U.S. President D. Trump: good for Russia or bad?

Donald Trump has, after all, become president.

In the United States, and now in Russia as well, of course everyone

is interested in one question: is this good or

bad, and how will it affect our

country? At the same time, for some reason many people

have a firm conviction that

Trump’s election is practically a gift

for Putin’s regime. I do not claim to be

some great political analyst or expert

on U.S. domestic politics, but nevertheless

I would like to give my opinion on this

topic. It does not seem to me that Trump’s victory

will bring any special happiness to the Kremlin, and I

do not think it will contribute to a quick

thaw in Russian-American

relations. Let’s look at the facts

from Trump’s campaign platform and from his

perhaps most important speech, which he

delivered on October 20 in the city of

Gettysburg. In the description of this video there are

links to Russian texts, so you can

read everything and verify it for yourselves.

The first and main conclusion we can

draw is that it is quite likely the president

of the United States, through his actions,

will lower the price of oil. He states directly

that he will remove restrictions on the extraction

of oil and gas in the U.S. And that country has

enormous reserves of raw materials; it’s just that all

previous presidents artificially

held back production and development. Trump

says outright that he will support

oil infrastructure projects such

as pipelines. And in general, he will not

be especially committed to fighting for new sources of

energy, which means that oil producers

in America will most likely find it easier to extract oil and gas,

including shale resources, and it will be easier to

export them. Until recently, the export of

oil from the U.S. was completely banned. In

the long run, this will most likely lower

oil prices. And I want to remind you, my

dear friends, that oil and gas

still account for up to half

of Russia’s federal budget revenues, and

already on the news of the election of

Donald Trump, oil prices began to fall

and the ruble, which depends on them, dropped. Second:

foreign policy and sanctions. On

Russian television, for some reason, they

say that Trump will literally start tomorrow

pushing for the lifting of sanctions imposed on

Russia. It is true that he

spoke about this, but only in 2014. But

in October of this year he already said

that he was reconsidering his attitude toward

Russian President Vladimir Putin. He

condemned the Russian bombings in Aleppo.

Moreover, he even allowed for the possibility that his

relations with Putin would be, quote,

“terrible.” Nevertheless, we can

assume that most likely

international ties between Russia and the U.S.

after Trump’s election will be free of, well,

at the very least, that kind of mutual personal

hostility between the countries’ leaders. Third:

the arms race, which simply

drains

money simply in order to maintain

military parity. In addition, the new

vice president-elect is already saying

that he will develop the program of

missile defense, which the Russian leadership

very much dislikes.

Fourth, as politicians in general, Putin and

Trump are simply complete opposites.

On almost every point of their programs, both

large and small. Look: Trump is

for reducing the role of the state and

the number of bureaucrats. Putin is building

state capitalism, and the number

of bureaucrats under him has grown

fantastically. The fight against illegal

immigration and the construction of a wall on the

border with

Mexico is practically the main point

of Trump’s platform, while Putin at the same time

is categorically opposed even to

the mere introduction of a visa regime with

the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The fight

against Islamization—Trump talks about it all

the time, while Putin even quotes some

nonsense about how Orthodoxy is in some

sense closer to Islam. Some

theorists of Christianity say that it is

in many ways

even closer to Islam than

to, say, Catholics. Trump says that he

will practically halt any migration from

Islamic countries where there are problems with

radical movements. Therefore not a single

citizen of Uzbekistan or Tajikistan,

for example, will get a U.S. visa in

the coming years. In Russia, meanwhile, they can

enter not just without a visa, but even without

an international passport. As for firearms in civilian hands, Trump is in favor,

Putin is against. Their positions on abortion are different.

Taxes: Trump said that

he would like to reduce taxes for a

middle-class family with two children by 35%. And

in Putin’s Russia, his government simply

constantly increases the tax burden

both on the middle class and on small business. And

the most important difference in their rhetoric and

their programs is corruption. Trump talks about

fighting corruption and government

lobbyists constantly; he built his campaign

on that. Putin, as you know, avoids the topic

of corruption because it

is simply the foundation of his regime. As for

Chaika (Yury Chaika, former Prosecutor General of Russia), and as for Chaika,

and as for, well, who else, who else—well,

never mind. And so on and so forth. These are

absolutely different politicians. From everything

I’ve just said, one might get the

impression that I have some special fondness for

Trump. But in fact, personally, I really

don’t care at all—it’s an American election.

of the people, and their problems—or, conversely, their successes

will belong to them. Today they elected

one person, tomorrow they will elect another. It simply

I

highlights the political views of Putin

and Trump, and how unconvincing

any talk looks about how

tomorrow they will be outright embracing

kissing and being friends. American

foreign policy, as indeed

European foreign policy, is not a race car

that can quickly change course. It is

rather like a huge loaded tanker

that, even if it wants to stop,

will keep moving by inertia along its previous course

for a very long time. To change

its direction, great

and very precise efforts are needed. And the result will come

quite slowly. Here, look at this example

a great one: in

1974, the United States imposed sanctions on the USSR

under the so-called

Jackson-Vanik amendment, and then the Soviet Union

collapsed, relations improved, and there were no longer any reasons

for the sanctions, yet they were repealed

only in 2012, 38 years later. And

that is why only here, because

one person decides everything. Today we are with

Turkey on friendly terms, tomorrow we are hostile toward it, and

it has stabbed us in the back, and

the day after tomorrow we have forgotten everything and it

is once again our best friend. In a country where there is

a system of checks and balances, this

simply does not work, and changes

in foreign policy are connected with

the long, painstaking work of the Senate,

Congress, the media, non-profit organizations,

expert institutions, and so on.

So my conclusion is rather banal, in

fact: Trump’s victory will bring us

nothing especially good and nothing especially bad. Neither

here nor there. The fate of Russia

truly concerns only us, while for

Trump and everyone else it will be only

the twenty-fifth item on the agenda. If

there is anything we should pay close

attention to, it is the fact that in America

the candidate everyone

pollsters, all experts, all politicians

said would 100% lose, has now won. Just

yesterday all the polls claimed that he was headed for

an inevitable defeat. Nevertheless, people

came to the polling stations, voted as

they wanted, and elected the president

they wanted. That is how it should happen

in real, honest elections. Let us

think less about America and

work to ensure that in our country

someday there are elections with

an unpredictable outcome

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