Donald Trump’s sinister affinity for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has long been the subject of intense speculation. Former KGB officers claim Trump was recruited in Moscow in 1987 and cultivated as an asset in the years prior to his 2016 US election victory.
Two retired Russian spies weighed in again last month, alleging that the then 40-year-old Trump, codename “Krasnov”, was personally compromised in an “active measures” operation and has secretly danced to Putin’s tune ever since.
Nothing is proved and all is denied. Yet the so-called Steele dossier, compiled by a British MI6 ex-spy chief, the FBI’s Mueller report, and US intelligence agencies all agree there were “multiple, systematic” Russian efforts to swing the 2016 vote to Trump. Candidate Trump praised Putin at the time as a “strong leader” while claiming never to have met him. Previously, he said he had.
He’s less coy now. Their phone call on 12 February lasted 90 minutes – and changed the world.
What did Putin say? It must have been persuasive. Since then, Trump has been falling over himself to please and appease the Kremlin’s dictator. He has suspended US military aid and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, pilloried and plotted to oust its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and demanded a “peace deal” on Russia’s unjust terms. Meanwhile, the wider ramifications of Trump’s sellout carry huge negative implications for Europe and western interests in China, the Middle East and Africa.
If Trump is not Russia’s stooge, what explains his epic volte-face? Apologists offer several excuses. One is that Ukraine is not America’s problem. Nonsense. Unprovoked armed aggression against a sovereign democratic state is every free nation’s problem. Another is that the US should not have to fight Europe’s wars. Answer: it doesn’t. It fights its own wars on other people’s territory, out of self-interest. It always has.
Supporters say Trump is a master dealmaker and peacemaker. Phooey! He has already offered crucial Ukraine giveaways to Putin, for zero return. Remember his North Korea and Afghanistan fiascos? And look at Gaza. How’s that going, Comrade Krasnov? Fans claim he’s performing a clever “reverse Nixon” by disrupting Russia-China ties, like that other disgraceful US president in 1972. Except, only days ago, Putin and President Xi Jinping reaffirmed the “unique strategic value” of their alliance.
Lucrative joint economic projects provide another key to understanding Trump’s broader surrender strategy. Marco Rubio, US secretary of state turned cheap hustler, gushes embarrassingly about “extraordinary opportunities”. Putin is dangling deals on rare earth metals, energy and aluminium. Joint Arctic exploitation is mooted. Meanwhile, Trump helpfully imposes costly tariffs on Russia’s foes.
Whatever Trump’s reasons, the shocking truth is that Putin owns him now, even if he didn’t own him before. The US has switched sides. Trump boasts, self-incriminatingly, that he alone has inside information about Kremlin intentions. This dumb patsy likes the strongman vibe. He’d like to be a dictator, too. He admires how Putin terminates opponents “with extreme prejudice”, as in Apocalypse Now. Except in this twisted White House remake, JD Vance is mad, bad Colonel Kurtz.
Trump betrayed his warm feelings for Putin during his Oval Office put-up row with Zelenskyy. Asked why Putin would keep his word in any peace deal when he never has before, Trump exploded: “They respect me! Let me tell you. Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phoney witch-hunt…” Trump was referring to the past investigations into Russian collusion. Plainly, he sees Putin, an indicted war criminal and mass murderer, not merely as role model but as personal friend and fellow victim of political persecution.
after newsletter promotion
Much flows from this, none of it good for Britain and Nato. Ukraine’s capitulation is now a shared US-Russia war aim. Trump is trying to bully Zelenskyy and stampede Europe into a deal without credible security guarantees. He is planning to ease or lift sanctions, not strengthen them, as he occasionally suggests. He has already halted US cooperation with Europe on countering Russian “shadow war” cyber operations.
Continued American backing for Nato is rightly questioned by German and French leaders. The alliance may not survive this crisis. Would-be bridge-builder Keir Starmer lacks a pontoon to stand on. Poland and the Baltic states understandably fear they may be next. The US nuclear umbrella is in doubt, too, which has led Emmanuel Macron to revive his idea of a pooled Anglo-French deterrent.
Russia is intensifying the war to exploit Trump’s surrender, gain ground and further squeeze Kyiv. Europe is Moscow’s new bogeyman. Putin now says the US is more like a partner, run by people with a “pragmatic, realistic worldview” who are discarding “stereotypes, so-called ‘rules’ and the messianic, ideological cliches of their predecessors”.
There goes the laws-based international order, right there. Trump may not win a Nobel peace prize but he has certainly earned the Order of Lenin.
If it lasts, and that’s a big “if” given fickle Trump’s record, this US-Russia reset may remake the geopolitics of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Iran stands to gain, unless, as Tehran fears, Putin sells it out to Israel. North Korea is a likely winner, too. Putin may win a freer hand in Syria, the Sahel and central Asia. Facing an emboldened Beijing, Trump may give Taiwan the Kyiv bum’s rush.
The most threatening prospect, for western democracies, is the idea, discussed by Rubio, of an emerging troika of authoritarian superstates – the US, Russia and China – dominating and dictating a new world order.
As Judas Trump blunders about, betraying friends, rewarding enemies and smashing the global crockery, one cold-eyed certainty remains: in their dysfunctional, deeply dubious relationship, Putin is the dominant partner. Trump is Putin’s bitch.
Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs Commentator
-
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
