When it comes to relations with Belarus, the Trump administration has been pursuing a dual approach of late.

In May 2026, President Donald Trump renewed the U.S. national emergency on Belarus, noting that the government of longtime Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko still posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. security and foreign policy.

The emergency, which in practice underpins the legal basis for targeted U.S. sanctions on the former Soviet republic, has been in force since June 2006, when President George W. Bush imposed it after a Belarusian election widely seen as undemocratic.

But just weeks before the latest renewal, the Trump administration eased U.S. sanctions on Belarus, including those affecting the country’s financial and fertilizer industries, in exchange for the release of 250 political prisoners.

This bargaining logic has history. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and has used political prisoners as bargaining assets with both Europe and the U.S. before, including in 2008 and 2015. The U.S. also tested engagement with the Moscow-aligned nation during Trump’s first term, when his then-secretary of state visited Belarus in February 2020 — the first such visit in 26 years.

But the mixed signals Washington is giving to Belarus stand in contrast to the United States’ allies in Europe.

Amid renewed concerns that Belarus could once again serve as a springboard for Russian attacks on Ukraine, the European Union has taken a harder line than the U.S. The bloc in April adopted a sanctions package aimed at Belarus and its ally Russian, with a strong focus on sanctions evasion, financial channels, trade restrictions and crypto. Not only does this differ from the two-track U.S. approach of sanctions and engagement, but it is also emblematic of the widening gulf of priorities between the U.S. and Europe under Trump.

As a scholar of Eastern Europe, I see the difference between U.S. and European views on Belarus as tactical in form and strategic in effect. Europe wants sanctions to constrain Belarus as part of the threat emanating from Russia. The Trump........

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