As the Senate considered approving $61 billion to Ukraine this weekend, Donald Trump published an all-caps rant making his opposition clear.
“FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, ARE YOU LISTENING U.S. SENATE(?), NO MONEY IN THE FORM OF FOREIGN AID SHOULD BE GIVEN TO ANY COUNTRY UNLESS IT IS DONE AS A LOAN,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.
The Senate rejected Trump’s order, passing the bill Tuesday morning 70-29. But the bill still needs to clear the Republican-controlled House, where the former president’s influence has proven powerful in the past. Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already stated opposition to the Senate aid bill.
Which makes now a good time to remind ourselves that the objections to Ukraine aid are absurd.
Supporting Ukraine’s defense is one of the single easiest foreign policy calls of my lifetime, a policy that has both protected Ukrainians from Russian slaughter and advanced America’s geopolitical interests in Europe. It has done so at a relatively low cost in dollars and zero cost in American lives. There is nothing to gain by abandoning it, and everything to lose.
Let’s start with the most basic point: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of evil. Since the war’s beginning, the Russian government and its propaganda outlets have openly announced that their war aim is to seize Ukrainian territory and subjugate its government to the Kremlin.
This was evident not just in words, like President Vladimir Putin’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson, but also in deeds. The war began with a failed lightning thrust targeting the Ukrainian capital in Kyiv, during which Russian forces engaged in horrific atrocities: executing entire families and indiscriminately bombing populated areas.
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