“Trump is a Russian asset”

When asked to comment on Trump’s soft treatment of Putin’s war on the Ukraine, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said: “The supreme leader of the world’s greatest superpower is, objectively, a Soviet, or Russian, asset. He functions as an asset.”

‘Objectively’ is the key word there. Trump probably never signed any contract in blood, and he probably doesn’t think of himself as a Russian asset. But, as I always say when the subject comes up, it’s hard to imagine how different his actions and pronouncements would be if he were indeed a witting agent of Putin.

Obviously, an American president can’t afford the luxury of openly cheering an aggression threatening the world order formed after 1945. Doing so would cost the US the support of all her allies, and no country can go it alone in today’s volatile world.

Nor can Trump say in so many words that everything Putin says about the war is true, and that the Ukraine is at least as much to blame for the carnage as Russia is, possibly even more. If he did so, according to the US law he’d have to register as a foreign agent.

However, as the Portuguese president pointed out, what Trump does say amounts to a similar message. For example, after the red-carpet travesty in Alaska, where Trump failed to secure a ceasefire, he said that Zelensky “can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight.”

The implication is that only Zelensky’s obstinacy keeps the blood gushing. That’s not wrong: the Ukraine could indeed have stopped the war at any moment since 2014 and especially since 2022. All she would have had to do was capitulate – and this is exactly what the Kremlin has been saying and Trump has been implying.

Trump issues dire warnings to Putin with metronomic regularity, threatening higher sanctions and “severe consequences”, not only for Russia but also for her trading partners. None of this materialises: Trump delivers ultimatums, typically giving Putin two weeks to come to his senses. When that doesn’t happen, “severe consequences” arrive in the shape of another two-week ultimatum.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps lashing out at Zelensky, stopping just short of branding him a warmonger, but leaving his audience in no doubt that this is exactly what he means. Hence, Trump’s administration, says de Sousa, has “gone from being allies on one side to acting as referees in the conflict.” And not an unbiased referee, may I add.

Trump has consistently refrained from criticising Putin openly, other than regretting that at times he can’t recognise his good friend Vlad. Trump doesn’t show the same restraint when extolling the KGB dictator. For example, shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion started, he praised the move as “genius” and “savvy”.

Since then, Trump has consistently supported Putin’s ideas on how the war should end: the Ukraine must cede the Donbas region, recognise the annexation of the Crimea, repudiate any possibility of joining NATO.

In return, Trump offers some mythical “security guarantees” to the Ukraine. He knows in advance that Putin will never accept the deployment of NATO troops in the buffer zone, which would be the only viable security guarantee.

While this talk shop stays open, US military supplies to the Ukraine oscillate between being risibly insufficient and non-existent. Instead, the Ukrainians are getting general noises about the awfulness of so many women and children being killed by Russian missiles.

Still, I agree with de Sousa’s qualifier: Trump is probably a Russian asset only de facto, not de jure. However, anyone who understands the KGB mentality will know that this nuance is lost upon Putin.

Before Trump began his political career, he had often accepted Russian, which is to say KGB, money to help him out of tight spots. And for the KGB this is tantamount to a signature on a service contract. Anyone who takes KGB money, in whatever form, is treated as an asset.

Russian help was especially invaluable in the 1990s, during the later stages of Trump’s career as property developer. One after another of his businesses was going into receivership, his Atlantic City casinos were going bust, costing investors and banks billions in bad debts.

As a result, investors stopped investing and banks stopped lending, and no big-time developer can function without credit. That’s when the Russians moved in.

Trump, said Alan Lapidus, his long-time architect, “could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia. His involvement with Russia was deeper than he’s acknowledged.”

Trump’s sons confirmed this statement. In 2008 Donald Jr. said: “In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

Another son, Eric, echoed that confession in 2014. Asked how the Trump Organisation remained afloat when no banks were willing to give it loans, he shrugged: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Now, the Russian government is a seamless blend of the KGB and organised crime. Any Russian investor willing to pump billions into foreign businesses can only do so with that blend’s approval and encouragement.

One case in point is Trump’s dealings with the Bayrock Group, which led his financial revival that began in the early 2000s.

Bayrock was renting whole floors in Trump Towers at a time when Russian mafiosi made up a large proportion of Trump’s tenants (up to 20 per cent). The Group was run by Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official in Kazakhstan who had seemingly inexhaustible sources of funds with rather a dubious provenance.

Another Bayrock boss was Felix Slater, a Russian-born mafioso who in the 1990s had pleaded guilty to a vast stock fraud involving the Russian mafia (and its partner, the KGB/FSB, without whose participation no criminal gang could ever function in Russia).

Trump explained he had done business with Bayrock because Arif had impressive connections. “Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors,” Trump said. I bet. But I’d have been tempted to inquire what kind of people and what kind of investors.

There have been books written about Trump’s extensive links with Russian ‘businessmen’, too numerous to list here. I was especially impressed with one such deal, inscribed on a tissue of lies.

In 2008, acting through a trust, the Russian ‘oligarch’ Dmitry Rybolovlev (or rather his wife – a distinction without a difference) paid $95 million for Maison de l’Amitié, Trump’s house in Palm Beach, Florida. (This may be a coincidence, but the name is a direct translation of Dom Druzhby, the Soviet government’s club in central Moscow, where foreigners mixed with KGB recruiters.)

The house, which Trump had bought for $40 million four years earlier, was on the market for a long time without attracting any takers. Then Rybolovlev moved in, paying way over the odds and making some people suspect that the purchase sum represented a veiled subsidy.

Moreover, Trump claimed that the sale was the only deal he had ever done with any Russian, which demonstrably wasn’t true. Still, none of this is prima facie evidence of Trump’s being a Russian asset.

Trump’s leaning towards Putin in the on-going war may be motivated by his sincere admiration of the latter’s “genius” and “savvy”. That, however, is another distinction without a difference.

Assets may work for a foreign government wittingly or unwittingly. In the former case, they might be coerced by kompromat (one of the few Russian contributions to the English language), bought by cash or scared by threats. But they may also act for ideological reasons or out of sympathy for what the foreign government represents – the US ‘atomic spies’ were a prime example of that category.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that, ever since the Russian invasion, Trump has been toing and froing in his actions and pronouncements. But the general vector of his leaning is unmistakable, and Putin certainly doesn’t mistake it for anything other than tacit support.

Three cheers for President de Sousa who said in plain Portuguese what most European leaders think. It’s only words, but they are welcome words.