Next month, after the midterm elections are safely behind him (for better or for worse… likely worse), Joe Biden will be traveling to Indonesia for the G-20 summit. What makes this trip unusual under the current, tense situation is that Vladimir Putin is supposed to be there as well. This superpower collision offers the possibility that the two leaders might sit down together for only the second time in Joe Biden’s presidency and see if some progress can be made regarding the quagmire in Ukraine and the looming threats of armageddon. As we’ve long been told, face-to-face meetings are the best way to resolve differences, right?

Except that’s not going to happen. Or at least it won’t if Joe Biden’s handlers in the White House have their way. As Politico reports today, officials in the Biden administration and on his staff are working overtime to build a schedule of events that will never bring the two leaders together. Not only will there not be any official side-bar meetings set up between Biden and Putin, but his team is laboring to ensure that the two don’t wind up together in the hallways or even during the official leaders’ photo opportunities. Why do you suppose that is?

President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are slated to attend next month’s G-20 summit in Indonesia, setting up the possibility of a high-stakes face off in the midst of an increasingly deadly Moscow invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. officials are taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Biden last week opened the door to meeting Putin at the summit for a chance to negotiate the freedom of American prisoners, including WNBA star Brittney Griner. But there are no discussions underway with the Kremlin to make a deal happen and that seems unlikely to change, according to multiple administration officials not authorized to publicly discuss private negotiations.

You might be wondering how the administration could pass up on this sort of opportunity. I mean, even if Biden has no chance of convincing Putin to withdraw from Ukraine (he has no such chance), he could at least negotiate to get Brittney Griner back home, right? That would at least be better than nothing.

But why would Biden’s staff take the chance? Talk about a bear trap with little discernable upside to it! Even if all Sleepy Joe wanted to do was ask about Griner’s release, what possible motivation would Putin have to do him any favors while we’re shipping massive loads of modern armaments into Ukraine to wipe out his troops? And let’s remember that Uncle Joe isn’t exactly batting a thousand when it comes to asking foreign leaders for favors. Remember what happened when he asked OPEC+ to not cut production or at least wait until after the election? Putin could symbolically just give Biden the back of his hand and embarrass him.

But that’s not even the worst-case scenario. That’s going to be a long, draining trip for Biden to make. What sort of shape will he be in when he gets there? The press would obviously want to attend any meeting between the two. (It would actually be the media highlight of the entire conference.) What if Biden got a couple of sentences into his pitch and then began mentally wandering off? What if he stood up and tried to shake the hand of the invisible man again? Putin would probably either look alarmed or simply laugh at him and it would be a diplomatic catastrophe unfolding in real-time around the world.

No, that doesn’t sound appealing at all. I rarely agree with Ron Klain’s decisions about how he’s running the country, but this seems like a fairly safe bet. Putting those two leaders face to face would likely only result in Putin making some demands or refusing to consider anything Biden manages to say and walking away. But the other side of this coin is the overall optics of the strategy. A decision to not send Biden would look awkward, but they could come up with an excuse. But if Biden is filmed spending the entire G-20 sneaking down hallways surrounded by escorts, shuffling away from the Russian leader during the group photo, and obviously doing everything he can to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with Vladimir Putin, how is that going to look? I’ll tell you. It’s going to look weak and defensive. Perhaps they should consider simply canceling this trip after all.