Russia’s Return on Its Investment in Trump Has Been Huge

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Washington may as well be a victory lap: U.S. foreign policy is serving Moscow’s interests now

Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

From a national security standpoint, the most important question about Vladimir Putin’s big 2016 investment in Donald Trump has always been about whether Russia would eventually get something significant in return for helping elect the U.S. president. Surveying President Trump’s actions over the past year, the answer appears to be that Putin is in the process of getting quite a lot from the United States, perhaps more than he could have ever imagined.

Not only has the United States taken very pro-Putin stances in Russia’s hot wars in Ukraine and Syria, but on a grander scale Trump has helped convey U.S. weakness and Russian strength in region after region across the world — a dangerous development which is going to create enormous challenges for the United States and the West for years to come.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visiting Washington this week, it’s worth diving a little deeper into just how much Trump has tried to align the United States with Russian interests over the past year:

Syria

Syrian government forces wave a Russian flag at the Tabqa airbase in northern Syria. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Trump has been working hard to unilaterally withdraw the United States from Syria, a country where Russia has a naval base and has been fighting on the government’s behalf since September 2015. Trump’s unexpected and abrupt withdrawal announcement a year ago caused Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign in protest, and his recent sudden second attempt at complete withdrawal has been met with extraordinary alarm in Washington, Europe, and even Israel. Without consulting our allies or Congress, the president pulled U.S. forces from the front lines of battle in northern Syria, abandoning our long time allies the Kurds, and in effect turning over the country back to the murderous Syrian government and its allies the Russians without the United States or the West getting anything in return. It was a hasty and sudden retreat, pure and…