Previous U.S. intelligence assessments dating to 2016 concluded that Russia sought to weaken support for the Democratic Party and boost Donald Trump’s candidacy.
This is a super naive way of looking at geopolitics, especially regarding China. We are their biggest trade ally. If the US crumbles, both of our economies implode. Trump wants to put insane tariffs on our imports from China. An economically strong US is to China’s benefit since we are their single biggest trade ally (comparable to the entire European Union, which includes major trade allies as well). A strong US is not “China’s biggest hurdle.”
Russia geopolitically benefits from Trump in power because, among other things, Trump is fine letting Russia continue to ravage Ukraine with war and wants to pull us out of NATO (or at least cut funding to it). We don’t have strong trade relations with Russia so they aren’t directly affected if we economically flounder (the weak trade relations is why the sanctions on Russia did basically nothing long-term; Russia was already doing very little trade with the US).
China is not interested in “destabilizing the west.” They would obviously benefit from being the economic center of the world, but they get there via strong geopolitical and economic relations with other relevant countries (which means not trying to cause those countries to collapse). Russia has less incentive to avoid causing turmoil in the US and EU, but right now it would very directly benefit from a Trump presidency, which in this case would be the driver behind Russia’s decision to help put Trump back in power.
This is a super naive way of looking at geopolitics, especially regarding China. We are their biggest trade ally. If the US crumbles, both of our economies implode. Trump wants to put insane tariffs on our imports from China. An economically strong US is to China’s benefit since we are their single biggest trade ally (comparable to the entire European Union, which includes major trade allies as well). A strong US is not “China’s biggest hurdle.”
Russia geopolitically benefits from Trump in power because, among other things, Trump is fine letting Russia continue to ravage Ukraine with war and wants to pull us out of NATO (or at least cut funding to it). We don’t have strong trade relations with Russia so they aren’t directly affected if we economically flounder (the weak trade relations is why the sanctions on Russia did basically nothing long-term; Russia was already doing very little trade with the US).
China is not interested in “destabilizing the west.” They would obviously benefit from being the economic center of the world, but they get there via strong geopolitical and economic relations with other relevant countries (which means not trying to cause those countries to collapse). Russia has less incentive to avoid causing turmoil in the US and EU, but right now it would very directly benefit from a Trump presidency, which in this case would be the driver behind Russia’s decision to help put Trump back in power.