National Security Adviser John Bolton looks on as President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the G-7 summit, Saturday, June 9, 2018, in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada. Trump's statements at the summit calling for Russia's readmission to the group of industrialized nations after its expulsion following the 2014 Crimea annexation, and a reported comment by Trump at a G-7 dinner appearing to condone Russia's Crimea actions, added to divisions among allies and to Vladimir Putin's perception that the United States had a degree of tolerance for Russian military aggression, guest columnist George Zadigian writes today. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)AP
ALLIANCE, Ohio -- As our hearts break for the people of Ukraine, it is imperative that we wrap our heads around the fact that this is the price of supporting a president who stridently promoted “America First.” This is the price of supporting a president who cast doubt on America’s commitment to NATO and weakened its deterrent strength. This is the price of supporting a president and his enablers who divided us here at home and made us weak in the eyes of adversaries. This is the price of supporting a president who accepted Russian interference in our elections and chose to support Vladimir Putin’s account of that election over the findings of our CIA.
This is also the price of letting a president get away with holding military aid to Ukraine hostage to his attempt to get political dirt on an election rival. And this is the price of supporting a president who aligned himself with aggressive authoritarians and actively promoted selfishness and self-interest here at home and before the United Nations.
While some may say that such a view is just “Monday morning quarterbacking,” the facts are that many of us steeped in foreign policy warned at the time of the risks Trump was creating by ripping up foreign policy agreements, casting doubt on our commitment to allies, and cozying up to authoritarians like Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
As a conservative, a Republican and a student of foreign policy for over 40 years, never have I seen anything like the set of self-inflicted wounds former President Donald Trump wrought upon us. Never in the history of the world has a global hegemon withdrawn from its position of power and responsibilities like the United States did during the Trump presidency.
Setting aside Trump’s ties to Putin prior to 2016, during the 2016 election, members of Trump’s campaign team accepted and sought to coordinate with Russian nationals seeking to interfere in our elections, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Mueller report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In 2017, Trump chose to side with Putin’s denial of electoral interference over the assessment of our CIA, an agency full of extraordinarily bright and patriotic Americans.
In 2017, Trump also began a long string of confrontations with NATO heads of state over defense spending. After years of bullying and threatening our NATO allies, in June 2020, Trump ordered the withdrawal of 12,000 U.S. troops from Europe to the “dismay”of allies who said it “undermined NATO and boosted adversaries like Russia,” as The Wall Street Journal summed it up. (President Joe Biden froze the withdrawal order after he took office.)
Sadly, Trump’s bullying of NATO allies wasn’t limited to military spending. In March 2018, Trump began a trade war with NATO allies, imposing tariffs on industrial and consumer products, while also targeting other trading partners, including China.
Given Putin’s primary goal of weakening NATO, former National Security Adviser John Bolton summed up why Putin didn’t invade Ukraine during Trump’s presidency: “Putin saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him.”
In June 2018, during a dinner of G-7 diplomats in Quebec, Canada, Trump appeared to condone Putin’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea by saying that Crimea was Russian because everyone there spoke Russian, Buzzfeed news reported at the time, citing two diplomatic sources at the dinner. That assertion, and Trump’s statement during that meeting that Russia should be readmitted to the G-7 (it had been expelled after the Crimea annexation), demonstrated to Putin a degree of U.S. tolerance for Russian military aggression.
In 2019, Trump delayed for months $391 million in defensive U.S. military aid to Ukraine, apparently holding it hostage to receiving political dirt on Biden. While the funds were eventually released after a whistleblower complaint, and Trump was impeached, adversaries were watching a divided America and a president with little commitment to allies.
George R. Zadigian is a retired construction and engineering project manager.
As we witness the immense suffering of the Ukrainian people, it’s imperative that we remember that, when American “leaders” distance us from allies, choose to put their personal interests above the security of our nation and allies, and elevate short-term considerations and self-interest to thoroughly dominate decision-making, the consequences will often be devastating.
“America First,” and those who supported and enabled such a mindset and the man behind it, laid the groundwork for what we are witnessing today. May we never do this again.
George Zadigian is a retired engineering manager who writes frequently on political topics.
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