He sent arms to Ukraine, he expelled 60 Russian diplomats and closed their Seattle consulate, he's gotten NATO members to increase defense spending(although his motivation for doing so is not really to be tough on Russia), and he's increased defense spending here.

Now, it's true that the sanctions were basically forced on him, and his rhetoric towards Russia and Putin is about as weak as it gets. And Trump's rhetoric reveals what he's really thinking. But it's hard to say he's Putin's puppet while he took a step Obama was unwilling to do by sending arms to Ukraine.

There's also a curious grey area where Trump's instinctive foreign policy views align with Russia's interests. Trump has been critical of NATO for decades, he's thought that our allies have taken advantage of us for decades, and he's been somewhat of an isolationist for just as long. So when he withdraws from Syria, Russia likes it, but that's not necessarily why Trump is doing it.

All that said, I still think he's probably compromised.

This post was edited by IceMage on Feb 13 2019 12:55pm

They were one of many that should have held off

What really irks me is the alleged build the wall thing

Doesn't change a thing if they were saying that or not. Their right to scream that into the sky all they want at a protest. It's a silly line that I disagree with but it's their right.

I also dont like how these things become - let's find justification for our wrongs rather than improve in the future-

These kids could be black face wearing racists in their personal lives and it doesn't change the facts of the case.

This is one case of many where each side completely destroys the characters of the incident and everyone just moves on to do it again and again. Nobody wants to correct how we handle these things everyone just wants revenge in one way or another. We do it on jsp, everyone does it on social media, over and over this wild shit goes down the same way each time. One side doxxes the other side doxxes everyone claiming the high ground while everyone fights dirty

This time it involved kids. Definitely should have been a wake up call. It was not

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/13/fec-still-refuses-investigate-alleged-84-million-clinton-campaign-money-laundering/

its a bit of a ponderous read, and it really doesn't amount to anything, but the TLDR is that the FEC is still dragging its feet on the obvious violation by the DNC and Clinton campaign that did its shell game of laundering $84,000,000 in donations through state democratic parties without even the paperwork pretending to be dispersing it to states in most cases, and in several states having a net zero. The trumpers are suing the FEC who counter with lack of standing, but the FEC haven't even taken the cursory step of looking into the complaint to determine if there is a 'reason to believe' from the commissioners which is supposed to be required a complaint to either launch an investigation or dismiss the complaint. And its been over a year now with total inaction even after the lawsuit was filed.

I'm sure that going into 2020 the money laundering won't be so blatant. It wouldn't be hard to just add more onion layers to the shell game and route money between state parties, disperse a % of it, reclaim it at staggered dates, etc, to obfuscate the trail. I mean, organized crime has learned how to do that since the days of speakeasies. But its a total farce that the FEC hasn't acted on the most transparent and well documented case of campaign finance fraud. Whatever methods of making it hard to detect are possible, they didn't do. They just moved money from A->B->C instead of A->C with no attempt to make it look organic or even ensure they crossed every t and dotted every i.

he was pretty pissed about that too apparently
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/16/donald-trump-felt-misled-expulsion-60-russian-diplomats-salisbury/

the 60 spies and diplomats as a reaction to russia's murder of a british citizen in the uk were the bare minimum, and trump fought that as well as he could. like the sanctions, this was forced on him:
https://www.businessinsider.de/trump-wanted-to-expel-fewer-russian-diplomats-2018-4?r=US&IR=T

nato defence spending, and increased domestic defence spending have nothing to do with russia in my opinion. considering his rhetoric towards america's 'allies' and his personal suggestions to them those are clearly motivated by him pandering to the military, its staunch (mostly conservative) supporters, and most importantly the defence industry.

i give you arming ukraine. even though it's just a superficial opposition to russia considering the details of the deal (training facilities in western ukraine, american supervision, explicitly ruling out involvement in the donbass conflict), the sheer proximity and russias public opposition make this a sellable talking point.

but that is really not what i consider being 'tough on russia', let alone 'tougher than former presidents', which is also something you hear from admin spokespeople - because they will never just stop with a medium sized lie...

Yep, I remember that. It seems he's playing a delicate balance between not offending Putin too much and standing up to Russia when he feels it's required.

Congress passed a sanctions bill that would be able to override his veto. The 60 diplomats expelled wasn't a bill, it was his decision. He could've done less.

Trump's motivation for increasing US and NATO defense spending isn't to be tough on Russia, I agree. But those are things that Russia does not like. They are things Russia hawks like Bolton approve of.

My question for you... outside of rhetoric, which is extremely important, what foreign policy moves towards Russia do you think Trump should have taken that he hasn't? Where should he have been tougher? On many moves he's been as tough as any normal president.

This post was edited by IceMage on Feb 13 2019 01:40pm

he didnt take the bait and invade syria after that gas attack by Russia-ally Assad...

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 13 2019 01:58pm

your ancestors including joseph helped forge a non-aggression pact with russia so they could try to take over the world by killing everyone in their way, heinrich von goebbels. your rants here on this matter (or any other subject) are as desirable as the rotten sauerkraut you freebase on a daily basis.

reported, btw