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First impressions

On eve of first meeting with Putin, Trump warns Russia to stop sowing global chaos



Donald Trump behaves rather strangely for a guy who is supposed to be Vladimir Putin's puppet. In terms of policies and actions, Trump has hardly been a friend to the Russians in the early months of his presidency. And in today's opening remarks at the G-20 summit, Trump let Putin have it rhetorically as well:
President Donald Trump affirmed U.S. commitment to the defense of NATO allies on Thursday in a Warsaw speech that gently criticized Russia, and said Western civilization must stand up to "those who would subvert and destroy it".
In his second trip to Europe as president and shortly before leaving for a potentially fractious G20 meeting in Germany, Trump appeared at pains to soothe U.S. allies after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense enshrined in Article Five of the NATO treaty. As a presidential candidate, Trump called NATO obsolete, but he has since changed his position on the alliance's relevance. The president also had tough words for Russia on Thursday, though he did not fully endorse allegations, backed by U.S. intelligence agencies, that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election that he won. Trump meets President Vladimir Putin for the first time face-to-face on Friday in Hamburg, the site of the G20 summit.

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"We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and the defense of civilization itself," he said. The Kremlin said Russia was not guilty of any destabilizing activity.
I find it hilarious that the media are so obsessed with the whole Russia-meddled-in-the-election business, to the point where this seems more important to them than Russia's much more overt troublemaking across the globe. They can't bring themselves to simply report what Trump said in the speech without mentioning that he "did not fully endorse allegations" about the election meddling, whatever that means. Anyway, here's the video of the full speech:

The impression people have that Trump does Russia's bidding is, when you look at his actions since taking office, about as far from reality as a thing can be. The Wall Street Journal looked at some of the highlights this morning:
The irony is that on policy Mr. Trump has been tougher on Mr. Putin than either of his two predecessors. Over Kremlin objections, the U.S. President has endorsed Montenegro’s entry into NATO and new NATO combat deployments in Eastern Europe. He has approved military action against Russian ally Bashar Assad in Syria even after Russian threats of retaliation. The White House was also wise to visit Poland a day before he meets Mr. Putin. In Warsaw on Thursday he can reinforce traditional American support for Polish freedom and assert his personal and public support for NATO’s Article 5 that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all. Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump has unleashed U.S. oil and gas production that has the potential to weaken Mr. Putin at home and in Europe. The Russian strongman needs high oil prices and wields the leverage of natural-gas supplies over Europe, and U.S. production undermines both.


However much your liberal friends on social media may be convinced that Trump is retrofitting the White House to become the Kremlin West, it's simply not true. Trump's policy decisions have complicated Putin's pursuit of his geopolitical and economic goals almost down the line. It may very well be that Putin preferred to deal with Trump as opposed to dealing with Hillary - and how can you possibly blame him for that? - but that doesn't mean Trump is inclined toward Russia-friendly policies. So far, he has been anything but. The key now is how Trump deals with Putin when they meet face to face tomorrow. Putin will be looking for any sign of weakness in America's new president. They were easy to spot in the last one, and Putin exploited them very effectively. So far Trump has shown very different instincts, and he needs to make it clear when he deals with Putin that Russia will need to take a different approach if it wants to get what it needs on the global stage. By the way, so much of this speech is about America's friendship with Poland, which is quite a story and is heartfelt by the Polish people. I don't know how many Americans realize this, but in spite of Poland's forced 44 years behind the Iron Curtain, it has long been a true friend to America and remains so to this day. Trump makes it clear that he plans to continue America's friendship with the Poles, and it's clear that they reciprocate. You may think Trump is Putin's best friend, but watch this and you'll see who really sees him as a friend.

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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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