Former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley say their chief foreign policy priority is preventing a large-scale military conflict that threatens the nation’s security and its allies, yet they split over continued U.S. support of Ukraine.
Known for challenging traditional GOP orthodoxy, Mr. Trump has refused to say whether the U.S. should provide more assistance to Ukraine after pouring $75 billion into the two-year-old war.
He wants European nations to pick up more of the tab and vowed to lean on his relationships with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office.
Ms. Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration and is running on her foreign policy chops, unequivocally supports more aid to Ukraine, including the cluster munitions that Mr. Trump opposed.
Ms. Haley said the price tag for helping Ukraine is a drop in the bucket of the massive U.S. defense budget and the stakes are too high not to be involved.
She also maintains that if Russia wins, Moscow will turn its sights on Poland and the Baltic states — a move that would drag the U.S. into a war.
China, meanwhile, is keeping close tabs on the situation in Eastern Europe and will be more likely to invade Taiwan if Russia emerges victorious, according to Ms. Haley.
Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley agree that Mr. Biden’s weakness on the world stage — including the messy U.S. pullout from Afghanistan — encouraged Mr. Putin’s invasion in February 2022.
Mr. Biden and Congress have since greenlighted the $75 billion for humanitarian, financial and military support of Ukraine.
Mr. Biden’s push for another $60 billion for Ukraine has run into stiff opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill where Mr. Trump’s growing influence is evident.
Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley underscore the growing divisions within the party over how to handle Russia and Mr. Putin.
Mr. Trump pushed the party away from the neoconservative mindset that largely defined the Republican establishment before he crashed on the scene. And his reluctance to say whether the U.S. should get more involved in Ukraine reflects a broader skepticism of foreign entanglements.
Keith Kellogg, who served as former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, said Mr. Trump’s pledge to end the war overnight is ambitious. It is important, however, Mr. Kellogg said, to recognize Mr. Trump outlined carrot-and-stick approach when he said he plans to “tell Putin, if you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give him a lot. We’re going to give [Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to.
“Trump’s past actions make that threat credible,” Mr. Kellogg said in a recent National Interest op-ed. “While in office, Trump showed that he was willing to push boundaries, lifting Obama-era restrictions on the rules of engagement in the fight against ISIS and killing Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
“If Putin refuses to negotiate, Trump might very well remove the Biden era’s constraints on arms transfers and give Ukraine the weapons it needs to win, including long-range weapons to strike within Crimea and Russia,” he said.
Ms. Haley’s stance is more in line with the old-school conservative thinking and resonates more with national security hawks and Reagan-influenced conservatives who believe the U.S. has a moral imperative to defend democracies and push back against autocrats.
Haley spokesperson AnnMarie Graham-Barnes said Ms. Haley supported Mr. Trump when he “sent weapons to Ukraine” and still believes that is the right path forward.
“She believes helping Ukraine defeat Russia and prevent a larger world war was the right policy then and it’s the right policy now,” she said. “America can accomplish that goal by sending weapons — not cash and not troops on the ground. As the wife of a combat veteran, Nikki’s goal is always to prevent war.”
Ms. Haley got some mileage out of her more hawkish foreign policy stance. She carried 45% of Iowa voters and 62% of New Hampshire voters who said foreign policy was the issue that mattered most.
The problem, however, is those voters in Iowa and New Hampshire comprised 12% and 15% of the electorates.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, who has said the money spent overseas would be better off spent at home, ran circles around her with voters who cared most about the economy and immigration and made up roughly 70% of the electorate in both states.
A Wall Street Journal poll in December showed 56% of Republicans said the U.S. was already doing too much to help Ukraine, and 11% said America was not doing enough.
The sentiment has bled into the ongoing battle over Ukraine funding on Capitol Hill, which has been left in limbo.
The jury is out on who has the smartest take on what to do next with Ukraine.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this report.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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