The issue isn’t just that the choice of venue hands Russian propaganda new ammunition to poison public opinion with slogans like “Crimea is ours, Alaska will be ours again!” It’s not about how Trump’s personal capitulation to Putin would be spun as a strategic Western retreat — “The enemy is defeated and fleeing!” or “Today Anchorage, tomorrow Fort Ross, the day after Washington!”In reality, through thoughtless actions that serve real—not imagined—U.S. interests, Trump is playing right into the hands of the Coalition of Evil led by China, with Putin acting as Xi Jinping’s subordinate.Following a likely meeting in Anchorage, Putin and Xi will triumphantly demonstrate at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1 that “changes are happening now that haven’t occurred in a hundred years. And we are advancing those changes together.” This is a quote from Xi at the end of his March 21, 2023, visit to Moscow. The military parade in Beijing on September 3 will clearly show who rules the world, and that the West, led by the U.S., has been pushed to the global sidelines — since China’s vassal is negotiating not on neutral ground, but on enemy territory. Especially considering Xi emerged victorious in the “tariff showdown,” not Trump.If anyone in Washington comforts themselves with the thought that revived Russian-American contacts will block America’s strategic enemy from accessing the Arctic via the Bering Strait, Beijing and Moscow see it differently. When Russia regains Alaska from the U.S., the Arctic route will belong to China. As Sun Tzu famously said, “War is the way of deception.”China excels in the art of cunning and deception, with strategic vision and patience — unlike Trump’s faction, which chases momentary media effects and craves a Nobel Prize for self-satisfaction.Putin’s “sweet deal” to Trump on jointly developing Arctic resources is a trap for the former, who fantasizes about a “Big Deal” with Russia bringing in billions of dollars. Not by chance, one of the largest rare earth deposits in the Sakha Republic — Tomtor — was recently handed not to Norilsk Nickel, but to Rosneft and Igor Sechin, who has prior experience partnering with American majors in the Arctic, though with no success. The trap must look appealing, with bait — and Trump is ready to swallow it.I won’t even mention here how “peace proposals for Ukraine” that disregard territory and borders brutally and finally shatter the UN Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE (whose 50th anniversary on August 1 went mostly unnoticed), and other fundamental documents that underpinned peace in Europe after World War II.SourceAbout the author. Mykhailo Honchar, expert on international energy and security relations.The editorial staff does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.