Myths and Reality
The results of Trump’s policies refute the persistent impression of adventurism and inconsistency in his actions. In reality, they strengthen the international position of the USA and promote the realization of its interests;
currently, Trump has forced other countries to reckon with the USA through political, economic, and military means. At the same time, he has dealt a powerful blow to the totalitarian axis of evil formed by Russia and its partners;
all this has created conditions for the USA to take active steps to force Russia to make peace. Trump is already taking steps in this direction by strengthening sanctions pressure on Moscow and resuming arms supplies to Ukraine.
so far, Russia is resisting USA’s actions and continuing its war against Ukraine. However, the combined efforts of the USA, Europe, and Ukraine open up opportunities to change the situation.
From the first days of Trump’s second term as master of the White House, most experts have characterized his activities as a series of failures and the main factor destabilizing the situation in the USA and the world. All this has been harshly criticized by both his opponents and his fellow Republicans.
For example, among Trump’s actions that have had the most negative consequences are the start of trade (tariff) wars with virtually the entire world, the announcement of intentions to reduce the USA’s involvement in ensuring European security and flirting with Russia, as well as ill-considered reforms of the state apparatus and the country’s financial and economic system, violations of democratic mechanisms, and unjustified oppression of migrants.
According to Trump’s critics, the consequences of his actions have been the discrediting of the USA and weakening of its position in the international arena, deterioration of relations with other countries, including allies and partners, undermining of transatlantic unity, destabilization of the situation in the country, and emergence of the threat of internal conflicts. And these are only the main problems that are obvious. In fact, there are many more.
In particular, Trump’s miscalculations, which are real and weaken the USA, are being used by totalitarian regimes to promote their interests and strengthen their capabilities in confronting the Western and, in general, democratic worlds. An example of this is Russia, which openly despises the USA and Trump’s peacekeeping efforts and continues its war against Ukraine.
However, things are not so bad as they seem at first glance. Moreover, the impression of a “complete failure” of Trump’s policy is deliberately created by his opponents in the USA and Russian propagandists, who also operate through Western media. This explains their biased and prejudiced coverage of the current US administration’s policies, as well as events surrounding the Russian–Ukrainian war.
Among others, this applies to the American agency Bloomberg, which deliberately shapes the image of Trump as a pro-Russian politician and Russia – as an invincible force capable of achieving its goals under any circumstances. This is not surprising, given that the head of the agency’s Moscow bureau is Yulia Fedorinova, a Russian who previously worked for the Russian newspaper “Vedomosti” and is clearly under the control of Russian special services. Incidentally, she was appointed to this position in 2021, on the eve of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
Therefore, let’s look at the situation from a slightly different angle, based on objective circumstances. Let’s start with Trump’s trade wars. In reality, they not only did not weaken the international position of the USA, but strengthened it. Thus, Trump achieved the goal he openly stated before raising tariffs on foreign-made goods. Most of the USA’s trading partners did indeed “bow down” to him with requests to reduce tariffs, which allowed him to dictate his will to them. As a result, Trump, but in fact the USA, gained both economic and political leverage over them.
In doing so, Trump confirmed and consolidated the role of the USA as the world’s leading power, which had been partially undermined by his predecessors. It does not matter that some people have stopped loving America. The main thing is that they have come to fear it again, and therefore respect it, at least in this sense. This also applies to China, which agreed to compromises with the USA on foreign trade, although some call this a “Chinese victory”.
Based on this, Trump has harshly rebuffed attempts by a number of countries that are or consider themselves to be separate centers of power to diminish the importance of the USA as the main hub of world trade. On the eve of the BRICS+ summit on July 6-7 in Rio de Janeiro, where the possibilities for implementing such intentions were discussed, he threatened to raise tariffs for all members of the organization. As a result, Chinese leader Xi Jinping refrained from participating in the summit. Putin publicly rejected the idea of creating a common currency within BRICS+. According to him, it is premature at this stage.
