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United States | Lexington
The real collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin
It may be scarier than their critics long suspected
Aug 14th 2025|5 min read
To DEFY Donald Trump is to court punishment. A rival politician can expect an investigation, an aggravating network may face a lawsuit, a left-leaning university can bid farewell to its public grants, a scrupulous civil servant can count on a pink slip and an independent-minded foreign government, however determined an adversary or stalwart an ally, invites tariffs. Perceived antagonists should also brace for a hail of insults, a lesson in public humiliation to potential transgressors.
Vladimir Putin has been a mysterious exception. Mr Trump has blamed his travails over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on just about everyone but him. He has blamed the war in Ukraine on former President Joe Biden, for supposedly inviting it through weakness, and on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for somehow starting it. Back when Russia invaded in February 2022, Mr Trump praised Mr Putin’s “savvy”.
For months, as Mr Putin made a mockery of Mr Trump’s promises to end the war in a day and of his calls for a ceasefire, the president who once threatened “fire and fury” against North Korea and tariffs as high as 245% against China indulged in no such bluster. He has sounded less formidable than plaintive. “Vladimir, STOP!” he wrote on social media in April. His use of the given name betrayed a touching faith that their shared intimacy would matter to his reptilian counterpart, too.
When Mr Putin kept killing Ukrainians, Mr Trump took a step that was even less characteristic: he admitted to the world that he had been played for a fool. “Maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” he mused on April 26th. A month later, he ventured that his friend must have changed, gone “absolutely CRAZY!” Then on July 8th he acknowledged what should have been obvious from the start: “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” Mr Trump threatened secondary sanctions on Russia but then leapt at Mr
Putin’s latest mixed messages about peace, rewarding him with a summit in America.
Why, with this man, has Mr Trump been so accommodating? Efforts by journalists, congressional investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint the reason have often proved exercises in self-defeat and sorrow. The pattern seemed sinister: Mr Trump praised Mr Putin on television as far back as 2007; invited him to the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013 and wondered on Twitter if he would be his “new best friend”; sought his help to build a tower in Moscow from 2013 to 2016; and tried unsuccessfully many times in 2015 to secure a meeting with him. Then came Russia’s interference in the election in 2016, including its hack of Democrats’ emails to undermine the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some journalists fanned suspicions of a conspiracy—“collusion” became the watchword—by spreading claims Mr Putin was blackmailing Mr Trump with an obscene videotape. The source proved to be a rumour compiled in research to help Mrs Clinton.
Nine years later Mr Putin’s low-budget meddling still rewards America’s foes by poisoning its politics and distracting its leaders. Pam Bondi, the attorney-general, has started a grand-jury investigation into what Mr Trump called treason by Barack Obama and others in his administration. The basis is a misrepresentation of an intelligence finding in the waning days of Mr Obama’s presidency. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has said that because Mr Putin did not hack voting machines, the finding that he tried to help Mr Trump was a lie. The conclusion under Mr Obama was instead that Mr Putin tried to affect the election by influencing public opinion.
The exhaustive report released in 2019 by an independent counsel, Robert Mueller, affirmed on its first page that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Mr Mueller indicted numerous Russians, and he also secured guilty pleas from some Trump aides for violating various laws. But he did not conclude the campaign “conspired or co-ordinated” with the Russians.
To wade through the report’s two volumes is to be reminded how malicious the Russians were and how shambolic Mr Trump’s campaign was. It is also to lament the time and energy spent, given how little proof was found to support the superheated suspicions. And it is to regret how little Mr Trump was accorded a presumption of innocence. In the final words of the report, Mr Mueller noted that while it did not accuse Mr Trump of a crime, it also did “not exonerate him”. One might understand his bitterness.
The puzzle of Mr Trump’s admiration for Mr Putin may have been better addressed by psychologists. Certainly Mr Putin, the seasoned KGB operative, has known how to play to his vulnerabilities, including vanity. Mr Trump was said to be “clearly touched” by a kitschy portrait of himself Mr Putin gave him in March.
Putin on the blitz
Yet that patronising speculation may be unfair to Mr Trump, too. It certainly understates the hazard. He has weighty reasons to identify with Mr Putin. Since the 1930s a cornerstone of American foreign policy has been that no country can gain territory by force, a principle also enshrined in the charter of the United Nations. Yet in his first term, in pursuit of his vision of Middle East peace, Mr Trump twice granted American recognition of conquered territory, for Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights and Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara. He appears to envisage an end to the war in Ukraine that would also award Russia new territory.
This is how “savvy” people like Mr Trump and Mr Putin believe the world actually works, or ought to: not according to rules confected by stripy-pants diplomats to preserve an international order, but in deference to power exercised by great men. A world hostage to that theory may be the legacy of their true collusion.
