High stakes and history await Trump and Putin

When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki on Monday, will they betray the most famous summit associated with the Finnish capital — the 1975 meeting among the Western and Soviet-bloc leaders that gave us the Helsinki Accords? That question is not likely to preoccupy either leader, but their approach to the summit could be as significant as the Helsinki Accords were in shaping Europe’s future.

The Helsinki Final Act — the formal name of the accords — was an agreement signed by 35 nations, including the nations of Europe, the Soviet Union, Canada and the United States. Their most notable provisions effectively affirmed the 1945 Yalta conference among Franklin Roosevelt, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill that accepted the post-World War Two division of Europe, with the Soviet Union dominant in Eastern Europe. Because of that affirmation, the Kremlin was widely seen to have gotten the better of the Helsinki deal, and published the entire text in Pravda, the official Communist Party newspaper.

However, the Helsinki Accords also committed the signatories to respect “human rights and fundamental freedoms” — a major step for the Soviet bloc. A section of the accords confirming “the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights” spawned a series of Helsinki monitoring groups in Moscow, Warsaw and Prague. Their members were all promptly imprisoned; Helsinki Watch, the precursor to Human Rights Watch, was formed in an effort to defend these embattled activists. But this recognition that sovereign nations had a duty to respect the rights of their people gradually gave rise to a movement that contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc, the very empire that the Helsinki Accords ostensibly recognised.

During negotiations of the Helsinki Accords, the importance of including human rights was advanced by many Western governments including the US. The political records of the current occupants of the White House and the Kremlin suggest they are unlikely to place similar emphasis on those rights in Helsinki.

Mr Putin, not unlike his Soviet predecessors, is once again interested in dividing Europe, though in a different way. He favours a Europe paralysed by the rise of xenophobic populist leaders, a Europe with less moral authority to comment on his own autocratic methods of retaining power. And he seeks a distracted Europe that will not challenge — let alone sanction — him for sponsoring rights abuses in Eastern Ukraine, underwriting mass atrocities in Syria, or obstructing investigation of the use of chemical weapons.

Sadly, Mr Trump seems to share Mr Putin’s interest in a divided Europe, as the US president openly cheers far-right challengers to leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who stands up to Russia’s transgressions, while threatening to undermine transatlantic institutions such as Nato and the G-7. Indeed, Mr Trump seems to admire — if not envy — autocrats like Mr Putin for their ability to override democratic checks and balances on their authority such as an independent judiciary, a critical press, and a vigorous civil society.

The risk is thus considerable that the Helsinki summit could effectively bury the lofty principles behind the Helsinki Accords. To Mr Trump, the accord that Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev signed in Helsinki might seem one of those “bad deals” not worth respecting. As during his summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un, Mr Trump may calculate that he can use his meeting with Mr Putin to reduce tensions, declare victory, and head on to the next media frenzy before most people realise it was a giveaway, that it did nothing to address Russia’s disturbing conduct.

The only real hope for this Helsinki summit is that Mr Trump also probably fears the perception that Mr Putin can play him, that far from being a master dealmaker, the US president who governs from the gut and doesn’t sweat the details will be seen as having been snookered. Because whatever spin Mr Trump places on his mano-amano with Mr Putin, he will be perceived as having been taken to the cleaners if Mr Putin emerges from the summit with an effective green light to continue suppressing dissent at home and backing atrocities in Ukraine and Syria.

Mr Trump may not bother with history, but the history of the Helsinki Accords is our best antidote to a sellout in Helsinki today. Mr Trump may have little patience for the values and principles of human rights and democracy that that agreement affirmed, but we have a responsibility to remind him what’s at stake before he and Mr Putin embrace their shredding.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch.