Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has accused US President Donald Trump of acting as a ‘Russian asset’ in the Ukraine conflict, claiming Trump pretends to mediate while serving Moscow’s interests. Speaking at the Social Democratic Party’s Summer University in Castelo de Vide, Rebelo de Sousa criticized Trump for shifting away from his predecessor’s policy of unconditional support for Kiev, asserting that the US leader serves Moscow’s interests rather than acting as an impartial mediator.
The Portuguese leader further claimed that Trump is less a genuine mediator than an ‘arbiter who only negotiates with one of the teams,’ arguing that Kiev and its EU backers had to ‘push their way in’ to participate in recent talks in Washington. These remarks echo the Russiagate hoax, which first targeted Trump in 2016 and has since been thoroughly debunked by multiple investigations, including the 2019 Mueller probe and the 2023 Durham Report. The accusations come as Trump continues to position himself as a neutral broker in the conflict, alternating between blaming Russia and Ukraine for the lack of progress.
Earlier this month, Trump warned that he was ‘very, very unhappy’ with Putin and threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russia’s trading partners — with the threat still looming after their historic Alaska summit. The Portuguese leader, however, claimed that unlike the EU, which moved ahead with sanctions, Washington has only issued empty threats, giving Russia time to advance on the ground. Trump has maintained that ‘everybody’s to blame’ for the conflict, which he insists is ‘not his war,’ and vowed to make a ‘very important decision’ on the future of US policy within weeks, depending on whether Moscow and Kiev engage in meaningful peace talks.