President-elect Donald Trump will take a more assertive approach to the war in Ukraine when he takes office than he expressed on the campaign trail, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
During the presidential campaign, Trump regularly kept the Ukraine issue at bay. He often questioned the necessity of sending military aid to Ukraine, citing the high costs associated with it. Speaking at Fortune’s Global Forum in New York, however, Pompeo — who served in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021 — believed the president-elect would take a tougher stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine as he prepares to re-enter the White House. .
“President Trump is not going to let Vladimir Putin through Ukraine,” Pompeo said in an interview with former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. “Cutting off funding from the Ukrainians would do that and his whole team will tell him that. It’s not his MO to allow that to happen.”
On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social, the new social media platform owned by his media company Trump Media & Technology Group, that Pompeo and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley would not be joining his new administration. Haley and Pompeo have been Ukraine hawks since the war began. At the conference, Pompeo acknowledged that US support for Ukraine differed from that of other Republican officials.
Panetta said in a show of bipartisanship that he hoped Pompeo would be nominated for a role in the second Trump administration. “They need his worldview, and I really think the Trump administration benefited from having people like Mike Pompeo there in the first term,” Panetta said.
One of Trump’s main gripes with US military aid to Ukraine was the cost. Since October, the US has sent $64 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion. according to to the State Department.
Pompeo sought to highlight the war in Ukraine as an example of a more global struggle between liberal democracies — the US and its allies in NATO — and autocracies such as China, Iran and North Korea. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be waiting to see if the West wins or supports Putin. Pompeo’s counterpart on stage, Panetta, echoed those sentiments.
“In many ways Ukraine is also fighting for other democracies because the message that is being sent to Putin is a very important message that must be sent to Xi, it must be sent to the (Iranian) supreme leader, it must be sent to Kim Jong Un, that they cannot have their way with sovereign democracies,” Panetta said.
Pompeo said he believes Trump would come to that point of view. “It’s absolutely very important that he stood up to this thief and this terrible guy (Putin) who is the perception of the West and that he didn’t let the bad guys win and that’s essential,” Pompeo said. “I’m very hopeful that President Trump will see that imperative.”
During the campaign, Trump took a more isolationist stance on foreign policy than the traditional, black Republican stance. During a debate with his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice avoided being asked whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. In his response he highlighted the cost of military aid and said reports of war casualties were “false numbers”.
Now, as president-elect, Trump is plunging deeper into the Ukraine issue. last week He spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin after his re-election. In the call, he reportedly told Putin not to further escalate the war in Ukraine. (Trump He spoke with Putin at least seven times since he resigned, according to a source cited in a book by journalist Bob Woodward).
In the days after the elections Trump also spoke with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, joined the call. In September, Trump met with Zelensky during a visit to the U.S. Trump has not always seen eye to eye with Zelensky. through A podcast interview A few weeks after they met, Trump called Zelensky the “biggest salesman on Earth” for receiving US military aid. Trump too Zelensky blamed him for starting the war.
“He should never have let that war start,” Trump said on the PBD podcast. “It’s a losing war.”
Trump has called for a quick resolution to the war. As a private-sector real estate developer, he regularly touted his record as being well-suited to a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. During that debate, Trump said that if he won the election, a deal would be made before he was inaugurated. In July, Trump said he would be able to pull it off somehow “24 hours“.
Asked about that timeline, Pompeo said he saw the process as longer. “I’ll take over,” Pompeo said.
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