HONOLULU – Stung by new punishments, Russia is looking straight past President Barack Obama to Donald Trump in hopes the president-elect will reverse the tough U.S. stance toward Moscow of the last eight years. In a stunning embrace of a longtime U.S. adversary, Trump is siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Whether Trump steers the U.S. toward or away from Russia upon taking office is shaping up as the first major test of his foreign policy disposition and his willingness to buck fellow Republicans, who for years have argued Obama wasn’t tough enough. Now that Obama has finally sanctioned Russia over hacking allegations, Putin has essentially put relations on hold till Trump takes over.
“Great move on delay (by V. Putin),” Trump wrote Friday on Twitter. “I always knew he was very smart!”
He was referring to Putin’s announcement that Russia won’t immediately retaliate after Obama ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the U.S. said were really spies. Though Putin reserved the right to hit back later, he suggested that won’t be necessary with Trump in office.
There’s little certainty about how Trump will actually act on Russia once he takes office Jan. 20. Though he’s praised Putin as a strong leader and said it would be ideal for the two countries to stop fighting, he also suggested this month the U.S. might mount a new nuclear arms race, triggering fresh anxieties about a return to Cold War-style tensions.
Ambassador Michael McFaul, Obama’s former envoy to Russia, said while Trump has defined his top objective as “getting along with the Kremlin,” Putin has higher goals, including the lifting of economic sanctions and, ideally, U.S. recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“Obviously, Putin’s not responding because he’s waiting for Jan. 20,” McFaul said in an interview. “He’s got these much more important objectives to him than getting into a tit-for-tat response with the outgoing administration.”
Trump’s warm outreach to Putin, combined with picks for secretary of state and national security adviser who are seen as friendly to Russia, have left hawkish Republicans with a particularly unpleasant choice: look hypocritical for backtracking on their own tough talk, or risk a public rift with their party’s new president.
Even if Trump opts to pull back Obama’s sanctions and overlook hacking allegations, he may find rapprochement with Russia isn’t that simple. The past two presidents both tried to reach out to Russia early in their terms but left office with relations in no better shape.
Though Trump has suggested the U.S. and Russia should align strategies in Syria by focusing on their mutual enemy, the Islamic State group, Russia’s military campaign has almost exclusively targeted American-backed Syrian rebels, the U.S. has said. Nor is it clear whether Trump and Putin share a common approach to Europe’s security issues.
And if Trump follows through on his vow to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal, he won’t find a receptive audience in Moscow. Putin’s government brokered the deal with the U.S., Iran and other world powers and has no intention of slapping sanctions back on Iran.
Associated Press writers Nataliya Vasilyeva and Jim Heintz in Moscow and Lynn Berry in Washington contributed to this report.
