The Washington Post: There Are Ways To Convince Trump To Support Ukraine
1- 8.01.2025, 11:56
- 6,290
Kyiv needs to reconsider its arguments.
The Ukrainian ambassador has done a lot of work and was able to find approaches to US President Joe Biden and the Democrats, but if the Ukrainian government wants to receive weapons in the future, they need to revise their arguments so that they sound convincing to Donald Trump, his administration and Republicans in Congress, Jim Geraghty, National Review’s senior political correspondent, writes for The Washington Post (Charter97.org):
— On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly boasted he could quickly negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and at one point complained that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “should never have let that war start. That war’s a loser.” Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and — short of unilateral surrender — there was never any way for Zelensky to deter the attack.
But if a recent report in the Financial Times is correct, Trump is willing to maintain U.S. military supplies to Kyiv after his inauguration, “according to three other people briefed on the discussions with Western officials”. According to two sources, Trump will demand that NATO members more than double the current “spending target of 2% (23 of 32 NATO members currently meet that target) to 5%.” One person said they understood that Trump would settle for 3.5 percent”.
And that might well require thanking the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for her service and sending a replacement.
— An example of a good idea is Zelensky's visit to an ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, when he thanked the workers who produce some of the most necessary types of ammunition for his country.
During his visit, Zelensky met with both Trump and separately with Harris and some Democrats, which somewhat disappointed Republicans. It didn’t help that a few days earlier, in an interview with the New Yorker, Zelensky had said, “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how” and called JD Vance “too radical.”
Markarova has done yeoman work making Ukraine’s argument to the Biden administration and congressional Democrats. But a logical question arises as to whether the Ukrainian diplomatic corps in the US has done enough to attract Republicans to its side, the author writes:
— Markarova has appeared on Fox News only a few times, most recently July 2023, although she was a guest on a Fox podcast in February 2024. In November, she did present a Ukrainian award to conservative Newsmax TV anchor Greta Van Susteren, in recognition of her support.
Mark Strand tells me that before his retirement last year as president of the Congressional Institute, he invited Markarova and others at the Ukrainian Embassy to address several of the Republican-aligned organization’s events, but the invitations were declined. Luckily for Ukraine’s cause, representatives from the British, Polish and Romanian embassies did attend and talked about the importance of standing up to Russian aggression.
In late March 2022, one month after Russia invaded Ukraine, a YouGov-Economist survey found 68 percent of Trump supporters favored sending weapons to Ukraine. By late November 2024, the same pollster found just 13 percent of these supporters wanted to increase military aid to Ukraine, and only 23 percent wanted to maintain the same amount of military aid to Ukraine. Almost half, 49 percent, wanted aid decreased.
There are arguments in support of helping Ukraine that will resonate among right-wing politicians, Jim Geraghty is convinced:
— For example, the need to counter Russia’s brutal suppression of evangelical Christian churches in occupied territories and its hunger for Ukraine’s vast natural resources.
The author is convinced that pressing Ukraine to cede territory to Moscow in a peace deal would make the United States look weak, emboldening other hostile nations. Starting on Jan. 20, Republicans will be running the White House, Senate and House of Representatives. Ukraine needs someone who understands what Republicans want and will represent its interests. Ukraine needs a new voice that understands the point of view and priorities of the Republicans.
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