Former Secretary of State Wants Trump to Offer Ukraine Half-a-Trillion Dollars and NATO Membership
Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State, has asserted that Donald Trump would be receptive to significantly escalating US support for Ukraine if he were to be elected president. Pompeo’s proposed strategy, however, contradicts nearly everything Trump has stated regarding the conflict to date.
In an op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Pompeo and co-author Mark Urban, a neoconservative strategist, argued that there is “much evidence” suggesting Trump would provide Ukraine with sufficient aid to dictate peace terms to Russia.
The two hawkish policy figures claimed that Trump’s provision of Javelin missiles to Ukraine in 2017 and his decision to refrain from lobbying against the passage of a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev this spring serve as evidence of his willingness to embrace a hawkish plan that would shift the balance of power in Kiev’s favor.
Such a plan would entail intensifying sanctions against Moscow, expanding US energy production to diminish Russia’s oil and gas revenue, compelling NATO members to increase their defense spending, and offering Ukraine a $500 billion “lend-lease” fund for arms purchases.
Ukraine would also be granted permission to employ any type of weaponry to strike targets anywhere in Russia, Pompeo and Urban wrote, asserting that this unrestrained approach would force Moscow to engage in negotiations, where it would accept Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the EU, and agree to the “demilitarization” of Crimea, the location of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Pompeo’s proposal has not been endorsed by Trump, and the former president has repeatedly pledged to bring about a more peaceful resolution to the conflict. Addressing Fox News after naming Ukraine critic J.D. Vance as his running mate last week, Trump characterized Russia as “a war machine” that cannot be overcome by the Ukrainian military.
Following a phone call with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Friday, Trump announced that “both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.”
Trump has never disclosed his strategy for compelling both sides to the negotiating table, telling NBC News last year that “if I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.” According to a Bloomberg report earlier this year, Trump would consider cutting off military aid to Kiev unless Zelensky accepted the loss of some Ukrainian territories that existed prior to the conflict and made peace with Moscow.
However, Trump has expressed support for extending loans to Ukraine at a preferential interest rate and for urging NATO’s European member states to bolster their defense spending.
Pompeo, who served as Trump’s CIA director and subsequently as secretary of state, is one of several Republican figures striving to influence the policies of a potential second Trump presidency. Last month, a group of Trump’s key advisors presented the former president with a significantly different approach for Ukraine, which stipulated that Kiev would only receive additional American weapons if it agreed to a ceasefire based on the current battle lines and initiated peace talks with Moscow.