Trump’s good point for a bad reason

The other day Trump saw an open goal and hit it.

When European NATO members demanded yet again that the US impose new sanctions on Russia, he said he’d do so – provided NATO members stopped buying Russian hydrocarbons.

Now, only those who won’t see fail to notice that Trump hates to upset his friend Vlad. And nothing would upset Putin more than the kind of sanctions that don’t so much hurt his economy as destroy it.

That’s why Trump plays his final-warning game so crudely and ludicrously. He keeps telling Putin that he’d visit apocalyptic plagues on Russia unless Putin starts peace negotiations within a certain period, usually a fortnight.

When that term expires, Trump repeats the same mantra word for word: unless… peace… two weeks. And if the current two-week deadline isn’t honoured, why, Putin had better brace himself for another final warning.

Each time Trump finds a pretext not to act on his threats. But for once NATO’s shameful boost to Russia’s war economy gives him a legitimate excuse.

Of all NATO members, Turkey is the biggest culprit. Last month alone, Turkey spent almost €3 billion on Russian hydrocarbons, making her the third biggest buyer after China and India.

The EU, mainly Putin-friendly Hungary and Slovakia, buy Russian oil to the tune of €22 billion a year, while France, Belgium, Spain and Holland import Russian liquefied natural gas.

This makes NATO’s demands on America hypocritical to the point of being cynical, which Trump was only too happy to point out in his idiosyncratic style:

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA.

“As you know, NATO’S commitment to WIN has been far less than 100 per cent, and the purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia. Anyway, I am ready to ‘go’ when you are.”

That was calling NATO’s bluff, but then Trump went on to prove he needs no lessons in hypocrisy and cynicism from his European allies. He issued a counter-demand that Europe impose crippling tariffs on China, the biggest importer of Russian oil.

However, while slapping ridiculously high tariffs on countries like Switzerland and Brazil, Trump himself has refrained from imposing extra tariffs on China. His reasons are the same as Europe’s are for buying  Russian oil: the American economy is in hock to cheap Chinese imports.

Yet Trump’s statement is worth looking at in some detail. This is what he wrote: “China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia, and these powerful Tariffs will break that grip. This is not TRUMP’S WAR (it would never have started if I was President!), it is Biden’s and Zelensky’s WAR.”

The second part is staggering in its fatuousness: “it is Biden’s and Zelensky’s WAR”. Not Putin’s by any chance? Perish the thought. Trump happily exculpates his friend Vlad, thereby validating the Kremlin canard that it was the West that attacked Russia using the Ukraine as a proxy.

But the first part is interesting, for there Trump repeats the claims regularly made by émigré Russian experts. They wonder why, given the West’s craven response to Russian aggression, Putin has so far refrained from using tactical nuclear weapons.

The risk of escalation into a full-scale nuclear exchange with NATO would be minimal, they argue, and I agree. If NATO refuses to supply long-range missiles to the Ukraine, one can’t realistically hope it’ll opt for a cataclysmic response to yet another Russian atrocity.

The same experts conclude that Putin keeps his nukes in his trousers specifically because China ordered him to do so.

There is little doubt, of course, as to who is the senior partner in the Russia-China alliance. Russia has inexorably and willingly been turning herself into Xi’s vassal. But vassalage isn’t slavery.

It’s possible that Xi can tell Putin how far he can or can’t go in his war effort, but I for one tend to take any news coming from Russian sources with a grain of salt, a wedge of lime and a shot of tequila.

It’s in that spirit that I look at the news broken the other day by Putin’s loyal newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. It quoted Putin as saying:

“The acute period of war conflict with the West in the fields of the Ukraine is entering its final stage. Having decided not to use the most terrifying weapons, trying to save the lives of our brave warriors and civilian population, Russia seems unlikely to score the kind of victory she achieved against Napoleon’s army. That war secured four decades of peace in Europe. Unlikely also is a complete rout similar to the one of Hitler’s army.”

Hold on a moment, let me find that bottle of tequila. This smacks of an exercise in strategic deception, the only martial art in which KGB Russia excels. However, if the statement is genuine, it spells a complete turnaround in Russian dealings with the West.

Her key stratagem is nuclear blackmail, with Putin saying more than once that, yes, he’s aware that Russia can’t compete with the West in conventional warfare. However, Russia is a great nuclear power, at least equal to the US and in some areas superior to it.

Therefore… and out come the usual threats about turning America into radioactive dust, creating a giant strait between Canada and Mexico, putting Britain on the ocean bed and so on. The blackmail worked, by limiting Western aid to the Ukraine to a bare minimum.

If true, that statement means that Putin has forsworn nuclear weapons as a blackmail tactic. If untrue, it’s an attempt to lull the West into a sense of security while Russia prepares a surprise strike. In any case, commentary from Western intelligence analysts would be welcome.

Or, to save time, Trump could just ask his friend Vlad about that. As he once explained, he trusts Putin more than America’s own intelligence services.

 P.S. Tyler Robinson, the murderer of Charlie Kirk, was ‘romantically’ involved with a transsexual furry (a chap who identifies as an animal and walks on all fours wearing furry pelts). Apparently, it was his paramour who shopped Tyler to the police. Can’t you trust anybody?