In June of 2023 I wrote an American Thinker essay titled “Trump Was Right About Russia.”  The essay is also on the Trump website.  The argument made then, in a nutshell, was that America and Russia can have a natural, productive relationship, one based on mutually beneficial business interests, and that President Trump had the instincts and insight to see this from the very beginning of his first presidency. He was way ahead of the Washington establishment. He still is, now more than ever.

He first framed this opportunity as a simple question that asked “why not?”  And indeed, that logic is even more powerful today, because now it also underlies the basis for avoiding a senseless war, and establishing a durable peace between the U.S. and Russia.  

That will be based on finding some common ground, and the best common ground is mutual interest.  The best mutual interests are tangible and real, and the most tangible and real are based on business.

Business has two beautiful, inherent aspects: it requires people to work together, and it measures that cooperation in visible, tangible, measurable dollars and cents, and results.  It can be measured in jobs and economic growth; in smart trade deals and partnering.  And it promises to keep those benefits coming, if both parties keep cooperating.  In that way, business is the best natural tool in foreign affairs.

Some might argue that war and weapons are also profitable.  They are.  But they don’t last, and the net result is always negative.  War has a negative rate of return; it’s a bad business investment. Yes, in terms of war profiteering, some will win, but the win is short-lived. War profiteering creates its financial returns through destruction and destabilization, and the bottom line is always a loss for both sides. It winds up wrecking business, which means it first wrecks society.

Trump knows that instinctively, because he is a businessman, and political “realpolitik” is largely about business.  There’s a lot of business deals at stake between the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Europe, and the Middle East, that should make peace a mutual priority for a long, long time.  Technology and science, and joint space flight operations, are among them, and there, the impact will be as revolutionary as air travel first was.

President Trump figured all this out years ago, and he is even more right today, because in gambling terms, the ante is raised, and there’s a call.  Trump and Putin both have an ace, and the ace is business.

Matthew G. Andersson is a former aviation CEO, and executive advisor in the Aerospace and Defense practice of Booz Allen Hamilton.  He worked in Russia and the Former Soviet Union and studied with White House national security advisor W.W. Rostow at the Johnson School of Public Affairs.  He has testified to the U.S. Senate on national airspace security, and is a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Image: Public domain.