Similarly untrue are the statements of all sorts of experts about Trump’s policies’ negative impact on NATO unity. This impression could indeed have been created by his not always well-considered statements and the European politicians’ reactions to them. We have already raised this issue, but we will return to it again in the context of this article.
Contrary to popular belief, Trump’s actions are not aimed at destroying the North Atlantic Alliance, which remains one of the main instruments for ensuring the security of the USA and its allies, but rather at strengthening it. During his first presidential term, the USA and Poland signed an agreement on the permanent deployment of American troops on Polish territory. This marked the beginning of the revival of the US Army’s 5th Corps in Europe after its disbandment in 2013. And at the beginning of his second term, Trump pushed NATO members to increase their defense spending to 5 % of GDP.
In other words, it was Trump who played a key role in strengthening the Alliance and restoring its significance as the most reliable and powerful collective security system in the world. His declarations of intent to transfer greater responsibility for its security to Europe were merely a statement of the need to redistribute functions and tasks among NATO members in connection with the emergence of new challenges and threats to their security.
This is currently being done in reality as part of the reorientation of some of the USA’s efforts towards countering China and focusing the European component of the Alliance on deterring Russia. The new European security system is being built as an organic component of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. At this, the USA does not plan to withdraw its troops from Europe.
At the same time, D. Trump has demonstrated his willingness to make and implement tough decisions to protect US interests by military means. In this regard, the USA’s support for Israel’s military operation against Iran in June this year was indicative. Despite the partnership between Russia and Iran, as well as Moscow’s threats regarding the inadmissibility of American intervention in the Israeli-Iranian war, on June 22, the US Air Force and Navy struck Iranian nuclear facilities.
The USA may not have completely disrupted Iran’s nuclear program, but it has certainly set it back significantly. Besides, the USA has shown Iran and other problematic countries that harsh punishment is inevitable if they pose a threat to America and its partners. It also demonstrated Moscow’s inability to intimidate the United States.
In general, this undermined the totalitarian axis of evil which is being created by Russia, which was the main result of Trump’s actions regarding Iran.
The situation surrounding Trump’s mediation in resolving the issue of Russia’s war against Ukraine is more complicated. Until recently, his actions did indeed give the impression that he favored Russia and considered Ukraine to be responsible for starting the war, along with the former US administration headed by Joe Biden. However, this did not mean that he took a pro-Russian position and wanted Russia to win and Ukraine to lose. There were and there are no fundamentally important reasons for this, either from the point of view of Trump’s personal interests or the national interests of the USA.
True, Donald Trump may indeed be interested in implementing certain business projects in Russia, which Moscow is likely to offer him. Among them, Russian experts point out the possibility of selling Gazprom to the United States. This is supposed to attract investment in its development and alleviate Europe’s concerns about its dependence on Russian gas, since Gazprom will become American.
But D. Trump surely understands the unreliability of the Russian Federation as a trading partner. Moreover, Moscow has repeatedly “betrayed” foreign companies operating in Russia. Not to mention the beginning of a large-scale redistribution of business and property in the Russian Federation amid a sharp deterioration of economic problems in the country. Based on the above, Trump may agree to individual deals with Russian businesses, but he will not agree to the implementation of any long-term programs.
Russia is not of fundamental importance to the USA at the state level, which completely distinguishes it from the former USSR. Of course, Washington would like to have positive relations with Russia, but not at the expense of concessions to its imperial ambitions. Moreover, Russia was and remains an adversary as one of the main components of the totalitarian world and the “axis of evil”. At the same time, apart from nuclear blackmail, Moscow has no leverage or pressure on the USA and cannot be useful to it on any strategic issues.
In particular, trade between the USA and Russia was minimal even at the best of times in their relations and can be easily compensated for by American business at the expense of other countries. Moscow cannot give up its partnership with China in favor of the USA, which would be really important for them, because it is completely dependent on China. And Beijing will not allow any steps in the other direction. Cooperation between the USA and Russia in the field of missile and nuclear arms limitations and control has lost all meaning, as China refuses to participate in this process.
