Donald Trump congratulates Putin yet again: There is a method in his madness

He was criticised earlier for congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his one-sided victory in the March 18 elections. US President Donald Trump had disregarded the advice of his aides and went ahead to wish his Russian counterpart and even expressed hope of holding a summit with him in the US.

On Monday, May 7, Trump congratulated Putin again on the day of the inauguration of his fourth term, PTI reported. Putin's latest term will make him the longest-serving Russian head of state since Joseph Stalin.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Huckabee said in her daily news conference on Monday that Trump congratulated Putin and looked forward to the time when the US "could hopefully have a good relationship with Russia", PTI reported. "However, the United States believes that everyone has a right to be heard and assemble peacefully," the PTI report quoted him as saying.

The press secretary also used the occasion to take a dig at the Democrats saying they were using the Russia investigation as an excuse for their defeat in the 2016 presidential poll.

"I think he thinks that the idea that this narrative continues to be driven. The fact that, a year-and-a-half later, after spending most all of your time, every single day, looking into this and still finding nothing, the fact that we're still talking about it and has the potential to impact the 2018 election," Huckabee said, according to the PTI report.

"The point he's making is how ridiculous it is that we're still having this conversation and the depths to which this research has gone on and investigation has been conducted and still produced nothing," she said, the report added.

Trump's Russia policy: Insane or balanced?

Trump's Russia policy has come under strong criticism with many saying he has been soft on the Kremlin, even to the extent of helplessness.

Trump, on his part, has said he has been tougher on Putin more than anybody else and has rubbished the charges of him having a collusion with Moscow during the 2016 presidential election to ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent who Putin hates to the hilt.

More issue-based than eternal enmity?

Trump's policy on Russia has been more issue-based than a complete black or white and that makes him look more inconsistent. Trump personally wants a good relationship with Putin, who is now empowered for another six years, but Washington's foreign policy has of late found a threat in the Russian president more than a friend.

US-Russia relations saw a low recently over Skripals' poisoning & Syria

The US-Russia relations saw a low recently even after Trump congratulated Putin on his electoral victory, thanks to the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK and the alleged use of chemical weapons by the dictatorial regime of Syria against its own people in early April in a quest to eliminate the rebels from their last remaining bastion.

The two incidents saw major diplomatic and military retaliations on behalf of the West, including the US.

While Washington gave marching orders to several Russian diplomats from the US and also the UN office in New York besides shutting down the Russian consulate in Seattle in tune with many European states, it joined France and the UK to conduct a missile strike on Syria's chemical weapons facilities to penalise the Bashar al-Assad regime.

One of the targets of this aggression was also Russia who Trump had threatened against conniving with the Assad regime, its ally.

But Trump did not go for fresh sanctions on Russia

But it is also important to note that Trump refused to impose fresh sanctions on Russia over the Syria incident when asked, saying they were not required since Russia's response was not alarming. He even did not care for saving his administration's face in the UN where the American ambassador Nikki Haley warned of more attacks only to find herself deserted by her own administration which said she might have got momentarily confused.

The US media plunged onto the anti-Trump bandwagon after this episode and sympathised with Haley. There were also allegations that Trump is more concerned with his business interests with Russia and hence hesitant to take on Putin head on. He has also been accused of not confronting Russia on issues like annexation of Crimea and the poisoning of the spy in the UK, which his critics said only exposed his weakness as the leader of the US. But if one reads Huckabee's latest statement, there was an indirect dig at the recent crackdown by the Russian police on protesters who disapproved of Putin's re-election.

Trump's foreign policy is not an all-inclusive one

Going by Trump's record in foreign policy so far, he has not really been into roaming around with a stick to push other nations, something that Washington has become synonymous with over the years. Trump has shown that he is not keen over protecting others, even if they are traditional allies of the US, and is more engaged in serving what is directly related to the US's own interests, for example, trade and immigration.

This is not entirely a zero policy. Trump's unique measures in foreign affairs and the way he conducts them look unusual and hence bizarre but if he can keep the intensity of disputes low in bilateral relations with other powers, he is doing some service to world peace than many so-called liberals.