Trump-Admin Officials Mount Push for More Ukraine Aid amid Congressional Chaos
Cutting off aid would give China ‘a green light to take Taiwan,’ they wrote.
Cutting off aid would give China ‘a green light to take Taiwan,’ they wrote.
A group of 100 conservative policy experts, including several senior Trump-administration officials, is mounting a public push to convince members of Congress to support more aid for Ukraine and to recognize that a Russian victory there would have severe ramifications for America’s national security.
The campaign was launched today by the Vandenberg Coalition, a conservative foreign-policy nonprofit, in an open letter shared in advance exclusively with National Review. It follows the House GOP’s decision not to include further funding to support Kyiv and its war effort in a 45-day, stopgap government-funding bill passed over the weekend and the subsequent ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the speakership yesterday.
Backing the besieged European country is essential, the Vandenberg Coalition–led group argues in the letter, pointing out that U.S. aid has led other NATO countries to boost their defense spending and has forced the Pentagon and the defense industry to address America’s ailing defense-industrial base and replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles. More important, the consequences of failing to respond appropriately are dire, the letter warns: “Efforts to stop our aid to Ukraine could lead to a Russian battlefield victory, with catastrophic effects for American security. Putin would eye the next stage of the Russian empire’s restoration, and China would have a green light to take Taiwan.”
But the group is making its case to a House GOP conference and GOP voter base increasingly hostile to continued assistance packages.
Populist members of Congress recently promised to block the Biden administration’s request to authorize $24 billion more in Ukraine-related appropriations until it lays out a clear strategy and provides more information about the status of the Ukraine war effort.
Since the Russian invasion led to an initial outpouring of support for Ukraine in early 2022, increasing numbers of GOP voters have turned against continued assistance, recent polling shows, and the aid detractors argue that they’re on the side of public opinion. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have made slow progress in their ongoing counteroffensive in the country’s southeast, another factor aid critics point to when they argue that the focus on Ukraine is a misplaced investment that could have instead been allocated toward deterring China.
Former president Trump, the front-runner in the GOP 2024 presidential primary, has expressed broad skepticism of aid to Ukraine but has also played his cards close to the vest, saying that he would be able to end the war in one day (without specifying how).
But more than 20 of the top officials who were tasked with implementing Trump’s foreign policy have signed the Vandenberg letter.
Trump-era secretary of veterans affairs Robert Wilkie, who is one of those signatories, said that he thinks that “there’s enough of a coalition in the House to help the Senate” to pass legislation authorizing more aid and that letting Ukraine fall would lead to further international crises for America.
“The Republican Party should, in the House at least, take a step back and look at the consequences of failure in Ukraine. I argue that failure begets failure. Afghanistan sent a message to Beijing and to Russia that this administration could be had,” Wilkie, a Vandenberg Coalition board member and former Pentagon official, told National Review in an interview yesterday.
Other Trump-administration officials who signed the letter include former ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, former acting USAID director John Barsa, and Vandenberg chairman Elliott Abrams, who served at the State Department’s Iran envoy. Other leading conservative figures, such as Karl Rove and former senator Roy Blunt, also signed it.
Like the critics of continued Ukraine assistance, the Vandenberg letter’s signatories, too, blame the White House for abdicating its responsibility of articulating a strategy.
The open letter, which does not specify what level of funding should be approved in the next aid package, stakes out a position that opposes both some GOP lawmakers’ opposition to further assistance and the Biden administration’s refusal to clearly spell out a strategy for U.S. support — and to vigorously back it by transferring certain weapons systems. In a separate document, Vandenberg has called on the administration to stop putting limitations on Ukrainian military operations.
“Supporting Ukraine does not mean endorsing President Biden’s approach — on the contrary, we think he needs to be tougher, stronger, and more strategic. But we as conservatives understand that weakness invites aggression,” Carrie Filipetti, the Vandenberg Coalition’s executive director and former Trump-era deputy assistant secretary of state, told NR.
Gabriel Scheinmann, another Vandenberg board member and executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Society, a foreign-policy nonprofit, said that Trump-aligned figures should have every reason to get on board with unleashing Ukraine to fight Russia’s invading force.
“Providing Ukraine with military aid to cause more casualties to Russia in 18 months than Russia endured during the entire Cold War, while simultaneously generating thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs and keeping U.S. soldiers out of harm’s way, is an America First wet dream,” he said.