川普與普丁之間真正的「合作」
或許比批評者原先懷疑的更可怕
2025年8月14日｜閱讀時間約5分鐘
挑戰唐納·川普，往往等於自找麻煩。
一位政壇對手可能會遭到調查，一家不順眼的媒體可能被告上法庭，一所左傾大學可能失去政府資助，一名堅持原則的公務員可能拿到解僱通知；而若是一個獨立自主的外國政府，不論是盟友還是敵人，也得準備面對關稅報復。任何被川普視為敵對的人，都要提防公開羞辱與一連串的嘲諷。
然而，弗拉基米爾·普丁卻一直是個神秘的例外。
川普對於2016年俄羅斯干預美國大選的麻煩，幾乎怪遍了所有人，卻從不怪普丁。他把烏克蘭戰爭歸咎於前總統拜登，認為拜登的「軟弱」招致戰火；也怪烏克蘭總統澤連斯基，說他 somehow 是挑起戰爭的人。當俄軍在2022年2月入侵時，川普還稱讚普丁「精明」。
數月以來，普丁不斷嘲笑川普「一天內結束戰爭」的承諾，也無視他呼籲停火的喊話。這位曾經對北韓放話「烈火與怒火」、對中國威脅高達245%關稅的總統，如今卻顯得軟弱而哀求。今年四月，他在社群媒體上寫下：「Vladimir，停手吧！」直接喊對方名字，彷彿相信兩人的私交能打動這位冷血的前克格勃。
當普丁繼續轟炸烏克蘭時，川普做了一件更罕見的事：他承認自己被耍了。
「也許他根本不想停戰，只是在拖我時間。」川普在4月26日這樣嘆道。一個月後，他甚至說普丁「完全瘋了！」到7月8日，他終於承認：「他一直表現得很友善，但結果毫無意義。」川普雖然放話要對俄國加碼制裁，但不久又被普丁若即若離的「和平」訊號所打動，立刻邀請他來美國舉行高峰會。
為什麼川普在普丁面前總是這麼低聲下氣？
多年來，媒體、國會調查與檢察官都想找出答案，卻往往徒勞無功。這段關係看起來確實可疑：早在2007年，川普就在電視上稱讚普丁；2013年邀請他出席莫斯科的環球小姐選美，還在推特上問他會不會成為「新好朋友」；2013到2016年間，他努力推動莫斯科川普大樓計畫；2015年多次想安排與普丁會面卻失敗。接著就是2016年大選，俄國駭入民主黨郵件、打擊希拉蕊·柯林頓。部分記者更傳出普丁握有川普「不雅錄影帶」勒索他的謠言，後來證實只是競選對手聘請的研究拼湊而成。
九年後，普丁低成本的干預仍然持續製造混亂，削弱美國政治。
司法部長潘·龐迪已經著手大陪審團調查，指控歐巴馬政府「叛國」。依據的卻是對當年情報的一個扭曲解讀。情報總監圖爾西·蓋伯德甚至聲稱，既然俄國沒有入侵投票機，當年「普丁想幫助川普」的結論就是謊言。其實，歐巴馬政府的原始判斷是：普丁透過輿論操作，意圖影響大選。
2019年，特別檢察官穆勒的報告開宗明義寫道：「俄羅斯政府認為川普當選有利於它，並努力促成這個結果。」
穆勒起訴了多名俄國人，也讓一些川普幕僚因觸法認罪。但他並未認定川普陣營「共謀或協調」俄方行動。讀完那兩卷厚重的報告，人們不僅看到俄國的惡意、川普團隊的混亂，也不得不感嘆：投入的時間與精力與證據不成比例，結果只是空轉。報告最後一句話更留下餘韻：「本報告不指控川普犯罪，但也不為他洗清嫌疑。」可以理解為何川普心存怨恨。
或許，川普對普丁的迷戀更適合交給心理學家解釋。
普丁這位老練的前特務，非常懂得如何迎合川普的弱點，尤其是他的虛榮心。據說，今年三月普丁送給川普一幅俗氣的肖像畫，他看了「非常感動」。
不過，把這解釋為單純的個性缺陷，可能也低估了危險。川普與普丁其實有深層的共同點。
自1930年代以來，美國外交政策的一大基石，就是「不能透過武力獲取領土」，這一點也寫進了聯合國憲章。但川普在第一任期卻打破慣例：承認以色列對戈蘭高地的主權，承認摩洛哥對西撒哈拉的主權。他如今似乎打算讓俄國在烏克蘭戰爭中也保有新的領土。
這正是川普與普丁眼中的「聰明」世界：不是依靠國際秩序與外交規則，而是由強人憑藉權力決定邊界。
如果世界最終被這種理論所俘虜，那才是真正的「合作」遺產。
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