Traitorous Trump Jeopardizes National Security with Russian Coziness
Connect the dots and it’s not hard to understand that trump’s real allegiance is to Russia and against Ukraine.
Trump’s admiration of Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin dates back to before his first administration. Trump’s antipathy to Ukraine was clear in a 2019 telephone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In the call, trump pressed Zelensky to announce an investigation into trump’s opponent for reelection, Joe Biden, and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine and not Russia was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. Zelensky refused and 91 minutes later, the White House tried to freeze aid to Ukraine. The issue was the basis of the first impeachment charging trump with abuse of power.
Trump, the self-professed, great deal maker, has agreed to two of Russia’s primary demands in advance of any discussions for a peace treaty with Ukraine. Agreeing to demands and making concessions in advance of negotiations is a cardinal sin for any seasoned negotiator who wants to win.
Trump said he plans to meet with dictator Vladimir Putin but that neither Ukraine nor representatives of NATO or European nations are not invited. Trump apparently reversed his position although it is still muddy.
Trump did not demand any compensation from Russia, the aggressor in an unprovoked war that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, but did demand the victim, Ukraine, should sign over to the U.S. the rights to billions of dollars' worth of rare minerals in repayment for previous U.S. military aid.
The main Russian demands include agreement that Ukraine will not join NATO and that Russia would not return lands seized during the invasion.
Trump has indicated he may withdraw the U.S. from the NATO agreement if member nations don’t pay a considerably greater share of the NATO costs.
Days after trump spoke with Putin for the first time since the war began, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the U.S. position clear. Meeting with European leaders to coordinate support for Ukraine, Hegseth said a return to Ukraine’s borders before 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, is “unrealistic,” and admitting NATO to Ukraine is “not a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
President Joe Biden said Ukraine would eventually become a NATO member, and other European leaders in the alliance have called its future admittance all but guaranteed.
NATO is comprised of 30 European states, the U.S. and Canada. It was formed after World War II to unify the U.S. and its European allies and maintain American “presence” on the continent. Under its charter, an attack against one member nation is considered an attack against all members.
Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war and warned that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast” to negotiate an end to the conflict or risk not having a nation to lead. Zelenskyy answered trump by saying that the president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”
Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator” for not holding elections during wartime, when much of Ukraine is under Russian occupation, its soldiers are on the frontlines and the country is under martial law.
Trump, President Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance all back a right-wing group in Germany that wants to improve relations with Russia.
Trump ordered the U.S. not to sign a non-binding UN resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine, more than double the vote against a similar resolution two years ago. The European-backed resolution still passed overwhelmingly as a global vote of solidarity against Russia’s unprovoked attack on its neighbor and continued aggression. Monday marked the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. was among 16 nations that refused to sign the document, including Russia, North Korea, Hungary, Syria, Israel, Haiti, Palau and the Marshall Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Sudan, Belarus, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua.
Now trump is seeking personal revenge above national security.
The latest issue stems from trump’s demand that Canada agree to become the 51st state. Canadian officials, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have categorically refused and that has angered trump to the point where he may be undermining America’s security. Trump also has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian imports and has grown angry at Canada’s threat to impose retaliatory tariffs.
Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is reportedly pushing trump to agree to an unprecedented maneuver that would upend decades’ worth of American national security policy. Navarro has since stepped back from pressing trump to endorse the plan.
Navarro was active in trump’s doomed plan to claim he won the 2020 presidential election because of non-existent voter fraud. In 2022, Navarro was indicted for refusing to testify before a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by trump supporters. Navarro was convicted and spent four months in prison.
The Financial Times reported that Navarro has floated forcing Canada out of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing program that also includes the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
The Five Eyes agreement was formed during the Cold War to facilitate the exchange of sensitive intelligence and security information among its member countries.
It was not clear if trump has agreed to force out Canada or how it could happen because other participating nations would likely object. Withdrawal of Canada and its intelligence gathering from Five Eyes would be ablow to international security agreements and would clearly benefit Russia.
Since World War II and the Cold War, the Five Eyes has been the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world. The U.S. and its allies share extremely sensitive signals and human intelligence in addition to coordinating on operations. The CIA-led Pine Gap satellite station in central Australia, which is the most important site for collecting intelligence about China, is one example of the intelligence relationship in Five Eyes.
The term Five Eyes (FVEY) is shorthand for “AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only.” The impetus for Five Eyes goes back to secret meetings held between British and American codebreakers before the U.S. formally entered World War II.
After the war and as the Cold War got hot, the intelligence sharing arrangement was formalized under the ECHELON surveillance system in the 1960s. The system was developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc and is now used to monitor communications worldwide.
After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Five Eyes members greatly increased surveillance capabilities as part of the global war on terror.
By the end of the 20th century, Five Eyes members had developed the ECHELON surveillance network into a global system capable of collecting massive amounts of private and commercial communications including telephone calls, fax, email, and other data traffic. The network’s information comes from intercepted communication bearers such as satellite transmissions and public switched telephone networks
The secretive Five Eyes organization is among the most comprehensive espionage alliances. The information often involves military intelligence (MILINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). Five Eyes remains a key element in the intelligence and security landscape of each member country, providing them a strategic advantage in understanding and responding to global events.
The Five Eyes leaders held their first known public meeting in 2023 at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in California. Intelligence chiefs from member countries warned of national security threats posed by Chinese state-backed hackers who steal intellectual property and other sensitive data from companies. The group also made public statements on the assassination in Canada of the Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Chinese state-backed hackers. There were no arrested but in October 2024, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats suspected of being involved in the killing.
Given trump’s nature, it is plausible that his rejection of security agreements could include Panama, where he has demanded that Panama turn over the canal to the U.S. Panama has rejected trump’s plan.
Also, the U.S. has a close security relationship with Mexico, that also could be jeopardized if Mexico does not quietly accept trump’s promise of 25 percent tariffs on Mexican imports.
Trump has a history of praise bordering on love for Putin and critics have charged that he is “soft on Russia.” After Russia invaded Ukraine, trump called the dictator a “genius” with “savvy.” Trump has said he “got along great” with Putin during his first term in the White House.
Putin said he and trump have always had “pragmatic and trusting” relations. Putin supported trump’s lie that he was the real winner of the 2020 presidential election and lost because of unsubstantiated voter fraud. Putin has also said that trump behaved like a “real man” after an attempted assassination last year.
During trump’s first term, special counsel Robert Mueller spent nearly two years investigating Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election and whether there had been collusion between Moscow and associates of Trump. Mueller concluded that Russia had meddled extensively in the election through hacking and disinformation operations, but did not indict the president because of a longstanding Justice Department policy against charging sitting presidents.
In a July 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki, Trump contradicting the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies, said he accepted the Kremlin leader’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to sabotage Hilary Clinton’s campaign.
A 2017 document known as the “Steele dossier” was prepared by a former British spy who claimed Putin had information that could be used to blackmail trump. It detailed trump’s alleged interaction with prostitutes during a 2013 visit that Trump made to Moscow. Many of the claims were never substantiated.
Trump also has pursued business deals in Russia since 1987 and has repeatedly traveled there to explore potential business opportunities. In 1996, Trump submitted applications for potential Russian real estate development deals. Trump, his children, and his partners have repeatedly visited Russia, connecting with real estate developers and Russian government officials to explore joint venture opportunities. Trump never concluded any real estate deals in Russia but individual Russians have invested heavily in trump properties. Following trump’s bankruptcies in the 1990s, he borrowed money from Russian sources. Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have said that Russia was an important source of money for the Trump businesses.
Efforts to build a Trump building in Moscow continued into June 2016 while Trump was securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election.