Opinion
Donald Trump is not only coddling Vladimir Putin. He is becoming Vladimir Putin. He’s always sought to justify even the worst of Putin’s atrocities. Questioned in 2017 about Putin’s murders of politicians and journalists, it was put to him bluntly that the Russian leader is “a killer”.
Trump’s response: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
Moral equivalence? Worse, outright admiration: “I do respect him,” said Trump. The kind of respect one mafia don has for another.
The moment Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Trump hailed it as “genius”. He congratulated the Russian president for sending “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen”.
And the American leader is notable for the favours he showers on Putin. Ten days ago, after the US Congress had voted to increase sanctions on Russian oil, Trump didn’t just refuse to impose them. He went further and reversed pre-existing US sanctions that had been imposed four years earlier. Trump claimed this would cut the price of diesel in America. It has made no useful difference. On the day of his announcement, the New York Harbour wholesale spot price for diesel was $US4.91 a gallon. Four days later, it was $US5.11.
All he’s done is bring Putin back into the legal marketplace for oil. So he can sell at a higher price to fund his war on Ukraine.
Putin repays Trump’s sycophancy with contempt. When Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine last week “effective immediately”, Ukraine suspended its attacks on Russian energy assets for three days. Putin said nothing and just continued his non-stop bombing of Ukraine’s energy assets.
Now London’s Financial Times reports that Trump envoys are pressing European governments to hand over to Washington the Russian cash they froze in their banking systems in response to the Ukraine invasion – some $US300 billion worth. The idea is for Trump to use it as an inducement to Putin to negotiate peace, apparently. Germany, not trusting Trump, has ruled out any such idea.
Trump’s timing seems quixotic. His blatant pandering to Putin is hurting Republicans running in the US midterm elections due in two weeks. As US news outlet Axios points out: “With control of Congress hanging in the balance, Trump is embracing a dictator viewed unfavourably by 81 per cent of his own 2024 voters, according to a January YouGov poll.”
Peter Tesch, a former Australian ambassador to Moscow, remarks: “He’s enthralled. Putin turns Trump the bully into this cowed, servile individual. You see it time and time again.”
Analysts have puzzled over the hold that the ex-KGB officer enjoys over the American businessman. Theories include Russian kompromat on Trump, Russian payments to Trump and so on. None has been proven.
Even if they were, none seems sufficient to justify Trump’s openly abject submission. Trump has hung in the White House a picture of himself with Putin. It’s placed above a photo of himself with a granddaughter. Putin’s hold on him is almost mystical.
Trump is doing more than favouring Putin. He is acting in Putin’s interests even when it harms his own. He seems to identify so closely with the Russian dictator that it appears he is turning into Putin.
Consider the close and growing similarities in their political characteristics and conduct.
One: Putin took power initially by democratic means and was very popular for some time. Trump likewise.
Two: Putin appeals to Russian nostalgia for a bygone greatness, which Trump echoes with his promise to “make America great again”.
Three: Putin has allowed elections to be held but does not respect democratic principles. He manages the system to ensure that he cannot lose. Trump has not succeeded in rigging elections to date, but refused to accept his loss in 2020.
Four: Putin rides roughshod over the Russian Constitution. He has continuously expanded the power of the presidency to dominate the courts and legislature under his so-called “vertical of power”. Trump has done the same under the “unitary executive” doctrine. His administration ignored 57 of the 165 court rulings against it in the first six months of its current term, for example, according to the Washington Post’s count.
Five: Putin uses his paramilitary Rosgvardia forces to repress dissent and intimidate the public. Trump deployed National Guard units to some Democrat-controlled cities. When his ICE officers use roughhouse tactics and shoot US citizens, the president defends the officers and blames the injured civilians.
Six: Both leaders have created circles of competitive oligarchs around themselves as a way of keeping them in thrall to the president.
Seven: Putin’s vision of Russian greatness demands the territorial conquest of neighbours. First he attacked Chechnya, then Georgia, then Ukraine. Next, he’s said, is Europe. Similarly, Trump has claimed Greenland and Canada and threatened to invade Cuba. He snatched the leader of Venezuela and appointed a puppet president.
Eight: Both leaders launched poorly planned and badly executed wars that they are not winning and will not quit.
Nine: Both concocted pretexts for their invasions.
Ten: These wars are inflicting pain on the ordinary citizens of the aggressor nations. Americans are suffering economically. Russians are being killed and maimed as well as suffering economically.
Eleven: Both men use their powers vindictively to harass critics. Trump cancelled the Secret Service protection for his former national security adviser, John Bolton, once Bolton became a regular critic, in spite of an Iranian fatwa against Bolton’s life. Today, Trump is rifling through the home of a leading congressional critic, Ilhan Omar, to try to fit her up with a deportation order. Putin had at least 768 political prisoners in detention in 2024, according to the human rights group Memorial.
Twelve: Corruption is a hallmark of the Putin and Trump presidencies. The investor and anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder estimates Putin’s corrupt gains at more than $US200 billion. Trump’s income leapt from $US760 million in the year before returning to the presidency to $US2.4 billion in 2025, according to Forbes magazine.
Nearly 90 per cent of respondents to a Fox News poll last week said they were either extremely or very concerned about government corruption, putting the issue just ahead of inflation and high prices as a concern.
The president’s attitude to forthcoming elections is devil-may-care, it seems: “I’ve already won, IN A MASSIVE LANDSLIDE,” he wrote last week.
Which president said that? That’d be Donald Putin.
Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.