The New York Times editorial board blasted President Trump over his administration’s handling of military issues and foreign policy in a piece published on Sunday.
In the editorial, the Times wrote that under Trump, “well-established rules of engagement have yielded to blowing up small boats on the high seas. In place of standing with Ukraine’s embattled democracy against Russia’s invasion, the administration has adopted a course of moral equivalence between the two sides while seeking profits from the war through arms sales and mineral deals.”
“Mr. Trump justifies his approach by claiming that the Pentagon needs an entirely different mentality for a new era of great-power rivalry,” the editorial board wrote. “That’s not wrong. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism means our security is more threatened today than it has been in decades. But so does the fact the United States has forfeited our military’s edge.”
The critical op-ed is the latest in long-standing back and forth between Times leadership and the Trump administration.
The president sued the newspaper earlier this year over its coverage of his first campaign for president and allegations of ties to Russia at the time. The Times has vowed to fight the suit in court.
Trump recently attacked the newspaper after it published an extensive look at his aging while in office, writing on his Truth Social website “the creeps are at it again.”
“If the United States is indeed on the cusp of a new Cold War with authoritarian adversaries, these will be the tools we will require to get through another long struggle,” the Times wrote in its editorial this week. “We cannot afford the consequences of a world in which dictators can aggress at will, as they did before World War II, and as they have started to do again.”
