Trump’s U-turn on Ukraine stuns policymakers

Now that Donald Trump has finally come around to publicly stating that besieged Ukraine could use military support from the US and the European Union to fully recover all of the territory taken over by Russia, the world should lock in the president’s U-turn, which stunned policymakers everywhere.

Trump has clearly had enough with his old pal Vladimir Putin over his grueling invasion and is praising Ukraine’s fighting spirit under President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Tribune News Service.

This from the same man who mere months ago berated Zelensky in an Oval Office meeting where he minimized the global threat of Russia’s war machine and sat by as Vice President JD Vance whined about Zelensky’s supposed lack of gratitude.

Going into peace negotiations led by envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump himself had suggested that Ukraine should be ready to part with some of its sovereign territory to reach a deal.

We wish we could freeze this current opinion in time and have it now be Trump’s controlling view, but unfortunately, we are all aware that that’s not how it works. It’s hard to say what exactly led Trump to adopt this position now, or more accurately who he spoke to lately that swayed him, but we know that there will be something or someone else who will come in and probably steer him back in the Russia-friendly direction, if not his own personal admiration for Putin.

That means it’s the right time now for a couple of practical steps: one, Ukraine and its allies in the United States, including lawmakers, should capitalize on this moment of Trump foreign policy clarity to secure concrete results like weapons shipments and specific commitments on factors like the security guarantees that Trump had at some point raised.

Two, Trump should take the next logical steps and formally make clear to Putin that the US, as the facilitator of the peace process, will not accept an outcome that involves Ukraine giving up its territorial integrity.

It also means, unfortunately but inevitably, that European leaders should treat this as a reprieve, not a final declaration of the United States’ commitment to a joint front against Russian aggression. There are already some high-level European officials that understand this, tragic as it is that after eight decades of a relatively stable post-war consensus the US is no longer a reliable partner and ally.

Might that change in four years, or eight? It’s possible, but the continent does not have that long to wait for credible reassurances, which means that European leaders and allies must stay on the path of trying to develop the continent’s own security capabilities, with steps ranging from building up hardware to beefing up their militaries, as the Danes have done with the expansion of the draft to women.

Trump is undeniably right about one thing, and that is that the Ukrainian people have shown incredible force of will in this long conflict to avoid being subsumed into Putin’s imperial designs. Even after nearly four years of grueling warfare, including Putin‘s intentional attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, that will remains unbroken, with the Ukrainian public no less committed to retaining their liberty and sovereignty even if they have to win it on the battlefield. Their victory will be a victory for everyone’s security.