How Trump’s G7 call for readmission could misfire for Russia

If the idea was to bring Putin back into the club, then Trump’s effort was an immediate failure. All it got him was a reminder from the other leaders about why Russia was kicked out in the first place: its aggression against Ukraine.

The impact: With his abrupt and imperious call to bring Putin back into the diplomatic fold, Trump has made European leaders who might be formulating their own overtures to Moscow look as though they’re taking orders from a deeply unpopular American president. Putin will now find it harder to patch things up with Europe, put the Ukraine issue behind him and get back into the club. Across Europe, pro-Putin populist parties find themselves associated with a tarnished brand.

Stephen Sestanovich is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and author of “Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama.”