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Donald Trump’s foreign policy towards Ukraine is to continue supporting it militarily while maintaining diplomacy with Russia, former US National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien wrote in Foreign Affairs. He also announced, among others: stationing NATO troops in Poland, rapid admission of Ukraine to the EU and resumption of nuclear tests.
O’Brien, listed among the former US president’s closest advisers in the area of foreign policy, outlined in the article “The Return of Peace Through Strength” published on Tuesday – a vision of the policy of a possible second Trump term.
Trump’s politics
According to O’Brien, Trump’s policy is not isolationist and hostile towards allies and is reflected in the slogan “America First is not America alone”. The advisor criticizes the actions of President Joe Biden that, despite all the rhetoric about the importance of US allies, he questions the democratic credentials of “conservative democratically elected leaders in countries allied with the United States, including former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro , Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban , Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Poland President Andrzej Duda .
In a section on Russia’s war against Ukraine , O’Brien claims that Trump, unlike Biden, has a plan to end it through “a negotiated settlement that ends the killing and preserves Ukraine’s security.”
“Keeping Moscow off balance”
Trump’s approach would be to continue providing Ukraine with lethal aid financed by European countries, while leaving the door open to diplomacy with Russia and keeping Moscow off balance through a degree of unpredictability .
Plan for Poland
He also adds that Trump will pressure NATO to move land and air forces to Poland “to increase its capabilities closer to the border with Russia and to clearly emphasize that the alliance will defend its entire territory against foreign aggression.” At the same time, he emphasizes that Europe must understand that “continued American defense of Europe depends on Europe doing its part, including in Ukraine.” As an example of this, he mentions Ukraine’s immediate admission to the EU, “while abandoning the usual bureaucratic accession protocol.”
Such a move would send a strong signal to Putin that the West will not hand over Ukraine to Moscow. It would also give the Ukrainian nation hope that better days will come , the author argues.
O’Brien devotes most of his attention to the US position towards China and fully supports the so-called decoupling, i.e. radical severing of economic ties with the PRC .
Relations with China
“While China is trying to weaken American economic and military power, Washington should return the favor, as it did during the Cold War, when it worked to weaken the Soviet economy. He noted that Trump has already made a half-way turn towards the separation of the American economy from China during his first term, imposing 10% tariffs on a number of goods from the PRC , and during his second term, he intends to increase them to 60%.
At the same time, Trump is to pressure Taiwan to spend more on its own defense, and Congress should help strengthen the armed forces of allies and partners in Asia: Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, using the example of aid offered to Israel.
Maximum pressure
O’Brien also announced a return to the policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran and steps towards maintaining a “technical and numerical advantage” over the combined nuclear arsenal of Russia and China. He stated that it is necessary to return – after a break of over 30 years – to conducting nuclear weapons tests “in the real world”. The last such test took place in 1992.
If China and Russia continue to refuse to engage in good faith arms control talks, the United States should also resume production of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, the main fissile isotopes of nuclear weapons, the Trump adviser added.
Newsessentials Blog 
Posted on June 21, 2024
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