This week Trump succeeded both in undermining the NATO alliance and British Premier Theresa May. Vladimir Putin must be pleased, although he may have expected more.
The first Secretary General of NATO from 1952 to 1957, Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay, said only partly tongue-in-cheek that NATO’s purpose was to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down." It was designed to keep the Soviets and then the Russians from annexing NATO members and prevent a third world war from starting in Europe. Annexation is a real threat, shown by the Russian conquest in 2014 of Crimea, a part of non-NATO Ukraine. The alliance, a mutual defense treaty begun in 1949 has worked well: No NATO member has been invaded and there have been no major wars in Europe in almost 70 years.
Despite the alliance’s success, during his campaign and just before taking office Trump claimed that NATO was obsolete. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which are NATO members, former Soviet vassal states and border mates with a Russia that would like to control them, see it differently. NATO has supported U.S. interests as well, sending troops to help the U.S. remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan after the 9-11 attacks; the Taliban had provided safe haven for the attackers.
Fearing Trump might withdraw the U.S. from NATO at the meeting this week, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution 97 to 2 affirming the U.S. commitment to the alliance. That may have stopped Trump from immediately pulling the U.S. from NATO. It did not stop him from causing great damage.
Among other things, Trump said that the U.S. might not come to the aid of NATO members who were not spending 2% of their gross domestic product annually on their militaries by January and were not spending 4% by 2024. The allies had earlier agreed to increase their military spending to 2% annually by 2024 and even the U.S., despite its recent large increase in military spending, spends only 3.5%. Hitting the 2% mark by January is not practicable for most NATO members. Of course, Trump’s demand was not intended to be realistic.
The day after, Trump stated that NATO was very important. The NATO partners remained shocked. U.S. military officials spent that day trying to reassure NATO allies that the U.S. would remain in NATO. That was difficult given Trump’s words. On the other hand, Russian state television was thrilled with Trump’s performance.
Trump then moved his international-damage machine to Britain. There he undermined Prime Minister Theresa May, head of the Conservative Party. In an interview, Trump charged she was wrong in trying to engineer a “soft” exit from the European Union. Her approach would allow British businesses to trade with EU companies without tariffs if they agreed to abide by EU trade regulations. Trump also said that if Britain did not have a complete break with the EU, a so-called “hard” break, then the U.S. would not enter into trade deals with Britain. Finally, Trump proclaimed that Boris Johnson, May’s chief rival and a hard-Brexit advocate, would make a fine prime minister.
May has been struggling to remain prime minister and Boris hopes to replace her. Vladimir Putin, who wants EU influence diminished, would love that. It is no accident that Trump’s interference in Britain’s politics mirrors the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Afterwards, Trump denied that he had made these comments, but the interview was recorded and confirmed his statements. Trump then apologized to May. It had the ring of a man apologizing after beating his wife.
Meanwhile, Trump is scheduled for a summit with Putin on Monday. When world leaders meet, generally many people are present and records are kept of what is said. Trump has arranged the meeting so there will be no note-takers or witnesses. There is no reason to do this unless Trump does not want the world to know what he is saying. While Trump will undoubtedly make statements about what happened at the meeting, he will almost certainly lie, just as he did with his denial of his interview regarding Theresa May.
On Friday, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had filed 11 indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers, most of them working for Russian military intelligence. The indictments provide great detail about Russian actions to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections. Rosenstein informed Trump earlier in the week about these indictments. Rather than condemn Russia, Trump’s response was that Mueller investigation was “a rigged witch hunt”. Republican Senator John McCain and Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin, but Trump rejected those calls.
As he has demonstrated, Trump can be counted on to support Putin’s goals regarding international relations even when they conflict with American interests. Trump certainly acts like a man controlled by Putin. We don’t know what Putin has on Trump. It may be money laundering for Russian oligarchs and mobsters, it may be videos of Trump consorting with Russian prostitutes, it may be Trump aides colluding with the Russians on their interference in the 2016 elections. It may be all of this and more.
Putin desperately wants the economic sanctions imposed on Russian because of it annexation of Crimea to end. Congress has refused. Putin also wants an end to NATO, giving him an opportunity to annex, control or intimidate other countries next to Russia. Trump has not delivered. His main goal at Helsinki may be to reassure Putin that he’s doing all he can for Putin – so Putin won’t release whatever he has on Trump.