President Donald Trump’s decision on Wednesday to suspend U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine is morally and strategically reprehensible. The Trump administration claims this is necessary to pressure Ukraine to come to the peace table. But considering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s de facto apology letter to Trump on Tuesday, it seems clear the U.S. president is being vindictive for the sake of it. Trump seems happy to treat Russia’s absurdly maximalist peace talk demands as a legitimate negotiating position. In contrast, he now wants the admittedly arrogant Zelensky to beg for forgiveness atop the amassing bodies of his people. The suggestion by Trump administration officials that this suspension will be short-lived will be of little comfort to Ukrainians. It takes Russian Kodiak cruise missiles less than an hour to reach their Ukrainian targets. There’s no question that Trump has gone for Ukraine’s jugular here. He could have suspended only intelligence sharing that supports Ukraine’s offensive efforts. Of course, even that calibrated choice would have undermined Trump’s ability to draw Russia into serious negotiations: the Russians will not make any concessions if they believe that Trump will unilaterally pressure Ukraine even absent their concessions. Instead, however, Trump has ripped the critical American stitching out of Ukraine’s defensive shield. U.S. intelligence reporting has been of critical value to Ukraine’s defensive war. It allowed Ukraine to know Russia’s invasion plan before it even began. U.S. satellite surveillance capabilities have allowed Ukraine to monitor the movement of Russian forces, logistics trains, and armaments and to warn where and when Russian missile attacks will occur. U.S. spy planes and drones have allowed Ukraine to know the evolving plans and disposition of Russian forces in advance of and during their attacks. Support from the CIA and the National Security Agency has allowed Ukraine insight into the strengths, vulnerabilities, and plans of Russian commanders and leaders. NSA support also allows Ukraine to defend its internet and communications networks against Russian attacks. Ukrainian partners such as the United Kingdom, Poland, and France will be able to make up some gaps in U.S. intelligence support. Still, Trump’s action seriously undermines U.S. moral and strategic credibility. Russian forces revel in wanton disregard for civilian life. As was the case in Syria, Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities regularly target apartment buildings, pediatric hospitals, and markets. In contrast, Ukrainian attacks inside Russia target the energy sector that supplies Russia’s war machine and the key source of funding for that machine. What does it say to U.S. allies, partners, and prospective partners that a U.S. president is now happily making it easier for a corrupt imperial power to blow up pediatric hospitals? Former President Joe Biden made America look weak and incompetent with his Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. But Trump is making America look callously disinterested in its supposedly sacred value: the right to live free. Once again, Trump is showing his near-total inability to separate his own interests from those of America. Just as he canceled the security details of former officials in fury at their First Amendment-protected criticisms of him, Trump now attempts to cancel Ukraine’s security in fury at Zelensky. Trump’s vindictiveness will encourage foreign allies to believe Trump cannot be trusted as a reliable partner. And that calculation won’t take place in a vacuum. China will exploit these concerns by offering itself as the devil-you-know, one bearing new trade and investment agreements. Nor does Trump’s action move the needle toward a just peace. Ukraine must be increasingly confident that whatever Trump might promise in the future, that promise might disappear the day after tomorrow. And Trump’s high-minded rhetoric aside, without an American backstop for European peacekeeping forces, any peace deal wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. In this sense, the president fundamentally misunderstands Russian President Vladimir Putin in his offer of gifts including Wednesday’s. Whether cutting intelligence sharing with Ukraine, siding with Russia at the United Nations, or, most absurdly, pulling down U.S. defenses, Trump misunderstands deferential weakness for pragmatic cooperation. And if there is any nation and people that a negotiator doesn’t want to appear weak with, it is the Russians. TRUMP’S CHUMMING GIFT TO THE RUSSIAN CYBER SHARK Today, as in 2018 when he made a Shakespearean caricature out of Trump by throwing a soccer ball at him, Putin surely feels his counterpart is a malleable amateur. Someone who can be corralled to advance Russian interests in the delusional belief that calling a deal a deal is all that is necessary to justify sacrificing a free people. Whatever happens next, even the KGB’s famed propagandists couldn’t have dreamt up a U.S. president who would think this makes America great again.