BY OLIVIA BEAVERS, The Hill
Russia is pushing back on President Trump‘s newly rolled out national security strategy, describing the policy as “imperialist” in nature, Reuters reported.
“A quick read of the parts of the strategy that mention our country one way or another … [shows] an imperialist character,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday.
He added that the approach exhibits “an unwillingness to give up the idea of a unipolar world, moreover, an insistent unwillingness, disregard for a multipolar world.”
The remarks come after Trump, in a policy release, said the U.S. could face confrontations with “revisionist” powers like Russia and China that are working against U.S. interests, while also stating in a speech that he wants to form a “great partnership” with them.
In the president’s “America First” strategy, Trump claims both countries are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity” while also seeking “to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”
Peskov dismissed those claims but agreed that there is more room for cooperation between Moscow and Washington.
“We can not agree with an attitude that sees our country as a threat to the United States,” Peskov said, according to the report.
“At the same time, there are some modestly positive aspects, in particular, the readiness to cooperate in areas that correspond to American interests,” he said.
The Chinese government on Tuesday also slammed the strategy, calling it “selfish” and warning that advocating rivalry between the U.S. and other states “will lead to failure.”
While Trump did not specifically accuse Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, as the U.S. intelligence community widely believes, the president did nod at the long held view by U.S. lawmakers and diplomats that the Kremlin wants to undermine U.S. interests.
The president has repeatedly expressed his hope of improving relations with Russia.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Trump to thank him and the CIA for sharing intelligence that helped prevent a terrorist attack from taking place in St. Petersburg — a call Trump touted during his Monday speech.
A federal investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller as well as several other congressional committees are independently investigating whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Moscow during the election.
