The Onion

That's the thing - It doesn't benefit anyone. Canceling it doesn't benefit the US, because it lets Russia off the hook, It doesn't benefit Russia either, because it lets the US off the hook. And it doesn't even benefit China, because it lets both the US and Russia off the hook. The whole point of having the agreement is that it limits both sides, and both sides want it, that's why they sign it in the first place. If Putin wanted out of the deal that badly, he could have just canceled it the same way Trump did (or, yknow, just kept breaking it like he already did). It literally doesn't benefit anyone. If Trump were the kind of person that knows what the word "bilaterally" means, he could have handled it differently, like everyone - including Russia - wanted him to. But since he doesn't strike me as the kind of person who does, I have exactly zero problem imagining him concluding "Well, if they won't then I won't either!" and wrecking everything like the bull in a china shop that he is. He doesn't consider the rest of the world as partners, he doesn't consider anyone a partner, he seems to think in terms of zero-sum and tit-for-tat. Even his "I'm leaving NATO" left more of the impression of an extortionist shaking the EU down for cash. It wouldn't surprise me he only likes Putin because he can use him to threaten Europe.

I asked what, if anything, did Trump do to warrant being called Putin's pet dog, when from the outside he seems to favour Israel much more openly. Your examples are either inconsequential or entirely off base. It's like blaming Russia for crashing your car because you were too distracted by thinking about how much you hate Russia to drive. If the president of a country were truly that compromised, you would expect him to, IDK, declare Crimea Russian, or ship them an F-35, or give them Alaska back or something. Not spend four years on chickenshit crap line "refraining from criticism".