You think that made him reactivate V Corps, made him move its previous headquarters from Germany forward to Poland, start a new nuclear weapons increase and new nuclear subs, and pull us out of the INF treaty, insist on a NATO buildup and ending their dependency on Russia energy?
Trump’s foreign policy was not based on his being weak and afraid of “Pence”.
Yeah, he had to keep the GOPe (McConnell, Graham, Barr, Pence etc) in line for reelection. And he was just past getting impeached for even delaying aid to Holy Ukraine for 6 weeks.
Same for his bombing the Syrian Army in response to the gas attack hoax.
In reality, in his first term he had about a third of the power a president normally has due to GOPe treason.