In March, Scottish journalist Andrew Neil — known for being a staunch conservative — expressed his frustration with U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign policy when he lamented, "I think, in some ways, he regards (Russian President Vladimir) Putin as more of an ally than he regards the United Kingdom or any of his European NATO allies."
Neil complained, "He slapped tariffs on all of his allies. He didn't put tariffs on Russia. And he's helped to bail out Russia now with what he's done on the price of oil."
Neil isn't the only one who views Trump as more favorable to Putin than to longtime North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies of the United States. MS NOW host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, lamented, during an April 7 rant, that "the Republicans I grew up with" who "believed in a strong west" have "vanished" and been replaced by admirers of Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In an essay/opinion column published on April 7, the New York Times' Thomas B. Edsall laments that Trump's fondness for Putin hasn't gone away.
"Events over two days last month — Friday, March 6, and Saturday, March 7 — demonstrated President Trump's willingness to sacrifice American interests in subservience to President Vladimir Putin of Russia," Edsall argues. "On that Friday, the Washington Post reporters Noah Robertson, Ellen Nakashima and Warren P. Strobel revealed that 'Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East.' The next day, Trump attended the transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware of the flag-draped coffins of six U.S. members of the Army Reserve killed by a kamikaze drone strike at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait. An inevitable, but unanswerable, question: Was the drone strike guided by information Russia provided to Iran?"
Edsall notes that the Trump White House staff "followed orders to tow Trump's line" on Putin and Iran.
"His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that the Russia-Iran intelligence sharing 'is not making any difference with respect to the military operations in Iran,'" Edsall explains. "She declined to say whether Trump has discussed the issue with Putin or whether the administration would pursue repercussions…. Trump's deference not just to Putin' but to other authoritarian leaders' has repeatedly and profoundly corrupted American foreign policy."
In an interview, Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, told Edsall, "Trump does seem attracted to Putin as a strongman ruler. He seems more comfortable with — and gives more credence to — Putin than with leaders of America's democratic allies or with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine."
Former National Security Council (NSC) official Fiona Hill is also frustrated by Trump's affinity for Putin.
Hill recently told the BBC, "Well, I think the first thing to disavow everybody of is the idea that there is a relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. I think that's part of the problem, because Trump would like a relationship with Putin, and that's exactly why he doesn't criticize him. It's a kind of unrequited love of some description. You know, everyone keeps talking about bromance. He hasn't even got there. And you know, Putin is very good at playing hard to get, incredibly hard to get. And this drives Trump mad, because he never gets what he wants off Putin, which is really adulation, respect."
