Making America weak again

[struggle4progress]

Jonathan Freedland

... If he had confronted Putin in Hamburg, even fairly neutral observers would have wondered if it was staged for effect; if he’d made a show of comity, then it would be evidence that he was Moscow’s dupe. It did not, for example, escape the notice of the US press that Trump said it was an “honour” to meet Putin (while Putin merely confessed himself “delighted”). That use of “honour” implied a deference that, had Barack Obama voiced it, would not have been forgiven by Trump’s loudest supporters – or indeed by Trump himself. So this is the hole the US president has dug for himself. He can move neither forward nor backward. He is paralysed – and so, therefore, is the US-Russian relationship.

Trump’s weakness, meanwhile, is Putin’s strength. He went to Hamburg knowing the much-ballyhooed encounter with his US counterpart was a “win-win”, as Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, put it to the New York Times. If Putin extracted concessions from Trump – whether on Syria, Ukraine or sanctions – he knew Trump would look weak. Equally, if Trump gave him nothing, Putin’s loyal media back home would brand the US president a prisoner of domestic opposition and “Russophobia” – unable to act on his more pro-Moscow instincts. Either way, Trump would emerge as the weaker party.

Remember, few believe that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election because it reckoned it could put Donald Trump in the White House. The more modest goal was to damage the future President Hillary Clinton. US weakness was, and remains, the overriding objective. And on that, the Trump investment is delivering handsomely ...

The US has lost the moral authority it enjoyed under Obama, a fact visible in the way Trump is treated at international gatherings such as in Hamburg. His break from the Paris climate agreement; his erratic, bellicose behaviour on Twitter; his picking of needless fights with the likes of Sadiq Khan – at a moment when the London mayor’s city was grieving: all have combined to erode what has long been America’s most precious asset – its soft power ...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/trump-putin-america-soft-power-g20-summit

[MedusaX]

1. Rather than simply weaken the US, Russia has assumed control of US which exponentially increases

Russia's geopolitical power.

A 'weak' U.S. implies that the core values, principles, and democratic functions remain in place but without former level of international influence.

This is NOT the case.

*45, his administration, and the KGOP now embrace the same values, principles, and methods of governance as those embraced by the Russian Federation.

Hence, the ideology traditionally promoted & embraced by U.S. policy and action has now been repealed and replaced by that which is synonymous with that of the Russian Federation.