However, Russia was seen by Trump as a more powerful and therefore more interesting country than Ukraine. Therefore, he most likely tried to keep the window of opportunity open for negotiations with Russia and hoped for Putin’s common sense. In line with this approach, Trump refrained from harsh criticism of Moscow’s actions and tightening sanctions against Russia, and also slowed down the provision of military-technical assistance to Ukraine. At the same time, due to his own ambitions, he wanted to accelerate the peace process and actually pushed Ukraine to make concessions. He was not particularly concerned about Ukraine’s fate.
A number of other factors could have had a separate influence on Trump’s position. His attitude to Ukraine was clearly shaped by the Kremlin propaganda narratives, which portray it as a “historical part of Russia” and an “amorphous and corrupt state entity” that “uses military force against its own population”. In addition, Ukraine found itself at the forefront of his political struggle against Joe Biden. Therefore, in contrast to Biden’s policy of supporting Ukraine, Trump demonstratively opposed it.
Putin used these circumstances to drag out negotiations and intensify offensive actions with the aim of capturing as much Ukrainian territory as possible and forcing Ukraine to surrender. Recently, this issue has become especially relevant for Moscow due to the critical deterioration of the Russian economy, as a result of which it is losing the ability to continue the war. Therefore, Russia has also intensified its terrorist strikes on Ukraine with the massive use of missiles and UAVs, which was supposed to be an additional factor influencing the leadership and population of our state.
However, such actions by Moscow not only failed to achieve its goals, but also led to negative consequences for it, namely, they demonstrated the impossibility of constructive dialogue with Russia and its disregard for the United States. This dealt a blow to the authority of Donald Trump personally, as the leader of the world’s leading power, and to his efforts to restore America’s dominant role in the system of international relations.
This was the reason for Trump’s switching from attempts to negotiate with Putin to open pressure on him. As is well known, he made a series of harsh statements regarding the Kremlin, resumed arms supplies to Ukraine, and initiated the process of the US Congress adopting a new package of critical sanctions against Russia.
The final influence on Trump’s decision was obviously exerted by American political circles, including the leadership of his Republican Party. Lately, they have shown increasing concern about Trump’s flirtation with Russia, which has created a real threat of defeat for the Republicans in the 2026 US midterm elections. Given the support for Ukraine among the majority of Americans, the negative consequences of such a policy by the US President outweigh all his foreign policy achievements mentioned above.
In general, the circumstances described above demonstrate the well-considered nature of Trump’s decisions regarding Ukraine and Russia, which are based on the realities of the situation. Therefore, they are likely to be implemented properly, rather than becoming empty declarations.
If the USA confirms its determination on this issue, it will also contribute to closer European unity in strengthening sanctions pressure on Russia. In particular, together with the USA, the EU leadership will be able to force the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia to stop blocking European Union measures to impose new sanctions against Russia and support Ukraine.
Thus, the policy of US President Donald Trump, which created the impression of adventurism, chaos, and misunderstanding of the situation, is in fact consistent and tough, aimed at restoring American dominance in the world.
Currently, Trump has forced all other countries to reckon with the USA through trade wars. At the same time, his use of military force against Iran has also demonstrated his willingness to take tough action to defend American interests. This is confirmed by Trump’s transition to decisive steps to force Russia to make peace.
Overall, Trump’s policies give hope that he will be able to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine and curb the strengthening of totalitarian regimes around the world. At the same time, this process will be extremely difficult and will require significant efforts from the USA and Europe, as well as their partners, first of all, Ukraine.
The article deliberately does not address the issue of the impact of Trump’s policies on the domestic situation in the USA. This is a separate topic that requires detailed study. Perhaps this will be done later.
At the same time, judging by all appearances, nothing particularly frightening is happening there either. The claims about the critical nature of the problems and the possibility of civil war in the USA are just the usual exaggerations of the media and Trump’s opponents.
At least, the protests that recently took place in the USA were nowhere near as big as the Ukrainian Maidan protests.
Yurii Ilchenko,
Institute of Global Politics
