If Donald Trump were a Russian agent, he would be acting just like he is now

Donald Trump is a saint, a holy sort of guy who’s just appalled by the senseless loss of life in Ukraine. All he wants is for the fighting to stop. He’s a simple man of peace. Or is he?

Keir Starmer was probably right to tell the Commons that he welcomed Trump’s “continued commitment to... peace, which nobody in this House should doubt for a second is sincere”. Not, however, because it is true but because it is the diplomatic thing to do.

It is a point on which the UK can choose to agree with Trump and then attempt to bind him to the success or failure of any resulting peace deal. But Starmer’s certainty about Trump’s sincerity sounded like he was over-compensating for something. And it was unfortunate the Prime Minister told MPs the US would not withdraw support from Ukraine just hours before Trump did just that.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's party, explained what he expected would happen as a result of Trump’s “disastrous” decision.

“It’s extremely dangerous because, as far as I know, the suspension also encompasses air defence systems... In Kyiv and other cities, we are being bombarded and shelled by Russia each day and we will see very soon the serious consequences, the dangerous consequences from that...” he told BBC Breakfast. “We’re talking about lives, human lives of Ukrainians. If you stop giving us weaponry, we cannot defend ourselves effectively, we cannot save lives of people.”

Keir Starmer did his best to flatter Donald Trump, presenting him with an invitation from King Charles to make an 'unprecedented' second state visit, but the diplomatic charm offensive may not be working (Picture: Carl Court/pool) | Getty Images

‘Looks like siding with Russia’

The supposedly ‘peace-loving’ Trump’s decision will basically enable Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to kill more innocent people and increase the amount of territory he has conquered. Merezhko, who appealed to Trump to change his mind, also made a point that Starmer dares not to express, at least publicly: “To suspend military aid to Ukraine, it looks like siding with Russia.”

Last week, Ben Wallace, who served as Defence Secretary during the last Conservative government, told CNN that Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to sign a deal over rare earth minerals to compensate the US for its support – freely given by Joe Biden’s administration – was “total extortion”.

I’m not privy to the deal’s details, which Zelensky did not sign, but if Wallace is correct, then essentially Trump is seeking to take a share of the spoils of Putin’s war. This might be an unpleasant businessman’s sharp practice, but it could also be something more sinister.

Given recent events, it is at least worth asking the question whether Trump might be “siding with Russia”, as Merezhko fears. We should allow ourselves to contemplate the worst-case scenario – however far-fetched it might be – and imagine that Trump is a full-blown Russian agent.

Picking fights with allies

How would he have approached his mission? Would he have announced on day one of his presidency that the US was leaving Nato and would join a new Russia-US alliance? That seems unlikely, some groundwork would be required, surely.

Perhaps a few outrageous remarks about taking over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, to make some people doubt his seriousness and become complacent. “Oh, he says a lot of stuff he doesn’t really mean,” they might say or “it’s all part of his negotiating style, he’s a bit unconventional, a loose cannon”.

Then ‘Agent Trump’ might pick a few fights with America’s traditional allies, and throw a few tariffs around. It wouldn’t hurt to arouse American nationalist sentiments by persuading Canadian hockey fans to boo the US national anthem. Failing to rule out military action to take Greenland from Nato ally Denmark might help in a similar way, sparking some strong words from the European Union.

And then Agent Trump might ridiculously blame Zelensky for starting the war, call him a “dictator” and make false statements about his popularity ratings in Ukraine, messages echoed repeatedly on right-wing talk shows in the US. It’s hard to think of anything that Agent Trump could have realistically done, without blowing his cover, that the real Trump has not done.

Subverting democracy

Perhaps the real Trump is not an agent but an accomplice, a fellow traveller. After all, Putin managed to subvert Russian democracy, and Trump tried to do the same in the US.

On January 6, 2021, as Biden’s election as president was being formally approved, he told a crowd of his supporters: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

The usual defence of these remarks is that he was speaking metaphorically and did not mean they should actually fight. The problem is that, when they did as he told them and marched on the Capitol, they started attacking police officers and Trump failed to intervene until long after they had smashed their way into the building.

A crunch-point for US-UK relations

The question of where Trump’s true loyalties lie is a fundamentally important one to the UK. For all Starmer’s rather embarrassing attempts to flatter Trump with a state visit and a meeting with King Charles, his government needs to make a cold, dispassionate assessment of Trump.

The UK Government is about to start buying lots of military equipment and normally many orders would go to US firms. However, if this equipment requires regular software upgrades to function, this would mean the US would basically be able to turn off our weapons systems.

Entering into such a deal requires supreme confidence that Trump’s US is our ally, while failing to ‘buy American’ would doubtless anger the US President.

A crunch-point in US-UK relations is approaching and it comes down to this: do we really trust Trump, a convicted felon who boasted about sexually assaulting women and was found by a civil court to have done just that, who tried but failed to subvert US democracy, who tells lies about Zelensky being a “dictator”, and who talks about locking up his political opponents? The answer to that question should be “no”.