The Atlantic's Tom Nichols argued this week that President Donald Trump has "abandoned the Western order" and "conclusively turned America into an ally of the Russian Federation," a claim the magazine promoted across its social media channels and that quickly became one of the most-shared foreign policy arguments on X.
The Atlantic, which has 1.9 million followers on X, posted the argument late Sunday night, directing readers to Nichols' piece under the headline "America Is Now an Ally of Russia." The magazine's post tagged Nichols' account, @RadioFreeTom, and framed his conclusion in a single line: "Donald Trump has abandoned the Western order, turning America into a Russian ally, @RadioFreeTom argues."
The essay appeared as the administration moved to waive a slate of Russia-related sanctions before they were set to take effect. CNN reported that Trump waived a further slate of sanctions tied to Russian fossil fuel sales, drawing a bipartisan backlash days before the measures were to kick in under a bill he signed into law last month. The New York Times reported that Trump signed an order waiving the new Russia sanctions, which were part of a measure named after Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died in July.
The sanctions dispute gave Nichols' argument its immediate context. The bill had been signed into law; the sanctions had not yet taken effect; and the waiver, according to both CNN and the Times, arrived before they would have. Ukraine's government and members of Congress from both parties objected, according to CNN's reporting, which described the reaction as a bipartisan backlash.
Nichols' essay, as The Atlantic framed it, goes further than the sanctions dispute itself. The magazine's summary of the piece states that the president has "conclusively" made America an ally of the Russian Federation — a characterization that prompted pushback and amplification in roughly equal measure as it traveled across X over the following hours.
The Atlantic's post was not a standalone observation. It arrived as the latest in a series of Russia-related developments that critics of the administration have cited in making the case that Washington's posture toward Moscow has shifted. The essay's publication, the sanctions waiver and the congressional reaction together formed a sequence that critics of the president treated as mutually reinforcing, and that supporters of the waiver have characterized differently: as a routine exercise of executive discretion over sanctions scheduled to take effect under a law the president had already signed.
The claim at the center of the essay — that the United States has become an ally of Russia — is an opinion column's interpretation of a series of policy decisions, not a statement of fact, and it is disputed. It is being described here as what Nichols and The Atlantic are alleging, not as what has been established.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claim that the United States has become an ally of the Russian Federation.
The reaction spread well beyond The Atlantic's own audience. The magazine's post carried the argument directly into timelines that had spent two days circulating coverage of the sanctions waiver, and the essay's headline — "America Is Now an Ally of Russia" — became the shorthand for the argument in subsequent discussion of the piece.
The piece's author is a familiar voice in this debate. Nichols writes for The Atlantic and posts under the handle @RadioFreeTom, the account The Atlantic tagged in its own post promoting the essay. The magazine presented his conclusion as the essay's central finding, summarizing it in the language of abandonment and alliance rather than of sanctions policy detail.
What the essay does not do, based on the coverage available, is establish that any formal change in the alliance structure between Washington and Moscow has occurred. It argues a conclusion from the sanctions decision and the broader direction of the administration's Russia policy. The distinction matters: an alliance is a legal and diplomatic arrangement, and the essay's claim is that the president's conduct has effectively produced one, not that a treaty or formal instrument exists.
The sanctions bill itself carried Graham's name, a detail the Times noted in its reporting on the waiver. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, died in July. The measure he lent his name to had been signed into law last month, according to CNN, and the sanctions it authorized were set to take effect before the president's order intervened.
CNN reported that the waiver prompted backlash from Ukraine and from U.S. lawmakers. The network characterized the response as bipartisan, a detail that complicates any reading of the sanctions dispute as a strictly partisan fight. The Times reported the signing of the order itself without characterizing the reaction in the same terms.
The Atlantic's essay and the sanctions coverage arrived within days of each other, and the magazine's post drew the connection explicitly: the president, in its framing, has abandoned the Western order and turned America into a Russian ally. Whether that framing holds is the subject of active dispute. What is not in dispute is the sequence — a sanctions bill signed into law, a waiver issued before the sanctions took effect, objections from Kyiv and from Capitol Hill, and an essay in a major magazine arguing that the episode is part of a larger realignment.
Readers encountering the essay's headline should understand what they are reading: an argument, published as opinion, about the meaning of a series of decisions. The decisions themselves are reported by CNN and the Times. The interpretation is Nichols'.
Our Take
The left's favorite magazine has now decided that a sanctions waiver is the same thing as a military alliance, and its writers are happy to say so in print. Nichols' essay is not a news report; it is an argument dressed up as a conclusion, and The Atlantic knows exactly what it is doing by putting "America Is Now an Ally of Russia" at the top of the page. The sanctions measure bore Lindsey Graham's name — a Republican who spent years pushing back on Moscow — and the president signed it into law before waiving the provisions on a timeline his critics find convenient. That is a policy fight worth having. It is not a treaty, it is not an alliance, and no amount of magazine prose changes that. The administration should explain the waiver plainly and defend it on the merits, because the other side has already decided to describe every Russia decision as a betrayal and will keep doing so regardless of what the facts show.
