Trump welcomes Putin, abandons liberal democracy
Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (with a strong assist from J.D. Vance) was embarrassing and shocking in perhaps equal proportions. The convicted felon now occupying the White House got there with the approval of not even half of American voters (and only 64 percent of them) and with a little help from a “friend” of his and an enemy of democracy: Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump immediately set about surrendering U.S. leadership in the post-WWII order. He has in fact already dismantled it. As obsessed as Mr. America First is with winning, the real winner of the 2024 presidential elections was Putin, writes Franklin Foer in The Atlantic.
The Oval Office shouting match was a fist-pump moment for Putin signifying his “ultimate victory,” the moment when “the United States, became his most powerful ally.”
Except Foer’s conclusion is only true if one accepts (as the felon-who-would-be-king does) that Trump is the state. The other half of U.S. voters would strenuously disagree. But we do not control the levers of federal power nor speak for the United States in international fora. That is a problem we struggle to remedy. “Donald Trump does not speak for me” on a tee-shirt is little consolation to the people of war-torn Ukraine Trump has abandoned:
Because the Trump administration has cut off arms to Ukraine, it will exhaust caches of vital munitions in a few months, so it must hoard its stockpiles, limiting its capacity to fend off Russian offensives. Because the U.S. has stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv, the Ukrainian army will be without America’s ability to eavesdrop on Russia’s war plans. All of these decisions will further demoralize Ukraine’s depleted, weary military.
Just three years ago, as European and American publics draped themselves in Ukrainian flags, Putin’s Russia seemed consigned to international isolation and ignominy. For succor and solidarity, Putin was forced to turn to North Korea and Iran, an axis of geopolitical outcasts. But Trump is bent on reintegrating Putin into the family of nations. He wants Russia restored to the G7, and it’s only a matter of time before he eases up on sanctions that the Biden administration imposed on Russia. And Trump has done more than offer a place among the nations. By repeating Russia’s own self-serving, mendacious narrative about the origins of the Ukraine war, he lent American legitimacy and moral prestige to Putin.
Trump has surrendered America’s 80 years of world leadership in less time than he took to bankrupt his Atlantic City casinos. Trump has set out a welcome mat for the world’s kleptocrats, especially Russian ones long thought to launder money through Trump properties:
His Treasury Department announced that it would weaken enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act; his Justice Department disbanded a task force charged with targeting Russian oligarchs and relaxed the Foreign Agents Registration Act, such that Putin’s allies can hire lawyers and lobbyists without having to worry about the embarrassing disclosure of those relationships. The Trump administration has essentially announced that the American financial system is open for Russia’s kleptocratic business.
Trump has cut off support for Ukraine’s F-16s, including their radar jamming capabilities. France’s Mirage fighters are taking up that slack, reports Forbes.
The Guardian adds:
The US has rejected a Canadian proposal to establish a task force that would tackle Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, according to reports last night.
Canada, which has the current Group of Seven presidency, proposed the measure ahead of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Quebec later this week.
In negotiations to agree a joint statement on maritime issues, the US is pushing to strengthen language about China while watering down wording on Russia, the reports said.
The “shadow fleet” refers to ageing oil tankers, the identities of which are hidden to help circumvent western economic sanctions imposed on Moscow since it launched its full-scale military invasion of Ukraine at the start of 2022.
Trump’s affinity for Putin amounts to “autocrat envy,” Susan Miller, the former head of counterintelligence at the C.I.A., tells the New York Times:
“Trump likes Putin because Putin has control over his country,” she said. “And Trump wants control over his country.”
Why Are We Surprised by the Trump-Putin Alliance? reads a Foreign Policy headline. “Trump’s MAGA ideology aligns more closely with Putin’s vision of state, society, and global order than with Western liberal democracy.”
As Trump prepares for his summit with Putin, we should all be worried. Trump is well on his way to making the U.S. a pariah state.
(h/t DJ)
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