So, on Twitter, I responded that Trump and Putin are, of course, good buddies who completely agree and so that's why World War III didn't happen on Trump's watch. Had Putin said “I'm going to take Ukraine,” Trump would have responded “Why, sure thing, good buddy! Hey, can I wash your car, too?”
Someone responded “Trump and Putin were such good buddies that he told Germany and Europe to get off Russian oil bcs they were too reliant on it ...”
I looked it up, and sure enough, Trump was very critical of Europe for being dependent on Russian oil. “'So we’re supposed to protect you against Russia and you pay billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate,' Trump said at the residence of the U.S. ambassador in Brussels.”
So okay. Trump had moments when he was thinking clearly and had good insight. Problem is, he never followed up this insight with any policy answer or solution. Clinton, Obama or Biden would have followed up by saying “What can we do to encourage Europe to reject Russian oil? Can the US provide an alternative to Russian oil?” There's no indication Trump ever paid attention to the issue after concluding that Europe was wrong and that he was right.
My solution, of course, would be to encourage Europe to adopt green, alternative energy. The problem with Puerto Rico's energy wasn't that Hurricane Maria had damaged any power plants, but that it tore down miles and miles of heavy cables that carried electricity all over the island. A wind, solar and battery combination is an enormously flexible power solution, It can be scaled from a single household to a small town, without lengthy, heavy cables!
Our dependence on fossil fuels means that we'll always be involved in getting energy from the Middle East and/or Russia. Once we build wind farms off our coasts and set up solar panels over parking lots, we don't have to worry about what Saudi Arabia thinks. We'd be able to, for instance, object to and stop a war on Yemen.
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