This immediately gives Putin the advantage. Simply meeting with the U.S. president as an equal is a win for the head of a near-pariah nation with an economy smaller than the state of Michigan’s. He is ahead the moment he gets to shake Trump’s hand. And it helps him further that he knows Trump wants a deal, or at least the appearance of one.

The question, then, is what kind of deal will result, and how likely is it to be good for America?

It is hard to see that Trump would be satisfied with the anodyne lowest common denominator of a joint communiqué making requisite noises about collaboration against terrorism, deconfliction in Syria, and maybe even talks about talks on arms control. Putin, too, will no doubt push for more.

According to recent reports, Israel and other Middle Eastern allies of the United States are lobbying for Moscow to commit to pushing Iran out of Syria. Putting aside the unlikely prospect that Moscow would or even could agree to this, what on earth would be a suitable trade? For Ukraine and its friends in the West, the concern is that some kind of concession over the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move the U.S. has never recognized, would be Moscow’s price.

Of course, Putin's dream would be some kind a grand bargain, a Yalta 2.0 reminiscent of the deal at the end of World War II that carved up the globe between eastern and western spheres of influence. Something like this would give Russia a free hand in countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, and the kind of “respect” it feels it deserves and has been denied. It would be a bad deal, trading the sovereignty of those countries unlucky enough to fall within what the Kremlin openly regards its “zone of privileged interest” in the name of questionable and ultimately unenforceable guarantees for an end to meddling in Western politics and the Middle East.

Based on his periodic anti-Europe tweets and his repeated criticisms of so-called European NATO “freeloading” on the United States, it might seem as if Trump is willing to contemplate such a deal. It’s unlikely he cares much about the detail, rather being likely to be seduced by the vision of himself as a world-bestriding political colossus carving up the map in the name of a new global order.

However, this neglects to consider the third participant at the Helsinki talks: the U.S. administration. Trump may choose to meet Putin with only a Russian interpreter; he can appoint cronies and like-minded yes-men to key positions; he can even encourage talk of a struggle against a Beltway “deep state.” But what he cannot do is govern without those officials.

After all, even while Trump is praising Putin, his government has expelled alleged Russian spies, ratcheted up sanctions on Moscow, and sold high-tech missiles to help the Ukrainians defend themselves from further aggression. The president may be unquestioned master of his own Twitter account, but his own officials and a Congress uncomfortable with the Oval Office’s Putinophilia is both watchful and willing to intervene to prevent Trump from giving away too much.