Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1598261611-scaled

Putin May Turn Against Trump in 2020

Putin's investment doesn't appear to be working out as he may have hoped.

Analysis | Washington Politics

It is well known that Russian President Vladimir Putin supported Donald Trump and opposed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. It is still debated whether or not Putin’s intervention affected the election result.

It is often just assumed that Putin will support Trump again in 2020. But he just might not. In fact, Putin may well seek to undermine Trump’s campaign this year.

Trump’s positive statements about Putin both during the 2016 presidential campaign and afterward may have led Putin to believe that Trump would be more willing to cooperate with Russia than either Obama was after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea or Clinton would have been had she been elected president. But if this was Putin’s expectation, he has been sorely disappointed.

In their very first conversation after Trump became president, Putin suggested that the two leaders agree to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) which is due to expire in February 2021—a move that Putin may well have considered something to be only practical, sensible, and even uncontroversial. But after having to put Putin on hold to ask his aides what New START even was, Trump came back on the phone to say, “No,” because he was sure that the treaty was somehow unfair to the U.S. As the expiration deadline approaches, Putin has continued to press Trump to renew it, only to be rebuffed. Since Putin sees the treaty’s extension as sensible for both sides, he regards Trump’s refusal to do so as irrational at best and indicative of a desire to expand America’s nuclear arsenal at worst.

Further, despite Putin’s hopes that Trump would reduce the Obama-era economic sanctions against Russia, Congress in 2017 (when Republicans controlled both houses) enacted more sanctions. While Trump said he disapproved, he signed the bill anyway—which was not reassuring to Putin. Nor is Putin likely to believe that Trump really could not control a Republican-dominated Congress insofar as Russia is concerned.

In addition, Putin expected that Trump—unlike Obama—would recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Trump, however, has not done so and does not appear likely to. Moreover, unlike Obama, Trump has sent military assistance to Ukraine, which is fighting against Russian-backed separatist forces (and even the Russian Army itself) in eastern Ukraine. In the U.S. and Ukraine, there has been a scandal about how Trump delayed this aid in the hope of getting the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. For Putin, though, what is scandalous is that Trump has sent any military aid at all to Kiev.

And most recently, Trump’s ordering the killing of Iranian General Soleimani in Baghdad could raise serious problems for Putin. As commander of the Qods Brigade, Soleimani oversaw the effort by Iranian and Shi’a militia forces in Syria to support the Assad regime. At a minimum, Soleimani’s death risks disrupting this. And if the U.S.-Iranian conflict escalates so much that Tehran is no longer able to act as effectively in Syria, this will confront Putin with having to deploy more Russian forces to Syria to take up the slack. With Russia mainly concentrating on the air war, it has been able to avoid large-scale Russian casualties which would be highly unpopular with the Russian public. But if Soleimani’s death eventually leads to a lesser, or just less effective, Iranian presence in Syria, Russia may have to compensate by increasing its own—and thereby risk suffering increased casualties—in order to protect Assad against opposing forces that will take heart from the  Soleimani’s demise.

In all of these instances—and more—Trump’s positive words about Putin have not prevented the U.S. from undertaking actions that Putin considers harmful to Russia. And the fact that this has occurred repeatedly must have raised Putin’s concerns that Trump is either too weak to be useful no matter how many positive things he says about Russia, or that Trump’s pro-Russian statements are meant to lull Moscow into not responding too harshly after repeated anti-Russian actions in the hope that the latest one will be the last.

Either way, Trump may have outlasted his usefulness to Moscow as far as Putin is concerned. In 2016, Putin may have believed that while Clinton was hostile to Russia, Trump was friendly. Now, he may feel cheated. (Indeed, the joke that some of my contacts in Moscow make is that Putin is so disillusioned with Trump that, “he wants his money back.”) If, then, Moscow sees Trump as more hostile than friendly, as well as reckless and unpredictable, Putin may conclude that Trump has betrayed him. The Russian leader is highly likely to seek revenge.

Yet even if Putin turns against Trump in 2020, there is no reason to believe that whatever propaganda and influence campaigns Moscow unleashes will actually serve to help the Democrats or hurt Trump. Indeed, for the Trump base, Moscow’s turning against their hero may even reassure them that Trump is not so beholden to Putin as they may have secretly feared no matter all their loud proclamations to the contrary.

Still, nobody should be surprised if, during the course of the 2020 presidential election campaign, WikiLeaks or a similar organization manages to get hold of and publish Trump’s tax returns, details about his confidential business deals, or even certain videotapes. What the Russian intelligence services might find especially amusing would be to release (in an at least somewhat indirect way) even further information than the U.S. government has about Trump’s strong-arming Ukraine over investigating the Bidens.

And why would Moscow do this? Because when it comes to Trump, Putin is no longer amused.


Analysis | Washington Politics
How US incompetence empowers China in Latin America
Top image credit: Oleg Elkov

How US incompetence empowers China in Latin America

Latin America

China was recently admitted as an observer to the Andean Community — a political and economic block consisting of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and one of the Americas’ numerous organizations and forums.

Getting increasingly nervous about Chinese influence, U.S. policymakers made a concerted effort to limit the CCP's engagement in the Inter-American Development Bank and some even raised concerns about potential — albeit unconfirmed — ties between China and the recently elected secretary general of the Organization of American States. Now, with China starting to engage in another regional organization, analysts already warn it could serve as a conduit for expanding AI and electric vehicle sales into South America.

keep readingShow less
Saronic Marauder
Top image credit: Saronic launches 'Marauder' Autonomous Ship After Gulf Craft Acquisition/Military Style [YouTube/Screenshot]

Are killer robot ships coming to save us?

Military Industrial Complex

Sinking warships with “kamikaze”-like strikes, attacking critical infrastructure, and “swarming” together to overwhelm enemy defenses, Ukraine’s Magura drone boats have had success countering Russian naval forces in the Black Sea — despite its Navy’s markedly limited resources.

These autonomous maritime vessels are having a moment, and the Pentagon and weapons industry alike want in on it. Flush with cash from venture capitalists and, increasingly, the DoD, which has awarded hundreds of millions in contracts to this end, defense-tech start-ups, including Saronic, BlackSea, and Blue Water Autonomy, have been building a new generation of myriad autonomous and semi-autonomous maritime vessels.

keep readingShow less
Trump
Top image credit: U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) over lunch in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 17, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Will Trump really attack Venezuela?

Latin America

It’s ironic that in the same week that President Donald Trump escalated the drug war in the Caribbean by unleashing the CIA against Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, the Department of Justice won an indictment against former National Security Adviser John Bolton, the architect of the failed covert strategy to overthrow Maduro during the first Trump administration.

The one thing the two regime change operations have in common is Marco Rubio, who, as a senator, was a vociferous opponent of Maduro. Now, as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, he’s the new architect of Trump’s Venezuela policy, having managed to cut short Richard Grenell’s attempt to negotiate a diplomatic deal with Maduro. Regime change is on the agenda once again, with gunboats in the Caribbean and the CIA on the ground. What could go wrong?

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.