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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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Donald Trump would push for a swift resolution to the war in Ukraine and exclude Kyiv from NATO membership should he be reelected U.S. president, according to Politico, whose report citing his inner circle has prompted concern on social media.
When president, Trump repeatedly criticized NATO. Since he left office, he has taken aim at continued U.S. support for Ukraine against Vladimir Putin's aggression, as well as saying without evidence that he could end the war within a day. Newsweek has contacted the former president's campaign team about the report.
The Politico article, quoting both named and unnamed officials, suggests if he retakes the White House, Trump would shift the U.S. position on Ukraine, as well as create a two-tier NATO system; only members who met the 2 percent spending threshold would get the "security guarantee of the U.S."
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Former Trump national security officials and defense experts likely to serve in a second Trump term told the publication he was unlikely to quit the alliance, but would expect that European countries increase defense spending.
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Two Trump-aligned national security experts said he is considering a plan to block NATO's eastward expansion, in particular into Ukraine and Georgia. He would also look to negotiate with Putin over how much Ukrainian territory Moscow can keep.
One unnamed source told Politico that Trump "would be open to something foreclosing NATO expansion and not going back to the 1991 borders for Ukraine," but that did not mean stopping the supply of weapons to the Ukrainians.
Viktor Kovalenko, a Ukraine and Russia analyst and a former Ukrainian soldier, told Newsweek that Trump's reported plan "will only legalize Putin's land grabs and freeze his war against Ukraine to regroup and strike again later."
"Trump's isolationist ideas regarding NATO could also encourage Putin to attack the Baltic countries as well."
He said Trump's purported plan was to show American strength and influence could push Ukraine and Russia to a peace deal, but this idea was "fundamentally faulty."
"Instead, the U.S. should continue to support the victim of the bully, and show the bully that he can't prevail," Kovalenko added.
Meanwhile, social-media users expressed concern at the Trump proposals contained in the Politico article.
"How King Trump plans to weaken NATO," Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, posted on X, formerly Twitter, next to the article. "Talk about a Fifth Column."
"Russia would get rewarded for military aggression" wrote Jelger Groeneveld, from East Watch, a website about Georgia.
"Trump Probably Won't Quit NATO. He'll Just Make It Unrecognizable," posted Camille Grand, NATO's former assistant secretary-general for defense investment.
Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko posted how "concern is growing that Donald Trump plans to redefine the U.S. role in NATO very significantly if he becomes president."
Meanwhile, pro-Ukrainian X user, Arnaud Castaignet, wrote, "Trump advisers envision a 'radical reorientation' in which Washington takes a back seat to Europe—and cuts a deal with Putin over Ukraine."
Putin said last month Russia could negotiate an end to the war if Ukraine renounced plans to join NATO and withdrew troops from the four regions that Moscow has claimed as its own, terms that Trump said in his debate with Biden last week were "not acceptable."
The Washington Post had reported in April that Trump privately said he could end the war by pressuring Ukraine to cede Crimea and Donbas to Moscow.
Last month, Trump advisers said they had presented the former president with a plan to end the war if Kyiv were to be told it would only get more U.S. military support upon entering peace talks.
Meanwhile, Moscow would be told that, if it did not negotiate, U.S. would step up support for Kyiv in the proposal that called for a ceasefire on prevailing battle lines, according to Reuters.
"Negotiations are only going to occur if they are forced," Matthew Hoh told Newsweek. He is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), which emphasizes peace and diplomacy in American foreign policy.
"Conditioning aid on a good-faith attempt at resolving the conflict through negotiations has always been an option, but it's an option that hasn't lined up with the U.S. or NATO's policy in Ukraine, so it's not been pursued."
"Perhaps that will change under a Trump presidency," Hoh said, adding he did not trust the former Republican president's campaign rhetoric on foreign policy.
A May poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) released Wednesday found that 71 percent of Ukrainians would not support the offer of joining NATO in exchange for agreeing not to reclaim occupied territory.
It also found that 45 percent would prefer to lose parts of their currently occupied territory but remain sovereign, "with its own army and freedom to choose its alliances, like the EU and NATO."
Co-author and ECFR founding director Mark Leonard said that the poll also found that Europeans predominantly see a negotiated settlement as the most-likely outcome.
But Leonard told Newsweek in an emailed statement that, despite this, "Ukrainians are not yet ready to countenance territorial trade-offs for NATO accession, nor engage with the idea of 'Finlandization', in which they would keep their territory but forgo their EU and NATO ambitions."
Update 07/03/24, 10.30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Viktor Kovalenko.
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