Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin may prove a huge weakness at Helsinki summit
DONALD Trump’s bromantic admiration for Vladimir Putin may be hard to understand, but critics say it will put the US President at a big disadvantage when the two leaders meet.
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AS the countdown begins to Donald Trump’s highly anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin on Monday, experts say the Russian dictator believes he has already won before the pair even sit down.
Not only is Putin said to be elated at Trump’s insults wielded at NATO allies during the summit, but he sees the Helsinki face-to-face as recognition that Russia is a great power whose interests must be taken into account.
“The fact that a Putin-Trump meeting will happen says only one thing: that for all its hysteria,
the United States is not able to isolate or ignore Russia,” said Alexei Pushkov, a prominent
Russian senator from the ruling United Russia party.
In recent days, Trump has also left Putin in little doubt as to his deep admiration for the Russian strongman, describing him as “a competitor, not an enemy” who “hopefully some day, may be a friend”.
But such remarks have sparked deep unease within Europe and Washington, and brought into
question Trump’s motives, including his decades-long business ties with Russia.
Since the 1980s, Trump has wanted to brand the Moscow skyline with his name and become a
global “oligarch”, experts say.
“I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in
partnership with the Soviet government,” Trump wrote in his 1987 book The Art of the Deal.
He travelled to Moscow to scope out options, applied for his trademark in the country as early as 1996, and during his presidential campaign came close to launching a glittering property project there, The New York Times reported.
His son, Donald Trump Junior told Russian developers in 2008 the Trump Organisation planned to build housing and hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi.
Yet Trump is emphatic that nothing came of it, and he has no ties to Russia.
“I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA — NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”, he tweeted shortly before his inauguration.
Despite his strident denials, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s
influence on the presidential campaign is probing possible connections.
Among them is the now infamous $20 million Miss Universe pageant that Trump brought to
Moscow in 2013, which was funded by Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov.
In the lead-up to the spectacle, Trump seemed enamoured with the possibility of meeting Putin.
“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?,” he tweeted.
And following the successful show, he told Mr Agalarov via Twitter:
“You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next,” he wrote.
Not only was the Miss World pageant Trump’s most well-known public appearance in Russia – he was a judge – but it led to salacious allegations he engaged in sexual acts at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow which were recorded by the Kremlin and used to blackmail him.
The claims were laid bare in the infamous 2016 Steele dossier, compiled by a former British spy Christopher Steele, alleging Trump hired prostitutes to perform “golden showers” on the bed of the presidential suite where President Obama had slept.
The unverified 32-page dossier – partly funded by the Clinton campaign - alleged Kremlin spies had accounts of the encounter and were using it to blackmail Trump to make pro-Russian policy decisions.
“Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance,”
Steele wrote.
The claims were never confirmed, and Trump tweeted it was “fake news” and “phony’.
Stephen Sestanovich, the former US Ambassador-at-Large to the former Soviet states, told News Corp “no one really knows why Trump has this affinity for Putin.”
“There are some obvious ones right on the surface ... Putin got along badly with Obama
and for Trump that’s a plus, Russia doesn’t trade much with the US, also Putin’s got a bad-boy-statesman style that puts him outside Western polite society - Trump knows what that feels like,” he said.
Also hanging over the US president as he enters Monday’s meeting are the scandals of Trump’s associates.
His former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was forced to resign in August 2016 amid reports he allegedly had business dealings with Russia-aligned leaders in Ukraine involving millions of dollars.
Federal court documents unsealed in June show that Mr Manafort and his wife received a $10
million loan from Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin. Charged with a slew of federal crimes as part of the Mueller inquiry he will stand trial later this year.
But Manafort is not the only associate with dubious ties to Moscow. Michael Flynn, Trump’s
former national security adviser, had to resign due to his Moscow links, and is awaiting sentence for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.
Amid it all, Trump has remained steadfast in his denials that he has any ties to Russia, tweeting last year that they were “conspiracy theories”.
“I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy”.
What has fuelled distrust of his claims are Trump’s failings to take a hard line on Russia
aggression including the MH170 disaster, arms control, and the murder of opponents.
“I still believe that Trump’s longstanding ties to Russia may explain his softer approach to the
Kremlin than to our allies; but I cannot prove that,” Mr John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan said.
“We do not know what motivates President Trump’s views on Mr Putin and the Kremlin. We do know that those views are unusually sympathetic.”
His acceptance that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election only serves to perpetuate
Trump’s perceived bromance with the Russia dictator, say experts.
But with the announcement three days ago that Mueller has indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials for hacking into the Democrats’ emails to influence the 2016 US election, Republican politicians said Trump must challenge the dictator face-to-face.
“President Trump must be willing to confront Putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world,” Senator John McCain said in a statement.
“If President Trump is not prepared to hold Putin accountable, the summit in Helsinki should not move forward.”
But NATO expert James Goldgeier is doubtful he will take a hard line. “The election meddling issue clearly strikes a nerve with Trump because it casts doubt on the legitimacy of his election,” Mr Goldgeier said.
Trump said on Friday that he’ll raise the election interference with Putin, but that he doesn’t expect an answer.
“I will absolutely, firmly ask the question” about interference in the US election, Trump said at a news conference with UK Prime Minister Theresa May at Chequers, her country estate. But he predicted Putin wouldn’t confess.
“I don’t think you’ll have any ‘Gee, I did it, I did it, you got me,’ “ Trump said.
James Goldgeier, NATO expert and a visiting senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York said such a response would create a furore among Europeans concerned about Russian interference in their elections, and will serve to undermine the NATO alliance.
But Trump seems unperturbed, taking a swipe at US allies in Brussels last Thursday when he
said his meeting with Putin would be “the easiest” part of his week-long European trip.
He also offered warm overtures to Putin, telling reporters: “He’s been very nice to me the times I’ve met him, I’ve been nice to him. He’s a competitor. Somebody was saying, ‘Is he an enemy? No, he’s not my enemy.”
It sparked an angry reaction from US Republican Senator Jeff Flake in a Senate speech, who
labelled Putin a “a man schooled in treachery and espionage”.
“He jails and murders his opponents, presides over a mafia state and he is an enemy of
democracy. Why would a meeting with Putin be easier than a meeting with the allies that we rely on most to be a bulwark against him,” Mr Flake said.
Mr Goldgeier said the major concern with the Helsinki meeting was Trump will further
undermine the transatlantic bond by appearing as though “he is uninterested in Russian
aggression in places like Ukraine, Syria and our elections”.
He said allies would be watching closely to see if he offers Putin concessions such as weakening of sanctions or scaling back Western military exercises.
Also of concern, said Mr Goldgeier, is Trump’s private and unrecorded meeting with Putin
tomorrow in which no senior aides will be present.
“Nobody can have confidence in what Trump comes out telling them occurred.
“Who knows what he might say when he is just in there with Putin. He could say: ‘I have to say something publicly about (election meddling), but don’t worry I take your denial at face value.
“The election meddling issue clearly strikes a nerve with Trump because it casts doubt on the
legitimacy of his election.”
Mr Sestanovich predicts that after the meeting, Trump will boast to the media of the “fantastic
relationship” the two leaders share.
“We’ll hear Putin is smart and funny and has a great personality. Anyone who has met Putin
knows all this is ridiculous, but Trump seems unable to stop himself.
“The question is, can his advisers stop him when it comes to putting major US interests at risk? I believe the answer is probably yes, but this week it’s hard to be sure.
“Trump’s impulse control seems to have switched off.”
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