Putin’s pet

President Trump is on his way to a meeting Monday with Russian President Putin. Along the way, he is doing precisely what Putin most wishes for.

First Trump trashed NATO. That’s the alliance Putin loves to hate. Trump not only criticized the allies for failing to meet the 2024 2% target for defense spending, he also fired a salvo at Germany for importing gas from Russia. Sitting next to him when he did that at breakfast were Secretary of State Pompeo, Ambassdor to NATO Hutchison, and Chief of Staff Kelly. All looked stunned, but Kelly did not bother hiding his discomfort. The White House spokesperson put him in his place by claiming he was disappointed in the breakfast offerings.

Then last night, in an interview that became public while he was at dinner with Prime Minister May in London, Trump compounded the felony. He not only blasted his host for not favoring “hard” Brexit and allowing immigrants to damage the “fabric” of British society, but also attacked the mayor of London for being soft on terrorism. The racist tone of these remarks is apparent to anyone who listens. The “special relationship” between the US and UK hasn’t known a lower moment in the past 100 years.

Then this morning we read that Trump is preparing to cut a “deal” on Syria in which Putin promises something he can’t deliver: withdrawal of the Iranians and their proxies from Syria’s border with Israel. In return, the US would withdraw from Syria, something Trump has promised publicly he would do, leaving the Kurds to cut a deal with Assad. This is an idea Netanyahu is pushing, along with relieving Russia from US and European sanctions.

The next shoe to drop will be Ukraine. Trump believes Crimea rightfully belongs to Russia, since people speak Russian there. Never mind that many people throughout Ukraine speak Russian, as well as Ukrainian. He may accept the Russian annexation, thereby putting a big smile on Putin’s face and completing an extraordinary week for the Russian president: NATO undermined, the UK/US relationship weakened, Syria won, and Crimea absorbed. What else could go right?

The pattern is clear: Trump is Putin’s pet president doing precisely what Moscow wants. The only real question is why.

I have favored the view that money is the main reason. Trump’s real estate empire, about which he cares more than anything else, is heavily dependent on Russian investment and purchases of condos. Putin could turn off the flow of rubles in an instant. No wealthy Russian would buck the president, who gets to decide which oligarchs prosper and which don’t. Trump’s finances wouldn’t survive a month without Moscow’s support.

But it is also possible that Trump himself was recruited long ago. He hired people for his campaign who were Russian intelligence assets. Special Counsel Mueller has already indicted some of them. Trump’s visit to Moscow in the late 1980s, when it was still the capital of the Soviet Union, has raised questions. The Republican attempt yesterday in Congress to discredit the former chief of FBI counter-intelligence operations, Peter Strzok, suggests how desperate they are to stymie an investigation that has already gotten to one degree of separation from Trump.

But the Congress is also beginning to react appropriately to Trump’s surrender of American interests to Putin. It has passed a strong resolution in support of NATO and against concessions to Putin on Ukraine. Republican discomfort with Trump’s “national security” tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union is starting to show. The trade war with China is causing a lot of heartburn in the Middle West and other areas of the country the Republicans need to keep on their side.

But Putin is still making Trump sit and beg. He is Putin’s pet.