Negotiate from a position of strength
President Donald Trump is preparing to open negotiations for a settlement to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No one wants peace more than Ukrainians—but they need a permanent and just peace, which can only be accomplished with U.S. support and historic, bold leadership from President Trump. As allies, the U.S. and Ukraine must negotiate from a position of strength over Russia. It’s time for President Trump to put Maximum Pressure on Russia through sanctions, unleashing American energy, and stopping Russia’s battlefield advances in order to force Putin to the table.
• Arm Ukraine so it can stabilize the front line, stop Russia’s bombardment of civilians, and start pushing Russian forces back again.
• Russia is under pressure—it’s running out of manpower to fight, it’s about to run out of tanks and cannons, and the economy is at risk of a recession. Putin is under tremendous pressure at home and abroad—just look at how he couldn’t save his client Bashar al-Assad in Syria—it’s time for the U.S. to squeeze Putin to force him to make peace, not give him a reprieve.
• The Biden administration refused to properly sanction Russia’s energy or financial sectors. It’s time for President Trump to unleash sanctions and American energy exports to break Russia’s war economy and force Putin to the table to end his war.
President Trump has signaled that he’s open to economic pressure on Russia, but Maximum Pressure won’t work without military assistance to Ukraine. Thanks to U.S. weapons, Russia has suffered record casualties on the battlefield—if this battlefield pressure lets up, Trump’s economic pressure will fail.
Joe Biden failed to properly arm Ukraine to succeed on the battlefield—it’s on Trump to act decisively and fix this mistake to achieve peace. Congress has equipped the Trump administration with a $3.8 billion dollar Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine. President Trump must immediately make a new Presidential Drawdown to give Ukraine leverage for peace.
Security guarantees for Ukraine are the key to peace
The only way to achieve real peace in Europe is for Ukraine to receive credible security guarantees such as NATO membership. NATO is a defensive alliance that will never attack Russia—the only threat it poses to Putin is it stops him from trying to conquer more free countries. Without security guarantees, Ukraine won’t be able to rebuild itself. The only way to assure Ukrainians that Russia won’t restart its war in a few years is by boldly acting and finally allowing them to join NATO. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both left Ukraine in NATO’s waiting room—President-elect Trump must fix this by letting the strongest military in Europe be a U.S. ally.
• When Ukraine joins NATO, it will automatically make the alliance stronger and make Europe more secure. President Zelenskyy has suggested that once Ukraine joins NATO, Ukrainian forces could help reinforce bases in Europe to give the U.S. the necessary flexibility to meet security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Vladimir Putin is trying to trick President Trump into thinking that Ukrainian neutrality will end the war—it’s just another Moscow hoax. Putin wants Trump to make the same mistakes that Obama and Biden made and leave Ukraine in no-man’s-land so that Russia can rearm and restart the war in a few years. Trump must fix Obama and Biden’s mistake and finally let Ukraine help the U.S. as its strongest ally.
• Europe must step up and take ownership of security on the continent as President Trump has called for. In addition to buying American arms, it can do this by providing an intermediate security guarantee while Ukraine joins NATO to end the war. At Ukraine’s invitation and with enablement from the U.S., European troops should help enforce a ceasefire and European fighter jets should stop Russia’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
Make Russia pay for Ukraine aid
Congress passed the REPO Act last year, giving President Trump the power to transfer the more than $5 billion in Russian state assets in the U.S. to help Ukraine. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said it would be “pure poetry” for Russia to be the first to pay for aid to Ukraine, and President Trump should do what Joe Biden refused to—use Russia’s own money to pay for aid to Ukraine.
The Biden administration also violated the REPO Act by failing to disclose a report on the true value of Russian state assets in U.S. jurisdiction, which experts believe are worth tens of billions of dollars. Once President Trump acts decisively on this issue, Europe will follow his leadership and make use of the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian state assets in European jurisdiction.
Pass the Ukrainian Genocide Resolution in Congress
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) reintroduced a resolution recognizing Russia’s war against Ukraine as genocide (H.Res.16). It’s time for the House of Representatives to pass this resolution and rightly recognize Russia’s barbaric invasion, annihilation of Ukrainian cities, and mass abduction of Ukrainian children as genocide.