Why is the White House lowering expectations for the Putin summit?

There is no point in having low expections for this upcoming Trump-Putin extravaganza. Why bother make the journey if all we are going to get is a Putin victory parade or a Putin nothing-doing show or a smiley-smiley handshakey get-together where the weather in Alaska takes up most of the conversation. The White House is dampening down any expectation of any sort of deal. But I think this is all part of the deliberate policy to warn us ordinary folk that this summit is just a way of meeting face-to-face with Putin but nothing else. This is probably nonsense. In the real world, you don't even have a summit unless the whole procedure has been orchestrated by officials. Behind the scenes, before the announcement of the Alaska meeting, an agreement will have been reached between Trump's people and Putin's people for a breakthrough of some sort. Otherwise, as I say, it's all pointless. So, Putin is going to come up with a compromise. It may be a tiny one but it will give Trump what he needs - progress or perceived progress towards an end to the war. Trump will also come up with a Big Idea, also already discussed between Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, and Putin, when they met in Moscow last week. Trump has said he will walk out if Putin says nothing to give hope of an end to the war. But Trump won't walk out because everything has been agreed. This is the way business has always been done when it comes to summits. Well, not always. Trump did walk out from his summit with Kim Jong-un in his first term in the White House. But that's because the North Korean leader had not played by the rules. What was agreed beforehand didn't materialise. More fool Kim Jong-un. Putin, I suspect, is far too wily to give Trump nothing.