Trump’s team is waking up to the reality of rivalry with Russia
While the contemporary American right has tended to differentiate China’s aims from Russia’s, that position is looking increasingly untenable
This may surprise some observers, especially critics of Trump who consider him supportive of Putin’s aims. The view that Trump sympathises with Russia, or is perhaps compromised by it, has never gone out of style, even though there have always been problems with the theory.
The first Trump administration included Republican politicians who were more opposed to Putin’s government than the US president himself, including then vice-president Mike Pence, Central Intelligence Agency director-turned-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, UN ambassador Nikki Haley and defence secretary James Mattis – the latter of whom declared Russia a “strategic competitor”.