to Ukraine. How much influence did you have on changing that language sir? I had none. In fact, I didn't even hear of it until after our conversation was over. 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