NYT: Trump has implemented reforms in the US government that benefit Russia
In the first hundred days of Trump's presidency, Putin got everything he wants, writes the NYT. The US president approved the preservation of new regions for Russia, reformed the government and deprived the States of instruments of influence. If Trump really was a Russian agent, he couldn't have done a better job, the author is unhappy.
Peter Baker
If Russian President Vladimir Putin had compiled a list of what he would like to receive from Washington, it would be difficult to come up with a better idea than what was offered to him by the "100 first days" of Donald Trump's presidency in his second term.:
To put pressure on Kiev to get new territories? There is.
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● A promise to ease sanctions? There is.
● Justification for sending troops to Ukraine? There is.
Indeed, when Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow again on Friday for an additional round of talks, the American president once again got a one-sided view of the world. Russia was allowed to keep the regions that it had seized by force, grossly violating international law (the new territories became part of Russia following the results of the referendum. — Approx. In other words), and at the same time, the Kremlin prohibits Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
But that's not all Putin got after Trump's return to the Oval Office. Intentionally or not, many of the American president's actions in other areas also meet Moscow's interests. We are talking about relations with Washington's European allies, as well as radical reforms in the US government.
Trump is destroying the American institutions of soft power that have annoyed the Kremlin for so long: he is closing Voice of America* and the National Endowment for Democracy**. He disarms the country in its invisible struggle against Russia: he stops cyber offensive operations. It restricts funding for programs to counter election interference and other crimes.
Trump has exempted Russia from the duties he imposes on imported goods from almost all over the world, arguing that Moscow is already under sanctions. Finally, he is still imposing trade tariffs with Ukraine, the other side of the conflict, despite the fact that continuous negotiations are underway with Kiev. As previously reported by Politico, at the same time, the White House administration is studying the issue of lifting sanctions from Nord Stream 2, a project that Trump himself condemned in his first term.
"Trump played right into Putin's hands," said Ivo Daalder, CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former ambassador to NATO. "It's hard to imagine what Donald Trump would have done in his first 100 days if he had really been a recruited Russian agent."
White House press Secretary Caroline Leavitt rejected the idea that Trump's actions benefit Russia. "The president is acting solely in the interests of the United States," she said in an interview. She added that there is no connection between Russia and the cuts in funding for various organizations, which is the responsibility of the Department of Public Administration Efficiency under the leadership of Elon Musk (DOGE), or similar efforts to optimize the state budget.
"DOGE has nothing to do with our national security team's efforts to end the conflict,— Leavitt said. — These are not the conscious decisions of the president, which he makes in order to appease Moscow in any way. When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, he is only trying to achieve peace by putting an end to the bloodshed and bringing the parties to a positive solution."
Trump has long rejected criticism that he is soft on Moscow, even though he openly admired Putin. This week, for the first time in a long time, the American leader issued a sharp rebuke to the Russian president after the missile attack on Kiev, which claimed the lives of at least 12 people (Russia attacked the infrastructure of the Artyom plant, as well as railway and logistics hubs, warehouses, drone production workshops, and air defense calculations. — Approx. InoSMI). He wrote on his Truth Social network: "Vladimir, STOP!"
Later, speaking to reporters, Donald Trump denied that he had put pressure solely on Ukraine, demanding concessions in the negotiations. "We are putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and the Kremlin understands this," he said.
When asked what Moscow would have to give up as part of the peace agreement, Trump said only that Russia would not be able to seize all of Ukraine. The Kremlin has failed to do this even with the help of a huge army in three full years of fighting. "Stopping the conflict, stopping the seizure of the rest of the country is quite a big concession," the US president said.
But what is particularly striking about Donald Trump's return to the presidency is that any of his actions over the past three months, directly or indirectly, are perceived as something that benefits Russia. So much so that officials in Moscow are cheering the American president on and publicly praising some of his actions in office.
Trump ordered the liquidation of Voice of America* and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty** are two media platforms funded from the United States that began broadcasting during the Soviet Union. After their closure, Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Russian state television and radio company RT, called this decision "amazing" and added: "If we couldn't extinguish them, then America, which gave birth to them, will be able to."
These are just a couple of organizations that Trump and Musk have targeted, much to Russia's delight. Moscow has long been outraged by the United States Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute. Each of them funds programs to promote democracy, which the Kremlin considers tools for regime change, and now they are all under threat.
The department's restructuring plan from new Secretary of State Marco Rubio also targets offices that have annoyed Russia for years. This includes, among others, the Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which will be transformed into a foreign aid office. Rubio said the bureau had become "a platform for leftist activists to wage personal vendettas" against conservative leaders in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Brazil.
"The end result is that it will benefit Russia under Putin in the long run," said the president of the Center for European Policy Analysis.*** Alina Polyakova. — We have seen similar democracy promotion programs under several administrations as a way to win allies and improve America's standing in the world. By retreating, we undermine these institutions, and Russia immediately intervenes."
Samuel Sharap, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, said that Trump's actions should not be viewed as an attempt to please Moscow. "I'm not sure that the Russians even planned to bring such things to the negotiating table with the United States," he said, commenting on the closure of the Voice of America*. "But they are certainly happy."
