Someone at a Trump rally yelled that at him. Let’s examine the evidence.
Paul Manafort, the campaign manager for Trump, was on a “black money” list receiving 12 million dollars from the former pro Putin Ukrainian government. The current Ukrainian government is finding massive corruption from the previous government and this guys hands were all over it. He also has decades of major business and political ties to the Ruskies. There are a number of other top advisors also in the Trump campaign that have decades of business and political ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs. Trump’s own extensive Ruskie business interests and debts to Russian banks are three decades old. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., said in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” Unfortunately we don’t know the extent of those business dealings and banking debts because Trump will not release his tax returns.
But we do see Trump making proposals to massively change America’s global commitments and international security strategy. He speaks of abandoning NATO and NW Pacific commitments and adopting a pro Russia foreign policy. He thinks it’s ok if Russia keeps Crimea and not a problem if it invades the Baltic states. He wants to give Russia a free hand to bomb the Middle East to its heart’s content as long as once in a while a bomb lands on ISIS.
Reflect for a moment the outrage from the right if Hillary proposed abandoning NATO? Imagine the right wing investigations and conspiracy theories if her campaign had the Russian ties Trump’s campaign has. But we are better than that.
None of this makes Trump a Ruskie spy. What is happening here is Trump is allowing his personal business interests to take priority over 70 years of American national security policy. He’s willing to toss away the entire post WWII global order for his financial gain. And his brain dead voters march blindly behind him because “Killary.”
But he wouldn’t gain anyway. Trump is too shallow to understand that abandoning NATO and our commitments in NW Asia will create dangerous instability and uncertainty in the world. Financial markets like stability and Trump’s proposed policies would radically change the geopolitical structure of the world and would crash the global economy. There likely would be major conflicts everywhere as a result.