One would then maybe suspect breaking up alliances with Europe is the point of the whole thing.

Some of the best advice I've ever heard is to look at how people act and ignore how they claim they act or their stated reasons for doing so.

A corollary is that even a "technically false" model can better predict someone's actions than a "truthful one".

Trump may not be a Russian agent, but he acts like one consistently.

It's more effective to simply assume he's an agent of a foreign power, because that's the best predictor of his actions.