Is Donald Trump a Man to Mend US Relations With Russia?
Guest Article
Sputnik
August 24, 2015
US Presidential Candidate Donald Trump
According to Donald Trump, the United States has recently ruined its relations not only with Russia but with countries throughout the world; “Nobody like us… we are like a big bully,” Trump said.
In an interview with Fox News Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, emphasized that he could have normalized relations with Russia; Trump added that Washington had ruined relations with almost everybody in the world, “nobody likes us,” the politician noted, “we are like a big bully.”
“I think that Putin, frankly, is somebody I actually can get alone with… You know I had a big event in Moscow about two years ago, I think I had very good relationship with Putin and it’s ridiculous what’s happening,” Trump said in a reference to the current cooling in relations between the Kremlin and Washington.
It is not the first time Trump has said that Russian President Putin is someone “that can be dealt with” and pledged that he will try to mend fences with Russia if he is elected the next US president. Trump’s pro-Russian rhetoric has already attracted the attention of experts and political analysts.
So what if Trump wins the US presidential race? Would it usher in an era of a new US-Russian reset?
According to some Western analysts, Trump would be a “Godsend” for Russia, others suggest that Trump is “America’s Putin”; on the other hand, some experts even go so far as to claim that the Kremlin will just “eat Trump for lunch” if the Republican candidate assumed the high position.
So, is Trump really that pro-Russian?
Avigdor Eskin
Donald Trump “is pro-American, and he understands that American interests are very different from what Barack Obama perceives as American interests, or Hillary Clinton. As far as Russia is concerned, Donald Trump understands what American interests are. And when he says that he wants to make a deal with Mr. Putin, and to do business with the Russian president, he means business, as a businessman,” Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin told Sputnik in a recent interview. However, that does not mean that Trump would support Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Middle East or Latin America, he noted.
Edward Lozansky (–russiahouse.org)
In his Op-Ed for Sputnik Edward Lozansky, the President and Founder of the American University in Moscow, stressed that he “would give him [Trump] a chance.”
Among American hawkish policymakers Trump sounds like the only pragmatist who is really concerned with US national interests. “As for the huge crowd of presidential candidates, it looks like so far the only one who promises to fix the US-Russia relations thus avoiding a looming disaster is Donald Trump,” the expert underscored.
Excerpt from a Related Article:
Avigdor Eskin (news.az)
Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin explained in an exclusive interview with Radio Sputnik why the politics of US business magnate Donald Trump are proving so appealing to the electorate during his GOP US presidential campaign, and how national interests are also the motivation for Israeli military action at the border with Syria.
Sputnik: Can we call Donald Trump pro-Russian, and what is his real position on Russia and the crisis in Ukraine? How does American public opinion reflect his position?
Avigdor Eskin: When somebody calls Donald Trump pro-Russian, let me tell you a very short story from Washington, in 1982 or 1983. There was an attempt by the CIA to blow up something in Nicaragua, and the operation failed. The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Barry Goldwater, who was the arch anticommunist as you remember, made a statement against this CIA operation, and I remember somebody from the young Republicans getting up and saying, “Oh, Barry Goldwater is a Communist!”
Donald Trump (–Reuters/Rick Wilkin)
So, as much as Barry Goldwater is a Communist, Donald Trump is in a sense pro-Russian. But, he is pro-American, and he understands that American interests are very different from what Barack Obama perceives as American interests, or Hillary Clinton.
He was very simple, smart to say that the Ukrainian issue should be dealt with by Ukrainians, Russians, should be dealt with basically by the Europeans.
As far as Russia is concerned, Donald Trump understands what American interests are. And when he says that he wants to make a deal with Mr. Putin, and to do business with the Russian president, he means business, as a businessman.
And when he speaks about Ukraine, he cannot understand what the US interests are.
He knows what the American public wants to hear, and that’s a very important point. It’s not just that he thinks this way, but he knows that the American public wants to hear that America has nothing to do in Ukraine, and that it’s much better to be friendly to such a person as the Russian president, who is basically a very reasonable, peaceful man, who just wants his country to be safe.
He didn’t go to defend Russian interests somewhere in Nicaragua, and he didn’t go to Cuba to defend Russian interests, as the American president does in Libya, in Syria, quite far away from Washington D.C.
So this is the logic of Donald Trump, and this logic is picked up by other candidates. You don’t hear, during this election campaign, any anti-Russian rhetoric. You hear rather the appeasement rhetoric – from those who are on the right. Very interesting.
Sputnik: It’s a really good point that you mention, that Donald Trump is first and foremost a businessman.
Avigdor Eskin: Absolutely – an American businessman.
Impact of a Donald Trump Presidency on Donbass
by Kennedy Applebaum
Quemado Institute
My perspective on Trump is that he is a reasonable man. Reason is the key to peace. Wars do not have to happen, and if people simply reason in a thoughtful way, the tensions that create wars evaporate. Of course, the reasoning has to be powerful; appeasement is pure folly.
True reason finds a “third solution” that satisfies the needs of everyone while avoiding conflict at the same time. Its a matter of intelligent bargaining, and a business mogul such as Trump has plenty of experience in that area.
The first article above poses questions about Trump’s potential impact: “According to some Western analysts, Trump would be a ‘Godsend’ for Russia, others suggest that Trump is ‘America’s Putin’; on the other hand, some experts even go so far as to claim that the Kremlin will just ‘eat Trump for lunch’ if the Republican candidate assumed the high position. So, is Trump really that pro-Russian?”
Trump would be a “Godsend” for Russia in the sense that Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov and Vitaly Churkin would no longer have to deal with insanely rabid and bigoted figures such as Barack Obama, Victoria Nuland and Samantha Power. It would not, of course, mean the US would try to appease Russia. To infer an American giveaway to Russia would be a misconstrual of Trump’s pragmatic intentions.
About Trump being “America’s Putin”, there is some basis for the analogy. Donald Trump would likely elevate the economy and raise US stature by earning the world’s respect, much as Putin did for Russia. The analogy, however, may not go much further.
The absurd idea that “the Kremlin would just eat Trump for lunch” is a paranoid reflex reaction typical of neocons. If anyone can stand up to the Kremlin, it is Trump.
So is Trump “pro-Russian”? No, he’s “pro-reason”.
The most critical question that goes unasked: Would a Trump presidency be good for Donbass? The answer is: absolutely. A cessation of US meddling in the corrupt affairs of the Ukrainian post-coup government can only weaken Kiev’s resolve to decimate the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics by means of force. Insofar as the US has pressured Kiev, through military, financial and political favors, to serve American corporate and banking interests, the collapse of that support would force Kiev to realistically assess its terrorist policies toward its former citizens in the east, and usher in the chance for a peaceful settlement that works for the people of Donbass.
Quemado Institute 
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