Donald Trump, the President of the United States is advancing Russia’s interests.
That is a pretty incredible statement, but one cannot deny that the Trump administration, since the beginning has shown a consistent pattern of behavior towards Russia. One that sometimes puts him at odds with traditional US allies as most of his foreign policy decisions have benefited Putin, one way or another.
Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 elections to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Now, it appears that Putin is receiving his payment from investing in Donald Trump’s White House bid.
Destroying the transatlantic alliance
Under four years of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin have made major steps towards weakening and dividing the transatlantic alliance–one of Putin’s top strategic goals. In 2018, Trump reportedly tried numerous times to withdraw the United States from NATO because “he did not see the point of the military alliance,” which has been the backbone of the western world’s security for the past 70 years.
Trump openly attacks US allies, specifically Germany on trade and other issues related to immigration and crime. He publicly supported the Brexit campaign and disparaged the EU claiming “the European Union, of course, was set up to take advantage of the United States.” Not only that, he actually tried to convince France to leave the European Union dangling the possibility of a better bilateral trade deal with the US as an incentive.
Trump is also leading the call for Russia to rejoin the G-7 without concessions after they were kicked out for illegally annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. He has also called Crimea a part of Russia, telling leaders at the 2018 G-7 summit in Canada: “Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian.”
Foreign policy expert Max Boot wrote: “The transatlantic rift is a gift to Russia that amply repays Vladimir Putin’s investment in helping the Trump campaign.”
Trump also surrended the Middle East to Putin, by deciding to withdraw US troops from Syria. This left room for Russia to exert further influence in the region.
Withdrawing US troops from Germany
On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s administration went ahead with their plan to withdraw 12,000 troops from Germany. A task that is not only time consuming and costly, but serves to benefit Vladimir Putin.
According to CNN:
The plan to move troops from the longtime NATO ally has been met with broad bipartisan opposition amid concerns it will weaken the US military’s position vis a vis Russia, however the Trump administration has decided to proceed with the move.”
And this was not the only gift Donald Trump gave Russia today.
Earlier on Wednesday, Axios’ Jonathan Swan released an interview with Donald Trump where he was pressed for the first time, on his decision to ignore Russian bounty intel. Asked if he discussed Russia’s plan to put bounties on the head of US troops in Afghanistan on his July 23 phone call with the Russian president, Trump said he didn’t and dismissed the intel as “fake news'”
But wait, things got worse.
Asked about the comments made by a top US commander that Russia was arming the Taliban who fought US troops, Trump replied: “Well, we supplied weapons when they were fighting Russia, too.”
Here is the President of the United States defending and validating Russia’s malign activities by equating it with American behavior. Yeah, Russia supplied the Taliban with weapons to kill Americans, but it’s all good since we did the same thing.
This is not the first time Trump did this. Back in 2017, Bill O’Reilly called Putin a “killer” Trump’s response was: “There is a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?” He also echoed Putin’s accusation against the United States, asserting that America “does plenty of killing also.”
Trump’s repeated praises and defense of Putin’s actions legitimizes his regime on the world stage. Trump is lending the credibility of the presidency of the United States to aid Russia’s comeback.
Trump the businessman
But why is he doing this?
It all goes back to Donald Trump as a private citizen and businessman. Most of their business comes from Russia. Eric Trump told us this in 2017:
“Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need from Russia.”
Being the transactional person that he is, Trump’s friendly relationship with Russia may have less to do with what’s good for America and more to do with what’s good for Donald Trump. He has been trying for decades to expand his business into Russia and have failed so far.
Trump is in this for himself and is probably hoping that he can finesse a deal to expand his real estate business after his stint as president is over. Yes, it is quite possible that Donald Trump is damaging America’s relationship with its allies and legitimatizing Vladimir Putin’s regime for the chance to build a high rise.
Donald Trump is advancing Russia’s interests.
Further reading:
The Moscow Project: PUTIN’S PAYOUT: 12 WAYS TRUMP HAS SUPPORTED PUTIN’S FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA.
