Fareed Zakaria raked President Donald Trump over the coals in The Washington Post Friday for his “dangerous fantasy” that he can still negotiate rationally with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
There is no placating Putin, said Zakaria; he only wants the destruction of America, and he has proven this time and time again.
“It is worth recalling a lesson about Putin learned by another businessman turned government official — Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. As treasury secretary, Paulson visited Beijing for the Olympics in August 2008, just as the global financial crisis was gathering force and markets were increasingly worried about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant institutions that guarantee most mortgages in the United States.” When he arrived, he learned that Putin’s government actually proposed Russia and China “dump large quantities of Fannie and Freddie securities” to destabilize them further — a plan China didn’t indulge.
“Think about what this says,” wrote Zakaria. “At a moment when the American financial system was approaching its worst crisis since the Great Depression, Putin was searching for ways to hit America when it was down — even though a deeper American crash would inevitably have damaged the rest of the world, including Russia. Putin appeared willing to risk a lose-lose outcome, as long as the U.S. lost badly.”
A businessman would never make that kind of decision, he said — yet Trump remains convinced he can deal with Putin the way he dealt with competitors in business.
Trump’s allies, he concluded, “see a businessman looking for a win-win. Putin’s record suggests that he is something very different: a man who has repeatedly been willing to impose costs on Russia, destabilize other countries and risk losses if doing so weakens the U.S. Hank Paulson learned that lesson in Beijing 18 years ago. It would be useful if America’s current businessmen-diplomats learned it in Moscow.”
Trump has repeatedly gone to and from the table to try to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At times, even he has appeared close to out of patience with Putin, but at other times he has pushed for “peace” plans that would be huge giveaways to Russia.
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