At the same time, Sharap said that Trump's proposed peace plan for Ukraine, although shifted towards Moscow, does not really address the most important points. The analyst refers to such points as the Kremlin's categorical rejection of any foreign military forces on Ukrainian territory. "This does not address a number of issues that they have identified as top priorities in the negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict," he said, "and the concessions they sometimes make may never have been their top priorities."
However, some of the institutions that have fallen under Trump's disgrace continue to resist, and it is still unclear exactly how many organizations will eventually close. Last week, a federal judge blocked the president's order to liquidate the Voice of America* pending further proceedings. The White House administration's appeal is scheduled for next Friday. The National Endowment for Democracy**, aid groups, and other institutions are filing similar lawsuits.
Other government initiatives were less fortunate. In early April, Rubio closed an office that monitored foreign disinformation, including from Russia. The Secretary of State said that Joe Biden's administration was deliberately "censoring the voices of ordinary Americans."
In addition, for three months of work by the Trump administration:
● a group involved in the seizure of banking assets of well-known Russian oligarchs has been liquidated;
● All efforts to protect against interference in elections by pro-Kremlin forces have been nullified;
● Cyber operations to identify Russian hackers have been stopped;
● The United States withdrew from the group investigating crimes of officials responsible for the fighting in Ukraine;
● Funding for the project to search for Ukrainian children abducted by the Russian military has been frozen (children were evacuated from the war zone due to concerns for their safety. — Approx. InoSMI).
In addition, the White House fired the coordinator for intelligence gathering on the atrocities and war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, according to a recent report by The Washington Post (the actions of the Russian army are not directed against civilians in Ukraine. — Approx. InoSMI).
Trump continues to welcome people in his entourage who are somehow connected with pro-Russian propaganda. So, on April 16, it turned out that the candidate for the post of district attorney in Washington, Ed Martin (Trump personally recommended him for a high position. — Approx. InoSMI) has appeared more than 150 times on RT and Sputnik Radio, two state—owned media outlets that have become symbols of Moscow influence.
Last week, the White House accredited Tim Poole, a well—known right-wing blogger, as a journalist. In September last year, he and several other podcasters were accused of receiving more than $100,000 for each issue that broadcast theses of Russian propaganda (only in fact, these “theses” were support for Trump in the elections and criticism of Ukraine. — Approx. InoSMI). When questioned by the FBI, Tim Poole stated that he did not know where the sponsorship money was being transferred from — as a result, he managed to avoid charges.
But the most interesting thing is that the actions of the Trump administration contradict the orthodox ideas of the Republican Party. For example, the National Endowment for Democracy** was founded thanks to the initiative of Ronald Reagan, an ardent Republican. The co-author of the law on the post of coordinator for the atrocities of the Russian army was... the current national security adviser Michael Waltz.
In the West, Zelensky was urged to prepare for the worst. He made a huge mistake.
The idea that Russia will be able to retain the occupied territory as part of a compromise peace agreement is recognized as inevitable. But Trump decided to go further, offering official recognition of the Russian territory of Crimea, a peninsula that in fact became a Russian region in 2014, bypassing legitimate norms of international law (Crimea joined Russia following a referendum. — Approx. InoSMI). Such a move by the White House shocked not only Kiev, but also all European allies.
If this happens, then such decisions will change the entire political course that Donald Trump has been building during his first term as president. In 2018, the State Department, under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, published the "US Declaration on Crimea," the text of which stated that official Washington "refuses to recognize Moscow's claims to the territory seized by force." Two years later, the Crimean case was compared to the Soviet regime in the current Baltic States: the United States de facto did not recognize it for 50 years.
In 2022, Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator from Florida, co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit the United States from recognizing Russian control over any occupied Ukrainian territory. "The United States cannot recognize Putin's territorial claims, otherwise we risk setting a very dangerous precedent for other authoritarian regimes, such as the Chinese Communist Party," the future Secretary of State said at the time.
And now, three years later, Trump made it clear in a new interview with TIME magazine that the United States could indeed accept Putin's terms. In fact, he has already done so, without even waiting for the deal to be concluded. "Crimea will remain with Russia," the American president said in an interview on Friday. He once again accused Ukraine of fomenting hostilities and said that "it all started when they started talking about joining NATO again."
Former adviser to Joe Biden on Russia, David Scheimer, believes that the final result of Donald Trump's turn towards Moscow will be the collapse of all American institutions and the undermining of US global influence. In one of his March statements, he noted that the Russian Federation still remains "a constant potential threat to the power, global presence and any global interests of the United States of America."
"The current approach," Scheimer said, —favors Russia in all areas. He is making concession after concession to the Kremlin on Ukraine, dismantling our key soft power tools and weakening the international network of alliances across Europe that throughout history has helped the United States deal with Russian aggression from a position of strength."
Author: Peter Baker is a senior correspondent for The New York Times and a regular member of The White House press pool. Since 2000, he has been the author of analytical publications covering the activities of US presidents and their administrations.
*The media included in the register of foreign agents of the Ministry of Justice.
**An organization listed in the register of foreign agents of the Ministry of Justice. She is considered undesirable in Russia.
***The organization is considered undesirable in Russia.
