This opinion was expressed by journalist Vitaliy Portnikov on Espreso TV."Right now, we can only talk about a one-year truce between the United States and China. After Trump’s visit to Asia, it became clear that he has no instruments of pressure on Xi Jinping. On the contrary, Xi Jinping has leverage over Trump. If China stops buying American soybeans, that would create serious problems for the Republican Party’s core electorate — the farmers who grow it. This could immediately affect the results of the 2026 congressional elections and, of course, the 2029 presidential election. Xi Jinping has clearly understood Trump’s weak spot and will strike there with pleasure," Portnikov explained.According to the journalist, Trump has two key political objectives for 2026 — to prevent a new escalation in the Middle East and to stop the fighting on the Russia-Ukraine front."On the other hand, when we talk about November 2026 and the congressional elections, there’s both a good and a bad aspect. First of all, Trump will try to do everything possible by then to bring the fighting on the Russia-Ukraine front to an end. Moreover, the midterms coincide with the Nobel Committee’s decision in October 2026 on the Peace Prize. Of course, Trump would very much like the Republicans to enter the elections with a president who’s also a Nobel laureate. So now Trump will aim to achieve two major political results: he already has a truce with China, and he needs to make sure war doesn’t flare up again in the Middle East and to stop hostilities in Ukraine. That means pressure on Putin to halt the fighting will only grow," Portnikov added.On October 23, the U.S. president announced he had canceled a planned summit and expressed hope that Russian leader Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would become more reasonable. Later, Trump said he was ready to meet with Putin if he was confident a deal to end the war in Ukraine could be reached.