With news that it was with a Russian-made rocket that Iran shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner, the question arises again: Has President Trump’s repeated obsequiousness towards Vladimir Putin achieved even a single reciprocal action helpful to the United States or to international stability?
I certainly can’t think of one.
Yet, wasn’t Trump’s supposedly great talent that he would “make better deals” by jettisoning old approaches? Wasn’t his amazing, five-dimensional chess grandmastership supposed to put “America first,” even if it meant temporarily buttering up foreign bad guys to charm them into being less hostile to our interests?
After 18 months of Trump sending verbal kisses to Putin during Trump’s campaign for office, and three years of carrying Putin’s water in international diplomacy, what advantage has accrued to the U.S.?
Sure, Trump’s backers claim the president actually has been tougher on Russian than Barack Obama was, but that claim is both overstated and beside the point.
It’s overstated because the “get tough” action they usually claim most prominently, the provision of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine to help deter Russian aggression, came with extremely restrictive conditions. The missiles must be stored well to the west of the Russian front and may not be used without securing further permission.
Trump’s actions, and attempted actions reversed only after massive internal lobbying from his own appointees, have been far more helpful to Putin than his minor “get-tough” actions have been harmful. He destabilized NATO by repeatedly questioning its key mutual-defense rule. He opposed and delayed legally mandated sanctions on Russia after Russia poisoned an ex-spy and killed an innocent bystander in Great Britain. He lobbied for Russia to be readmitted into what is now the G-7 organization of developed economies. He put assistance to Ukraine on hold while pursuing a Russia-pushed conspiracy theory. And he basically did Putin’s bidding by ordering a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Syria, leaving American military bases and equipment in Russian hands.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to be a huge supporter of Iran, the world’s worst terrorism-exporting state. For years, Putin has opposed every significant effort to rein in Iran, while selling it the dangerous missiles it used to shoot down (apparently mistakenly) the Ukrainian airplane.
For all the times Trump has tried to ingratiate himself with Putin and his ministers, Putin has done nothing good for the U.S. in return — not even by offering verbal support. For example, when Iranian-backed militias attacked the American embassy in Iraq, Putin said not a word to deter his Iranian allies.
That’s why the debate on whether Trump or Obama was truly tougher on (or less weak against) Russia is beside the point. What matters is that none of Trump’s moves in Moscow’s favor have borne fruit for U.S. interests or the interests of world peace, much less freedom or human rights. In short, Trump’s strategy of puckering up to Putin has been an abject failure.
Trump has achieved no “best deals” from Russia. Instead, we’ve gotten a raw deal. Raw and rotten.
