Russia’s purported hacking of U.S. government systems and President Trump’s unwillingness to prod Moscow for the breach have sparked one final downpour of indignation about, and flimsy analysis on, Trump’s Russia policy.
If you didn’t know any better, you would think Trump was the first-ever Russian intelligence asset to rise to the presidency. Jim Sciutto, CNN’s chief national security correspondent, tweeted recently that “the most consistent feature of Trump’s foreign policy is deference to Putin and Russia.”
Similarly, Richard Haass, the dignified head of the Council on Foreign Relations, slammed Trump’s Russia maneuverings as a four-year display of fecklessness to Vladimir Putin himself. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who never misses a chance to take a shot at Trump, went on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday and said, “I think we’ve come to recognize that the president has a blind spot when it comes to Russia.”
Are these fair characterizations of Trump’s treatment of Russia, or are they merely fluff? The truth is somewhere in between.
While 90% of Trump’s remarks on Russia are embarrassing and, at times, perplexing, the Trump administration’s Russia policy over the last four years has actually been quite hawkish and conventional.
If Trump were really in cahoots with the Kremlin, he wouldn’t be forcefully pressuring Washington’s allies in Europe to ditch Russian natural gas as one of their chief fuel sources. Nor would senior Trump administration officials threaten to throw out any company, Russian, European, or otherwise, from the U.S. financial system if it decided to become involved with the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline project.
It’s inconceivable that a Russia dove, as Trump is commonly portrayed, would have agreed to close the Russian Consulate in Seattle and kick out a few dozen Russian personnel from the United States as retaliation for Moscow’s poisoning of a double agent in Britain. It’s inconceivable that he would have shuttered Russia’s Consulate in San Francisco and its annexes in New York and Washington, D.C., in response to Moscow placing quotas on U.S. diplomatic personnel on Russian soil. Trump would have almost certainly not given the green light to export anti-tank missiles to Ukraine not once, but twice, especially considering the fact that Kyiv is still fighting a conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country.
If Trump were so weak-kneed on Russia, would his administration have bothered to sanction Russian entities for exporting crude oil to Syria, helping Venezuela market its own crude on the global market, or launch a complaint against Moscow at the United Nations for allowing North Koreans to work inside Russian borders? Would Trump have approved the decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty or the Open Skies Treaty? Would he have flirted with taking the U.S. out of New START, the one bilateral accord that caps U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons? I fail to see the logic of Trump-as-dove.
This is not a defense of Trump per se, nor is it a defense of his policy toward Russia. There is a legitimate argument that the sanctions and pressure track against Moscow have had little, if any, impact on the way Russia conducts its foreign policy. U.S.-Russia relations are worse off now than when Trump came into office. But like most things involving Trump and Russia, the media is so focused on Trump’s words that it practically ignores the Trump administration’s own actions.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
