Assessing The Trump-Putin Summit

The Western Economist Who Didn't Underestimate Russia

In the spring of 2022, the United States and its European allies imposed some of the harshest sanctions ever on Russia. They cut Russia off from SWIFT and much of the global financial system, banned most trade with Russia, etc. President Biden joked that the ruble would turn into rubble, and many thought Russia's economy would be too crippled to continue its Ukraine invasion for long. 

One Western observer disagreed: Jacques Sapir, a French economist who specialized in Russia. In a now-archived post here at the time ("Economic War Against A Real Economy"), I shared Sapir's thoughts on why the West was underestimating the Russian economy. This weekend, Sapir shared his thoughts on Friday's Trump-Putin summit. In the event he is similarly prescient now, I have shared his comments below. 

Before we get to them, two brief programming notes. 

1. In case you missed it, Friday's post was about a novel way risk-averse investors could generate competitive returns.

1. For those of you who aren't as risk averse, we have trades teed up for Monday on two of our top ten names from Friday that tie in with our reindustrialization macro theme, feel free to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below.

Now on to Professor Sapir's comments on the summit. 

Authored by Jacques Sapir on X. 

The Russia-U.S. Summit 

II As D. Medvedev noted, a process of normalizing relations is underway between the #USA and #Russia without economic pressure. Exxon is potentially being readmitted to Sakhalin 1, and "secondary sanctions" have been lifted for the time being.

— Jacques Sapir (@russeurope) August 17, 2025

IV. Responsibility for the success or failure of peace is explicitly placed on the shoulders of #Zelensky and the EU countries, who are invited to "engage more" in the process. This is a resounding failure for #Macron, Merz, and Starmer, but also for the EU in general.

— Jacques Sapir (@russeurope) August 17, 2025

VI. Furthermore, #Russia is continuing its diplomatic offensive with its invitation to the APEC summit at the invitation of South Korea, and hence its penetration into Asia under the benevolent eye of both China and North Korea.

— Jacques Sapir (@russeurope) August 17, 2025

8. Western economic sanctions, largely ineffective, are now very fragile. It is unimaginable that the EU would maintain its sanctions in the face of a US withdrawal.

— Jacques Sapir (@russeurope) August 17, 2025

X. The icing on the cake is that #Trump is now facing the possibility of Cuba joining the BRICS, which represents a significant symbolic defeat for the neoconservative alliance.

— Jacques Sapir (@russeurope) August 17, 2025