China has stolen millions upon millions from the U.S. in intellectual property (among other things). Long-term, they're a much bigger problem than Russia has ever been since the end of the Cold War. Oh, and they've hacked us before and the Obama administration did nothing about it. Where was the international panic and outrage when countless people's personal information (including government employees) were exposed?
Trump thinks he can pull off a "reset" with Russia that has eluded previous administrations. He wants to be the good cop to his adminstration's bad cop with the current sanctions and other measures. I think he'll have more luck with that if Putin conveniently keeled over sometime soon, but he's welcome to try.
Oh, and **** the E.U. They aren't some perfect union that's beyond criticism. Trump called out Germany on their fuel dependency issues and was right. He's also right about NATO.